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Tesla has said they intend to pick the "better than human" fight at 5 billion miles, when they believe their advantage will be decisive rather than having an ou

Tesla has said they intend to pick the "better than human" fight at 5 billion miles, when they believe their advantage will be decisive rather than having an outcome that depends on how you count.

netsharc 4y ago
So... until they reach that number, they'll publish misleading stats (i.e. outcomes that favor them depending on how they count)?
hansvm 4y ago
Even then there'll be a distribution shift effect they need to account for. Not everyone is allowed into the FSD program, and the fact that they're self-selecting to use FSD additionally biases the roads and conditions where they choose to do so. Moreover, how you count is still very relevant if all the hairy events happen when a human operator takes control -- the car screwed up, but the resulting crash gets blamed on the operator who couldn't react to the ensuing shitshow in time, and even if total crashes/fatalities are lower when counting those events you still have the self-selection problem of perhaps those FSD operators in those conditions being better at recovery from car-induced errors than the general population in arbitrary conditions would be. Like...maybe it's fine. But even at 0 fatal crashes in 5 billion miles they won't have a strong argument that a more widely deployed FSD would have similar success without a lot more data to explain how the thing they measured directly connects to the thing they'll want to claim it represents.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Thank you for demonstrating my point. This is exactly why they want a safety margin on their safety margin.
  - rurp 4y ago
    Then Tesla should stop making claims about safety until they are willing to back them up with evidence. The most likely scenario given the available information is that Musk is lying and Tesla's aren't as safe as the company would have us believe.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      Tesla's claims from TFA are pretty cringe, but so are the calls to ban FSD on account of a horrible safety record that isn't actually horrible.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        > account of a horrible safety record that isn't actually horrible. That’s the problem. We don’t know the safety record because Tesla won’t release it. But the anecdotal evidence we do have is very worrying. And the development model doesn’t inspire confidence. So the calls to ban it seem very reasonable to me.
gizmo 4y ago
Okay so Musk loudly proclaims that buying a Tesla is the best financial investment on the planet, that buying anything else is pure insanity, on the basis of the car turning into a fully autonomous taxi via a future over the air update. Bold claim, no data provided. Musk boasts that Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings ever, despite this being contradicted by the testing bodies (because they don't distinguish between cars with 5 star ratings). Another bold claim, contradicted by the data! Teslas collect tons of data while driving and when crashing, which Tesla processes. You believe that this data demonstrates that FSD is safer than regular driving but that musk is too cautious to release it?? How can you square that with Musk's behavior generally?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
MBCook 4y ago
And yet “it’s safer than normal drivers” is the defense people have been using to defend AP/FSD for years. But we don’t know that because Tesla won’t tell us.

Tesla has said they intend to pick the "better than human" fight at 5 billion miles, when they believe their advantage will be decisive rather than having an outcome that depends on how you count.

netsharc 4y ago

So... until they reach that number, they'll publish misleading stats (i.e. outcomes that favor them depending on how they count)?

hansvm 4y ago

Even then there'll be a distribution shift effect they need to account for. Not everyone is allowed into the FSD program, and the fact that they're self-selecting to use FSD additionally biases the roads and conditions where they choose to do so. Moreover, how you count is still very relevant if all the hairy events happen when a human operator takes control -- the car screwed up, but the resulting crash gets blamed on the operator who couldn't react to the ensuing shitshow in time, and even if total crashes/fatalities are lower when counting those events you still have the self-selection problem of perhaps those FSD operators in those conditions being better at recovery from car-induced errors than the general population in arbitrary conditions would be. Like...maybe it's fine. But even at 0 fatal crashes in 5 billion miles they won't have a strong argument that a more widely deployed FSD would have similar success without a lot more data to explain how the thing they measured directly connects to the thing they'll want to claim it represents.

jjoonathan 4y ago
Thank you for demonstrating my point. This is exactly why they want a safety margin on their safety margin.
- rurp 4y ago
  Then Tesla should stop making claims about safety until they are willing to back them up with evidence. The most likely scenario given the available information is that Musk is lying and Tesla's aren't as safe as the company would have us believe.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    Tesla's claims from TFA are pretty cringe, but so are the calls to ban FSD on account of a horrible safety record that isn't actually horrible.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      > account of a horrible safety record that isn't actually horrible. That’s the problem. We don’t know the safety record because Tesla won’t release it. But the anecdotal evidence we do have is very worrying. And the development model doesn’t inspire confidence. So the calls to ban it seem very reasonable to me.

gizmo 4y ago

Okay so Musk loudly proclaims that buying a Tesla is the best financial investment on the planet, that buying anything else is pure insanity, on the basis of the car turning into a fully autonomous taxi via a future over the air update. Bold claim, no data provided. Musk boasts that Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings ever, despite this being contradicted by the testing bodies (because they don't distinguish between cars with 5 star ratings). Another bold claim, contradicted by the data! Teslas collect tons of data while driving and when crashing, which Tesla processes. You believe that this data demonstrates that FSD is safer than regular driving but that musk is too cautious to release it?? How can you square that with Musk's behavior generally?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

MBCook 4y ago

And yet “it’s safer than normal drivers” is the defense people have been using to defend AP/FSD for years. But we don’t know that because Tesla won’t tell us.