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Quote from Tesla critic Missy Cummings in the WSJ piece: "There is no question that someone is going to die in this technology, the question is when" This is o

Quote from Tesla critic Missy Cummings in the WSJ piece: "There is no question that someone is going to die in this technology, the question is when" This is obviously true. However, I never heard these critics say that about cars without autonomy features. Way over a million people killed each single year around the world by that technology. Where was the concern for human life? To anyone looking at it rationally, without emotion, it's clear that humans are not good at this task and that computers will eventually make roads safer than ever. The question is not if but when. Currently that data is debatable but some argue this point has already happened and cars with computer-assisted driving are already safer than those driven entirely by humans.

tsimionescu 2y ago
> it's clear that humans are not good at this task True > and that computers will eventually make roads safer than ever Nothing suggests this is true, so far. Computers are much less able than even humans to devise the right reactions to the complex environment of the road.
tw04 2y ago
> it's obvious that humans are not good at this task and that computers will eventually make roads safer than ever. It’s obvious that SOME humans are bad at this task. It’s not at all obvious that a computer will ever be better. I’ve yet to see a single example of a computer that doesn’t trip all over itself on a snowy road, or lock up when someone intentionally marks up the roadway with graffiti that a human wouldn’t think twice about.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  For FSD to be a net benefit, it only has to be better than an average driver. It's quite possible that FSD will be rather used by below average drivers (with excellent drivers opting to still drive themselves), further increasing the benefit.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    that's a silly fallacy pushed by musk marketing. quit propagating it. if the best driver in the world dies because they used FSD, then fsd is the cause so it must be as good as the best driver in the world to have not killed that human. q.e.d.
  - hugh-avherald 2y ago
    Unfortunately, below average drivers do not always have the self-awareness or financial means to opt in to a state-of-the-art vehicle.
  - smugma 2y ago
    It’s also quite possible that worse than average drivers prefer to drive and better than average drivers prefer to use FSD, which might decrease overall safety. This could be due to Dunning-Kruger, age based trust of new things, socioeconomics, etc.
  - tw04 2y ago
    Except in most scenarios another human can anticipate what even a bad driver is going to do. Meanwhile FSD still slams on the brakes when it sees a tree shadow moving across the road because it can't differentiate between a shadow and a real object. We are a LONG ways off from FSD being better than the average driver. Anyone saying otherwise is apparently living in the Bay Area or one of the places an influencer lives that Tesla tries to game the system, because it is trash everywhere else. It still can't handle navigating a road that has the option to continue straight or go around a curve which even a novice driver can navigate without pause.
  - dagw 2y ago
    used by below average drivers (with excellent drivers opting to still drive themselves) How to I objectively test if I'm a good enough driver to be better off without FSD?
- robxorb 2y ago
  You could level similarly-contrived criticisms against humans where machines could do better too. Of course there will be edge-cases either way - the question is the overall balance, which tips further towards machines each day. In the future, vehicles could have their FSD augmented by direct comms with each other, in a trustless way. If the entire traffic network ended up interconnected, it'd behave as a single system, approaching 100% self-awareness. Obviously, no ordinary human drivers could get anywhere near that level of situational awareness, nor ability to coordinate in parallel. All they have is a small cone of vision/hearing, a bit of sensor augmentation, and little else.
  - krger 2y ago
    > You could level similarly-contrived criticisms against humans where machines could do better too. You’re not even going to build an actual strawman before claiming to have knocked it down?
  - tw04 2y ago
    >In the future, vehicles could have their FSD augmented by direct comms with each other, in a trustless way. If the entire traffic network ended up interconnected, it'd behave as a single system, approaching 100% self-awareness. We can't get Amazon and Microsoft to agree on a single object-storage standard, and you think you're going to get every major auto manufacturer, including ones regulated by opposing nations to agree on an automobile communication standard? That who controls? And it won't be considered a national security risk to allow a foreign manufacturer to be able to potentially gridlock the entire traffic pattern(s) of a nation? >All they have is a small cone of vision/hearing, a bit of sensor augmentation, and little else. Which literally no amount of compute power has been able to replicate or surpass to date. Right....
    - robxorb 2y ago
      I'm not suggesting next year, or even next decade. But it will happen. You think profit-driven, hierarchical, centralised, closed and proprietary non-interoperable systems are our future? Novel idea! Best of luck with it.
- snarfy 2y ago
  The problem is when you balance the humans that are remarkable drivers with those that are terrible, the average trends towards terrible. Any kind of assistance for the terrible drivers would be helpful.
NorthOf33rd 2y ago
Cars aren’t the only option in the solution space.
daghamm 2y ago
This is a really odd take. Should I accept that my car can kill me because statically other drivers may also cause a crash and kill me? There are a few Tesla crashes on camera, and they look like something even a fairly bad driver could avoid. See for example the SF tunnel crash: https://abc7news.com/tesla-sf-bay-bridge-crash-8-car-self-driving-video/12686428/ https://abc7news.com/tesla-sf-bay-bridge-crash-8-car-self-dr... Besides, other vehicles have now active safety functions that seem to work extremly well. There are car models out there with ZERO fatalities so far thanks to this technology. So FSD being an improvement compared to really bad drivers is not really an improvement.
- idunnoman1222 2y ago
  What was the driver doing, sleeping? Isn’t this what the car does if you take your hand off the wheel?
  - daghamm 2y ago
    He was not sleeping. From the article: "... Tesla Model S was in "full self-driving mode" when it suddenly deployed the brakes. A total of eight vehicles crashed, nine people injured, including a 2-year-old boy."
    - _flux 2y ago
      And does it then not accept the press of the accelerator to override the braking? I believe it does. From the video it looks like there would be ample time to do just that, even before the first crash.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- prettyStandard 2y ago
  I think it's your interpretation that's odd. Don't give me wrong I'm not an Elon fan, but I at least like where that technology is headed. If I were given a choice between one in five chance of death by cancer, or a one in six chance of death by Russian roulette, I'm going to take the Russian roulette it doesn't matter that it's a dumb game. What matters are my better odds. This isn't to say that we should accept people playing Russian roulette it's just that if Russian roulette is a cure for cancer then we got to accept those stats. Now if we're going to compare active safety functions to Russian roulette with rubber bullets, then maybe the FDA should mandate Russian roulette with rubber bullets.
beardyw 2y ago
> To anyone looking at it rationally, without emotion This has "Tesla" in the headline.
coderjames 2y ago
> Where was the concern for human life? In the laws that assign liability to the at-fault driver and in the most heinous cases charge them with vehicular manslaughter. I'll accept autonomous driving on public streets when the vehicle manufacturers accept liability for accidents caused while their self-driving functions are active. My understanding is that currently Tesla always says "actually the driver is at fault because our Terms Of Service say they should have intervened when the computer didn't know what to do." That's not autonomous driving and they don't get credit for vehicle-miles driven as long as the system is allowed to throw up its hands and say "your problem now, human."
Zigurd 2y ago
This assertion ignores qualitative issues, like "Do Teslas fail to 'see' motorcycles?" You can be better than an average driver and much much worse in specific situations.

tsimionescu 2y ago

> it's clear that humans are not good at this task True > and that computers will eventually make roads safer than ever Nothing suggests this is true, so far. Computers are much less able than even humans to devise the right reactions to the complex environment of the road.

tw04 2y ago

> it's obvious that humans are not good at this task and that computers will eventually make roads safer than ever. It’s obvious that SOME humans are bad at this task. It’s not at all obvious that a computer will ever be better. I’ve yet to see a single example of a computer that doesn’t trip all over itself on a snowy road, or lock up when someone intentionally marks up the roadway with graffiti that a human wouldn’t think twice about.

The_Colonel 2y ago
For FSD to be a net benefit, it only has to be better than an average driver. It's quite possible that FSD will be rather used by below average drivers (with excellent drivers opting to still drive themselves), further increasing the benefit.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  that's a silly fallacy pushed by musk marketing. quit propagating it. if the best driver in the world dies because they used FSD, then fsd is the cause so it must be as good as the best driver in the world to have not killed that human. q.e.d.
- hugh-avherald 2y ago
  Unfortunately, below average drivers do not always have the self-awareness or financial means to opt in to a state-of-the-art vehicle.
- smugma 2y ago
  It’s also quite possible that worse than average drivers prefer to drive and better than average drivers prefer to use FSD, which might decrease overall safety. This could be due to Dunning-Kruger, age based trust of new things, socioeconomics, etc.
- tw04 2y ago
  Except in most scenarios another human can anticipate what even a bad driver is going to do. Meanwhile FSD still slams on the brakes when it sees a tree shadow moving across the road because it can't differentiate between a shadow and a real object. We are a LONG ways off from FSD being better than the average driver. Anyone saying otherwise is apparently living in the Bay Area or one of the places an influencer lives that Tesla tries to game the system, because it is trash everywhere else. It still can't handle navigating a road that has the option to continue straight or go around a curve which even a novice driver can navigate without pause.
- dagw 2y ago
  used by below average drivers (with excellent drivers opting to still drive themselves) How to I objectively test if I'm a good enough driver to be better off without FSD?
robxorb 2y ago
You could level similarly-contrived criticisms against humans where machines could do better too. Of course there will be edge-cases either way - the question is the overall balance, which tips further towards machines each day. In the future, vehicles could have their FSD augmented by direct comms with each other, in a trustless way. If the entire traffic network ended up interconnected, it'd behave as a single system, approaching 100% self-awareness. Obviously, no ordinary human drivers could get anywhere near that level of situational awareness, nor ability to coordinate in parallel. All they have is a small cone of vision/hearing, a bit of sensor augmentation, and little else.
- krger 2y ago
  > You could level similarly-contrived criticisms against humans where machines could do better too. You’re not even going to build an actual strawman before claiming to have knocked it down?
- tw04 2y ago
  >In the future, vehicles could have their FSD augmented by direct comms with each other, in a trustless way. If the entire traffic network ended up interconnected, it'd behave as a single system, approaching 100% self-awareness. We can't get Amazon and Microsoft to agree on a single object-storage standard, and you think you're going to get every major auto manufacturer, including ones regulated by opposing nations to agree on an automobile communication standard? That who controls? And it won't be considered a national security risk to allow a foreign manufacturer to be able to potentially gridlock the entire traffic pattern(s) of a nation? >All they have is a small cone of vision/hearing, a bit of sensor augmentation, and little else. Which literally no amount of compute power has been able to replicate or surpass to date. Right....
  - robxorb 2y ago
    I'm not suggesting next year, or even next decade. But it will happen. You think profit-driven, hierarchical, centralised, closed and proprietary non-interoperable systems are our future? Novel idea! Best of luck with it.
snarfy 2y ago
The problem is when you balance the humans that are remarkable drivers with those that are terrible, the average trends towards terrible. Any kind of assistance for the terrible drivers would be helpful.

NorthOf33rd 2y ago

Cars aren’t the only option in the solution space.

daghamm 2y ago

This is a really odd take. Should I accept that my car can kill me because statically other drivers may also cause a crash and kill me? There are a few Tesla crashes on camera, and they look like something even a fairly bad driver could avoid. See for example the SF tunnel crash: https://abc7news.com/tesla-sf-bay-bridge-crash-8-car-self-driving-video/12686428/ https://abc7news.com/tesla-sf-bay-bridge-crash-8-car-self-dr... Besides, other vehicles have now active safety functions that seem to work extremly well. There are car models out there with ZERO fatalities so far thanks to this technology. So FSD being an improvement compared to really bad drivers is not really an improvement.

idunnoman1222 2y ago
What was the driver doing, sleeping? Isn’t this what the car does if you take your hand off the wheel?
- daghamm 2y ago
  He was not sleeping. From the article: "... Tesla Model S was in "full self-driving mode" when it suddenly deployed the brakes. A total of eight vehicles crashed, nine people injured, including a 2-year-old boy."
  - _flux 2y ago
    And does it then not accept the press of the accelerator to override the braking? I believe it does. From the video it looks like there would be ample time to do just that, even before the first crash.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
prettyStandard 2y ago
I think it's your interpretation that's odd. Don't give me wrong I'm not an Elon fan, but I at least like where that technology is headed. If I were given a choice between one in five chance of death by cancer, or a one in six chance of death by Russian roulette, I'm going to take the Russian roulette it doesn't matter that it's a dumb game. What matters are my better odds. This isn't to say that we should accept people playing Russian roulette it's just that if Russian roulette is a cure for cancer then we got to accept those stats. Now if we're going to compare active safety functions to Russian roulette with rubber bullets, then maybe the FDA should mandate Russian roulette with rubber bullets.

beardyw 2y ago

> To anyone looking at it rationally, without emotion This has "Tesla" in the headline.

coderjames 2y ago

> Where was the concern for human life? In the laws that assign liability to the at-fault driver and in the most heinous cases charge them with vehicular manslaughter. I'll accept autonomous driving on public streets when the vehicle manufacturers accept liability for accidents caused while their self-driving functions are active. My understanding is that currently Tesla always says "actually the driver is at fault because our Terms Of Service say they should have intervened when the computer didn't know what to do." That's not autonomous driving and they don't get credit for vehicle-miles driven as long as the system is allowed to throw up its hands and say "your problem now, human."

Zigurd 2y ago

This assertion ignores qualitative issues, like "Do Teslas fail to 'see' motorcycles?" You can be better than an average driver and much much worse in specific situations.