4 ms·

I find analogy to flight travel very relevant. Imagine air travel invented but with current societies standards, cultures and laws. Would it have been difficu

I find analogy to flight travel very relevant. Imagine air travel invented but with current societies standards, cultures and laws. Would it have been difficult to introduce it and convince that it is safe? Air travel also was initially slightly unsafe but over time became safer with lots of deliberate effort put. The similarities are striking: you could have one or two crashes like the person who unfortunately encountered the accident with Tesla. Just like you could have a few crashes.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
"deliberate effort" That would be regulation and institutional oversight by the government. Inconvenient to say out loud on the altar of big tech capitalism.
- simianwords 1y ago
  It is in the incentive for capitalists to make their products safer.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
    Yeah no. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about safety if it costs money unless forced by rules and regulations. It’s a profoundly anti-consumer system. It cares for one thing: profit in the short term.
  - watwut 1y ago
    That incentive exists only when there are regulations around third party testing and lying in ads. Otherwise it is cheaper to flood the zone with lies, both about own product safety and dangers of other products. End result is unregulated market of unsafe products with toxic myths around them
    - simianwords 1y ago
      Why would companies just not increase safety instead of short term risky things like lying? Lying can only help you for the next one year but sustainably increasing safety can help you keep profits for decades.
      - watwut 1y ago
        Because lying is not risky for companies. Not unless there is also a regulation and enforcement punishing them if they overdo it. Lying can help you for years and years. Actual safety is visible only in long term and again, abset neutral parties and data able to verify it does not matter. You get further by lying about safety. And those neutral parties can exist only if there is regulation.
        simianwords 1y ago
        That’s crazy! Who said lying is not risky for companies? You need to build brand trust when there is a lot of competition especially in the case of self driving where safety is of maximum concern. People are already skeptical and would look out for signals on such things. You can’t keep things hidden for too long - word would spread that some cars are actually unsafe. In general it is simply more simple and sustainable to not lie. Some times things fall through the cracks and you get problems like you see on Tesla.
        watwut 1y ago
        Self driving is actually nice example of situation where lies about safety worked nicely for years. And where they are breaking up, it is not because of lies, but because of politics. > Who said lying is not risky for companies? Practical results. Lying works, unless there is regulation, lawsuit or something like that.
      - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
        Lying isn't that risky as companies can just dissolve themselves and then a different brand can pop up having bought/transferred the whole shebang from the previous one. It's a different matter if a lot of effort has been put into making a well known long lasting brand - then there certainly is the risk of damaging the brand. However, damage to brands only really happens when consumers have access to accurate information which the company will obviously try to conceal.
  - tempodox 1y ago
    What planet are you from?
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    Only if their potential customers have full and accurate information about those products and their competitors. Unfortunately, that's very rarely the case and it ends up being a race to the bottom (The Market for Lemons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)
4gotunameagain 1y ago
I am not so sure about that. Flight travel offer incredible benefits, well worth the risk. Self driving is really not that ground braking, from a transportation point of view. There are already trains and buses where you can get in, sit, and play with your phone so you don't have to drive. I think it is very fair for people not willing to bear the risk. For planes though? Even now, if you sold people the idea of easy overseas vacations, they would be willing to risk it I'd say, or at least allow others to take the risk.
- simianwords 1y ago
  Incorrect. What are the price savings possible with self driving cars because there is no driver to pay? It’s more than 70% discount. This has so many implications everywhere - cost of living comes down. Things that were previously too costly to achieve will be profitable now.
  - finaard 1y ago
    The driver cost - outside of Taxi services - are pretty much irrelevant. On the extreme end you're looking at long distance trains with about 1000 passengers - but even for a standard bus with 70-200 people capacity you're splitting that cost over so many passengers that it doesn't really matter. The cost of building 100 Teslas for transporting the people we'd be able to stick into one bus is significantly higher than what we ever could save by not having a driver - and that's _before_ looking at the extra infrastructure cost we'll have: The 100 Teslas use way more space than a bus or a streetcar (capacity: 200-400), so needs more and wider roads, and will contribute to congestion, instead of easing it. Self driving trams are already being tested - and are way easier to deal with than self driving cars, especially when you isolate them from the road to some extend. It won't change much in terms of personnel cost - countries which had been reducing conductors in trains ended up replacing them with security, so I'd expect we'll still have paid people in buses and trams, they'll just have a different job description now.
    - incone123 1y ago
      You and the other person may be talking at cross purposes. I took them to mean self driving cars give you a taxi experience without the labour cost of a human driver.
TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
I think one of the key factors to consider is whether the people pushing these new technologies are communicating clearly and acting in good faith. Many of these self driving technologies are pushed using very confusing and misleading names. Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out, without ever taking accountability. In 2016 Elon claimed that you'd be able to summon a Tesla from New York to Los Angeles autonomously by 2018. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he really believed that claim in 2016; at what point between 2016 and 2018 do you think he realized it wasn't going to happen and why didn't he speak up at that point? It would've been as simple as tweeting: "wow, we really underestimated the challenges, my previous claim was wrong and this problem will take longer to resolve". It's fine to have ambitious deadlines and talk about what timelines you're hoping to hit. But this should be tempered by taking accountability and providing updates when new information becomes available. Nobody expects perfection, just the bare minimum of transparency and honesty. The accountability and lack-of-transparency problems persists to this day. Elon has made tons of claims over the years and he rarely provides any updates or follows up. A recent example: he talked up how Twitter would open source the recommendation algorithm, but instead we got a one-time source snapshot which never got updated.
- torium 1y ago
  > Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out Unbelievably generous take, to the point of naivity. When describing his cars abilities, he said they can go from car park in New York to car park in California. He said "We can do this today". No, he's just a liar.
- UmGuys 1y ago
  In 2008 Elon promised an entirely solar powered Tesla Roadster. I was young and dumb enough that it took me until about 2011 to realize it was never coming and he's a liar.
wetpaws 1y ago
[dead]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

AtlasBarfed 1y ago

"deliberate effort" That would be regulation and institutional oversight by the government. Inconvenient to say out loud on the altar of big tech capitalism.

simianwords 1y ago
It is in the incentive for capitalists to make their products safer.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
  Yeah no. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about safety if it costs money unless forced by rules and regulations. It’s a profoundly anti-consumer system. It cares for one thing: profit in the short term.
- watwut 1y ago
  That incentive exists only when there are regulations around third party testing and lying in ads. Otherwise it is cheaper to flood the zone with lies, both about own product safety and dangers of other products. End result is unregulated market of unsafe products with toxic myths around them
  - simianwords 1y ago
    Why would companies just not increase safety instead of short term risky things like lying? Lying can only help you for the next one year but sustainably increasing safety can help you keep profits for decades.
    - watwut 1y ago
      Because lying is not risky for companies. Not unless there is also a regulation and enforcement punishing them if they overdo it. Lying can help you for years and years. Actual safety is visible only in long term and again, abset neutral parties and data able to verify it does not matter. You get further by lying about safety. And those neutral parties can exist only if there is regulation.
      - simianwords 1y ago
        That’s crazy! Who said lying is not risky for companies? You need to build brand trust when there is a lot of competition especially in the case of self driving where safety is of maximum concern. People are already skeptical and would look out for signals on such things. You can’t keep things hidden for too long - word would spread that some cars are actually unsafe. In general it is simply more simple and sustainable to not lie. Some times things fall through the cracks and you get problems like you see on Tesla.
        watwut 1y ago
        Self driving is actually nice example of situation where lies about safety worked nicely for years. And where they are breaking up, it is not because of lies, but because of politics. > Who said lying is not risky for companies? Practical results. Lying works, unless there is regulation, lawsuit or something like that.
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      Lying isn't that risky as companies can just dissolve themselves and then a different brand can pop up having bought/transferred the whole shebang from the previous one. It's a different matter if a lot of effort has been put into making a well known long lasting brand - then there certainly is the risk of damaging the brand. However, damage to brands only really happens when consumers have access to accurate information which the company will obviously try to conceal.
- tempodox 1y ago
  What planet are you from?
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Only if their potential customers have full and accurate information about those products and their competitors. Unfortunately, that's very rarely the case and it ends up being a race to the bottom (The Market for Lemons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)

4gotunameagain 1y ago

I am not so sure about that. Flight travel offer incredible benefits, well worth the risk. Self driving is really not that ground braking, from a transportation point of view. There are already trains and buses where you can get in, sit, and play with your phone so you don't have to drive. I think it is very fair for people not willing to bear the risk. For planes though? Even now, if you sold people the idea of easy overseas vacations, they would be willing to risk it I'd say, or at least allow others to take the risk.

simianwords 1y ago
Incorrect. What are the price savings possible with self driving cars because there is no driver to pay? It’s more than 70% discount. This has so many implications everywhere - cost of living comes down. Things that were previously too costly to achieve will be profitable now.
- finaard 1y ago
  The driver cost - outside of Taxi services - are pretty much irrelevant. On the extreme end you're looking at long distance trains with about 1000 passengers - but even for a standard bus with 70-200 people capacity you're splitting that cost over so many passengers that it doesn't really matter. The cost of building 100 Teslas for transporting the people we'd be able to stick into one bus is significantly higher than what we ever could save by not having a driver - and that's _before_ looking at the extra infrastructure cost we'll have: The 100 Teslas use way more space than a bus or a streetcar (capacity: 200-400), so needs more and wider roads, and will contribute to congestion, instead of easing it. Self driving trams are already being tested - and are way easier to deal with than self driving cars, especially when you isolate them from the road to some extend. It won't change much in terms of personnel cost - countries which had been reducing conductors in trains ended up replacing them with security, so I'd expect we'll still have paid people in buses and trams, they'll just have a different job description now.
  - incone123 1y ago
    You and the other person may be talking at cross purposes. I took them to mean self driving cars give you a taxi experience without the labour cost of a human driver.

TheAceOfHearts 1y ago

I think one of the key factors to consider is whether the people pushing these new technologies are communicating clearly and acting in good faith. Many of these self driving technologies are pushed using very confusing and misleading names. Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out, without ever taking accountability. In 2016 Elon claimed that you'd be able to summon a Tesla from New York to Los Angeles autonomously by 2018. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he really believed that claim in 2016; at what point between 2016 and 2018 do you think he realized it wasn't going to happen and why didn't he speak up at that point? It would've been as simple as tweeting: "wow, we really underestimated the challenges, my previous claim was wrong and this problem will take longer to resolve". It's fine to have ambitious deadlines and talk about what timelines you're hoping to hit. But this should be tempered by taking accountability and providing updates when new information becomes available. Nobody expects perfection, just the bare minimum of transparency and honesty. The accountability and lack-of-transparency problems persists to this day. Elon has made tons of claims over the years and he rarely provides any updates or follows up. A recent example: he talked up how Twitter would open source the recommendation algorithm, but instead we got a one-time source snapshot which never got updated.

torium 1y ago
> Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out Unbelievably generous take, to the point of naivity. When describing his cars abilities, he said they can go from car park in New York to car park in California. He said "We can do this today". No, he's just a liar.
UmGuys 1y ago
In 2008 Elon promised an entirely solar powered Tesla Roadster. I was young and dumb enough that it took me until about 2011 to realize it was never coming and he's a liar.

wetpaws 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]