- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
Tesla braces for its first trial involving Autopilot fatality::Tesla Inc is set to defend itself for the first time at trial against allegations that failure of its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to death, in what will likely be a major test of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s assertions about the technology.
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The headline makes it sound like Tesla is trialing a new ‘fatality’ feature for it’s autopilot.
Well, someone has to invent the suicide booths featured in Futurama. Might as well be him.
I really want to trust you’re throwing a dark joke up but the sheer concept of suicide booths is a very harsh critique at a failed society. A very failed society. For it to become a joke…Call me square but that is a joke haimed to who laughs on it.
https://youtu.be/EbmQxZkSswI?si=0lcguQyWQxUggaB5
It’s a joke but a suicide booth isn’t that bad, assisted pain free death is a right everyone should have.
But having it on a street corner for ease of access is pretty fucked
And Futurama likes to reference many works of science fiction. Many of these cover the subject of dystopian/utopian societies where suicide is facilitated/promoted/mandated.
Futurama makes at least one direct reference to Soylent Green for one (Soylent Soda).
What’s it taste like
It varies from person to person.
The episode where Bender will explode if he says “Ass” is based of a Phillip K Dick short story.
I take it you haven’t watched Futurama? For one, the depicted um, procedure looks rather painless-free, but also it fails entirely and the protagonist(s!) step out unscathed.
plus you can select clumsy bludgeoning as a method of suicide.
When you say “clumsy”… how clumsy? I could go for it.
My country is going through a very disputed approval over legislation for medically assisted death, for incurable conditions.
It was sent to the Constitutional Court three times and twice vetoed by the president, one for political reasons.
The majority of the population supports it.
Making it accessalbe on what might be a fleeting impulse would be a huge problem though in the case of futurama style suicide booths.
I remember reading an article about an open sourced 3D printable “suicide pod” anyone could build by themselves.
Good luck with that. Hope it can alleviate some people’s suffering.
We’ve basically got it all legal in Australia now, last state ratifies their laws in November.
Oh, it’s going forward, regardless the president personal dislike (devout catholic) and the cries from the church and religious groups.
With how Elon has been acting this is a distinct possibility.
It would probably scream “Xterminate!” before running you over.
Mortal Combat: Vehicle Edition
Carmaggedon
The reality is that they didn’t trial it at all, they just sent straight to production. In this case, it successfully achieved a fatality.
I’m literally waiting for the moment when a disproportionate ammount of Musk-critics die in car crashes.
Autopilot is not safe.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/
Driving a car is not safe. 40000 people die on car crashes every year in the US alone. Nothing in that article indicates that autopilot/FSD is more dangerous than a human driver. Just that they’re flawed systems as is expected. It’s good to keep in mind that 99.99% safety rating means 33000 accidents a year in the US alone.
You can’t just put something on the streets without first verifying it’s safe and working as intended. This is missing for Autopilot. And the data that’s piling up is showing that Autopilot is deadly.
First of all what is it that you consider safe? I’m sure you realize that 100% safety rating is just fantasy so what is the acceptable rate of accidents for you?
Secondly would you mind sharing the data “that’s piling up is showing that Autopilot is deadly” ? Reports of individual incidents is not what I’m asking for because as I stated above; you’re not going to get 100% safety so there’s always going to be individual incidents to talk about.
You also seem to be talking about FSD beta and autopilot interchangeably thought they’re a different thing. Hope you realize this.
There are very strict regulations around what is allowed to be in the streets and what isn’t. This is what protects us from sloppy companies releasing unsafe stuff in the streets.
Driver assist features like the Autopilot are operating in a regulatory grey zone. The regulation has not caught up with technology and this allows companies like Tesla to release unsafe software in the streets, killing people.
Exactly. Driver assist features. These aren’t something to be blindly relied on and everyone knows this and the vehicle will remind you. Every crash is fault of the driver - not the system.
Now if you don’t mind showing me the data that’s “piling up is showing that Autopilot is deadly”
Exactly. Driver assist features.
Except Tesla isn’t selling them as such. Theid advertisement videos as early as 2016 say “the driver is not necessary, the car is driving itself”. This is false marketing in its purest and simplest form: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/17/tesla-self-driving-video-staged-testimony-senior-engineer
I’m still waiting for the data that you said is piling up. You also did not specify what number of accidents you find acceptable for a self driving system. It’s almost like you’re trying to evade my questions…
Driving is not safe. These systems could be improved upon, but they’ve also saved numerous lives by preventing accidents from occurring in the first place. The example in the OP happened while this driver was sitting behind the wheel watching a movie. The first example in your article occurred with a driver behind the wheel. If either of them had been driving a 1995 Honda Civic, these accidents would have occurred just the same, but would anyone be demanding that Honda is to blame?
No, we would (rightfully so) blame the driver for merging into a semi truck that from my understanding was clearly visible.
but they’ve also saved numerous lives by preventing accidents from occurring in the first place.
There is no data to make this claim. You’re just making this up.
Give me a break. You think all these companies are dumping billions of dollars into technology that doesn’t work? You’re making stuff up. Go watch some dashcam videos on YouTube if you want some proof.
Are you kidding me? I never said it will never work. But that does not mean its current state is safe to trust your life.
You did in fact just say that by saying that I was making up the fact that these systems have saved lives. Moving the goalposts to “you can’t trust your life to it” doesn’t make your original argument anymore accurate nor does it reference anything in dispute. Nobody said you should trust your life to cruise control.
Nobody did indeed say you should trust your life to cruise control.
But Tesla did claim you could trust your life to autopilot because “the car basically drives itself”, which it obviously didn’t.
Tesla didn’t claim that. Musk claimed their early FSD “basically drove itself” in what appears to have been a staged demonstration. This accident and lawsuit are about Autopilot, which is a completely different system.
There is no doubt that one day these systems will be so good that they will make transportation much safer. But there is no data that shows that we’re already there.
Actually there is some doubt about that. Completely irrelevant to the present either way though.
You mean you’ve done zero research on the topic before injecting your opinions, so you simply haven’t seen any data?
https://thedriven.io/2023/04/27/accident-rate-for-tesla-80-lower-than-us-average-with-fsd/
New data released in its Impact Report show that Tesla vehicles with Autopilot engaged (mostly highway miles) had just 0.18 accidents per million miles driven, compared to the US vehicle average of 1.53 accidents per million miles.
A statistically significant 16% reduction in the risk of involvement in all casualty crashes of these types and a 22% reduction estimated for fatal and serious injury crashes was associated with LKA fitment to Australian light vehicle was estimated.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27624313/
The analysis showed a positive effect of the LDW/LKA systems in reducing lane departure crashes. The LDW/LKA systems were estimated to reduce head-on and single-vehicle injury crashes on Swedish roads with speed limits between 70 and 120 km/h and with dry or wet road surfaces (i.e., not covered by ice or snow) by 53% with a lower limit of 11% (95% confidence interval [CI]). This reduction corresponded to a reduction of 30% with a lower limit of 6% (95% CI) for all head-on and single-vehicle driver injury crashes (including all speed limits and all road surface conditions).
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/car-insurance/vehicle-safety-features-accidents/
ADAS functionalities can change the driving experience. According to research by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, ADAS vehicles showed a 27% reduction in bodily injury claim frequency and a 19% reduction in property damage frequency.
billions of dollars into technology that doesn’t work?
Absolutely. Heard of the F22?
It seems like an obvious flaw that’s pretty simple to explain. Car is learnt to operate the infromation about collisions on a set height. The opening between the wheels of a truck’s trailer thus could be treated by it as a free space. It’s a rare situation, but if it’s confirmed and reproduceable, that, at least, raises concerns, how many other glitches would drivers learn by surprise.
In most countries trucks have bars between the trailer wheels, precisely because too many car drivers got an unwelcome haircut by not paying attention.
The second trial, set for early October in a Florida state court, arose out of a 2019 crash north of Miami where owner Stephen Banner’s Model 3 drove under the trailer of an 18-wheeler big rig truck that had pulled into the road, shearing off the Tesla’s roof and killing Banner. Autopilot failed to brake, steer or do anything to avoid the collision, according to the lawsuit filed by Banner’s wife.
Is this the guy who was literally paying no attention to the road at all and was watching a movie whilst the car was in motion?
I legit can’t find information on it now as every result I can find online is word for word identical to that small snippet. Such is modern journalism.
I know people like to get a hard on with the word “autopilot”, but even real pilots with real autopilot still need to “keep an eye on things” when the system is engaged. This is why we have two humans in the cockpit on those big commercial jets.
The way musk marketed it was as a “self driving” feature, not a driving assist. Yes with all current smart assists you need to be carefully watching what it’s doing, but that’s not what it was made out to be. Because of that I’d still say tesla is responsible.
I think you’re referring to FSD beta and not Autopilot. One is supposed to be the self driving feature at some point while the other is simply lane keeping/cruise control. FSD wasn’t even available when this crash happened.
No I was referring to autopilot, just look at the name of it. It’s I know it’s not capable of self driving (and neither is the even more absurd name of “full self driving”) but to your average person it intentionally sounds as if the car is driving itself instead of it being a driving assist.
No you were referring to what you think Tesla said about Autopilot and I pointed out that you were mistaken.
I think it sounds like autopilot in a plane or ship, where it maintains course but still needs a pilot sitting at the controls. Regardless of what you think it is or isn’t, it’s your duty as a driver to understand the capabilities of the two ton machine that you’re voluntarily operating.
Tesla’s Autopilot is driving assistance. I don’t know where you saw Musk marketing it as a self driving feature. Hell, even for the misnomer “full self driving” they note:
The currently enabled features require a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.
The feature is called “Autopilot”, meaning that the car automatically pilots itself, rather than using a human pilot. The definition of autopilot is literally “a device for keeping an aircraft or other vehicle on a set course without the intervention of the pilot.” I’m not sure how he could have more explicitly misrepresented the product.
meaning that the car automatically pilots itself, rather than using a human pilot
No it doesn’t. Even an airplane autopilot only maintain the course set by the pilot and it’s not capable of making decisions and navigating autonomously.
All technologies in publicly sold vehicles today and in recent years are of driving assistance and require driver’s attention. Anybody using the tech without paying attention is being negligent.
Autopilot is capable of navigating though, and it does make decisions like when to merge and when to execute a turn, by design. I don’t think it’s adequately equipped to make those decisions, but by design, it does. They even advertise it on their official YouTube channel, with a clip of them just plugging in a destination and letting the car get them there in their video. Tesla is responsible for advertising they do, and claims they make of their product that simply aren’t true.
This is FSD, not autopilot. Also note the driver is paying attention.
It is two different modes of the same system, one just has more features enabled than the other. You also can’t tell if the driver is paying attention, as they are mostly out of frame. Even if they are, their hands are entirely off the wheel, and it’s unlikely that they would be able to react in time to prevent an accident even if they are paying attention.
Autopilot is cable of basically ying the plane itself. A human is there for when shit goes wrong.
Only if you ignore traffic. Autopilot doesn’t take in ATC directions. But it’s not a useful comparison, air traffic and navigation is much simpler compared to ground.
There are also two pilots. Because they know people are people. And don’t brand it a self driving and full self driving then.
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I mean, yeah, but I doubt that it’s Tesla’s official stance on the matter
This is the best summary I could come up with:
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is set to defend itself for the first time at trial against allegations that failure of its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to death, in what will likely be a major test of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s assertions about the technology.
Self-driving capability is central to Tesla’s financial future, according to Musk, whose own reputation as an engineering leader is being challenged with allegations by plaintiffs in one of two lawsuits that he personally leads the group behind technology that failed.
The first, scheduled for mid-September in a California state court, is a civil lawsuit containing allegations that the Autopilot system caused owner Micah Lee’s Model 3 to suddenly veer off a highway east of Los Angeles at 65 miles per hour, strike a palm tree and burst into flames, all in the span of seconds.
Banner’s attorneys, for instance, argue in a pretrial court filing that internal emails show Musk is the Autopilot team’s “de facto leader”.
Tesla won a bellwether trial in Los Angeles in April with a strategy of saying that it tells drivers that its technology requires human monitoring, despite the “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” names.
In one deposition, former executive Christopher Moore testified there are limitations to Autopilot, saying it “is not designed to detect every possible hazard or every possible obstacle or vehicle that could be on the road,” according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters.
The original article contains 986 words, the summary contains 241 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Although it’s far from perfect, autopilot gets into a lot less accidents per mile than drivers without autopilot.They have some statistics here:https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReportEDIT: As pointed out by commenters in this thread, autopilot is mainly used on high ways, whereas the crash average is on all roads. Also Tesla only counts a crash if the airbag was deployed, but the numbers they compared against count every crash, including the ones without deployed airbags.
Why should we trust any numbers that comes from Tesla?
Do you have statistics not by Tesla?
They’re probably the only ones who even has access to such statistics. If you’re simply just going to refute the stats because of the source then atleast provide some credible counter evidence.
If you’re simply just going to refute the stats because of the source then atleast provide some credible counter evidence.
Tesla’s numbers are trash. Tesla have been caught again and again lying.
…then provide some more trustworthy stats because you just saying that is not it. This is literally like debating a climate change denier or flat earther.
“Here’s a picture of the earth from space”
- Lies! Nasa cannot be trusted. CGI.
Why would Tesla release any numbers that would make it look bad?
Even according to that article autopilot and FSD seems to be about at the level as human driver. I’m willing to accept that - many others arent.
The narrative here is that these systems are dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed to be used on public roads. My argument is that they’re not as dangerous as reading stories about these individual incidents might make them seem like and they’re getting better all the time. If they’re not significantly better than human drivers now they will be soon and Tesla most likely is going to lead the way.
And when autopilot is at fault for an accident or fatality, who should be held responsible?
Just because it’s better, shouldn’t absolutely them of responsibility when it fails.
The driver is always responsible for using the tools within the car correctly and maintaining control of the vehicle at all times.
Either way the driver would be at fault. However, the driver might be able to make a (completely separate) case that the car’s defects made control impossible, but since the driver always had the option to disable self-driving, I doubt that would go anywhere.
Just like you don’t get off the hook if your cruise control causes an accident… and it doesn’t matter how much Tesla lied about what it may or may not be capable of, because at the end of the day it’s always the driver’s responsibility to know the limitations of the vehicle and disable the feature and take control when necessary.
Which is exactly what this case is claiming, that the software is defective.
And what happens when we progress beyond Level 2 or 3 automation? Then the car is making choices for the driver, choices the driver may not have any say in or realistically be capable of reacting to in an emergency?
Deferring responsibility to the driver under any scenario is a cop-out. We have a long history of engineering qualifications and regulations to ensure safety of the populace, engineers and architects design structures to be safe, plumbers have to plumb to code, heck even cars themselves have a mile long list of compliance requirements. All to ensure the thing that companies build aren’t killing the population, and when they do someone is responsible.
Yet as soon as we start talking about software, “not my problem dawg.”.
This is a guy who was using a glorified cruise control (which is all AP is) at high speed whilst watching a DVD instead of looking at the road.
The software can only help so much. There’s a reason why there are laws requiring attentiveness checks now… people are reckless
So you’re correct to call it a tool, with this level of automation the driver is ultimately the operator. But you’re missing something
Did you misuse the tool, did they sell you a bad tool, or did their instructions cause the tool to be misused?
The first is as you said - if I make and sell you a circular saw and you cut your finger off being an idiot, that’s on you.
If the thing flew apart under normal use, that’s on me - it’s likely my responsibility, and possibly negligence.
If the box or user manual said it is for wood and metal use, and it’s actually entirely unsafe for metal use, that’s probably negligence on my part
Cruise control doesn’t unexpectedly jerk your wheel to the side, if it did and you could prove you were using it reasonably and in the recommended way, you’d almost definitely get off the hook
I can’t understand how anyone is even able to let the car do something on its own. I drive old Dacia Logan and Renault Scénic, but at work we have Škoda Karoq and I can’t even fully trust its beeping backing sensors or automatic handbrake. I can’t imagine if the car steered, accelerated or braked without me telling it to.
I think it’s fine at the level where you are there and ready to take control, but you need to be paying attention still. Humans aren’t flawless and we shouldn’t expect our automated systems to be either. This doesn’t excuse Tesla, because they’ve been marketing it as something it’s not for a long time now. They’re driver assist features, not self driving features. It can keep you in a lane and maintain speed well, but you shouldn’t fully trust it. If it’s better than humans at some tasks, it should be used for those regardless of if it will fail at it sometimes. People shouldn’t be lied to and convinced it’s more than it is though.
I actually think that the less a driver has to do, the worse they’ll be at reacting when a situation does come up.
If I’m actually driving and someone, say, runs out in front of me, I’ll slam on the brakes. I’ve had this happen, actually - it was scary as hell because my brain froze up, but…fortunately for us and the guy, my foot still knew what to do, and we stopped in time.
But if I’m sitting in the seat, just monitoring, not actively doing something, my attention is much more likely to wander, and when that incident happens, my reaction time is likely going to be a LOT slower, because I have to “mode shift” back into operating a car, whereas I was already in that mode in the incident above. I don’t think the manufacturers are adequately considering this factor.
(I recognize this might not be a perfect example with automatic brakes, but I think the point is clear.)
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Aviation is now mostly full automatic. On the otehr hand, there are tons of beacons to help it.
It’s a difficult comparison to make because planes are maintaining level flight or making smooth wide-arcing turns or gradual changes in altitude, not quickly responding to imminent obstacles and traffic. Even in an autoland situation, it’s supposed to follow a gentle descent slope that’s planned long in advance. This type of operation isn’t really possible with cars, so they require a whole other set of considerations and techniques.
And even private aviation requires hundreds of hours of experience and deep understanding of physics and extensive training before even being allowed in the air on your own. Let alone fly others. Using those fancy “it flights itself” autopilots require several extra thousand hours of experience and specialized training, a commercial license and to be under the supervision and employment of an airline. Otherwise you are barely allowed to use the plane version of cruise control.
And it requires way more training and attention from the operator because that way they can react quickly. Not so much for cars, especially on “autopilot”.
There’s less stuff to hit in the air.
No it’s not at all, there’s still a ton of work for the pilot and first officer despite autopilot
