Second Tesla Autopilot Crash Under Review By US Regulators (time.com) 392
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal and many other publications are reporting that U.S. auto-safety regulators are currently reviewing a second crash that occurred while Tesla's Autopilot mode was activated. The Detroit Free Press reports that a Michigan art gallery owner told police that he survived a rollover crash that happened when his Tesla Model X was in self-driving mode last Friday. The newspaper didn't disclose any additional details regarding what led up to the accident and whether or not the driver was to blame. Last week, it was reported that U.S. regulators were investigating Tesla after a fatal crash occurred involving a vehicle using the Autopilot mode. Tesla said in a statement after that incident, "This is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated." They also said Autopilot "is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times."
Robots Revolt! (Score:2, Funny)
The robots are starting to revolt and killing a few people at a time...
Re:Robots Revolt! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is just sloppy reporting. A Tesla crashed, must be another autopilot case, don't bother to actually check the facts. Even make up nonexisting statements from police reports, why not.
The actual police report does not mention autopilot [detroitnews.com], contrary to what some news reports are claiming. Tesla has not been able to review the logs yet because the antenna got damaged in the accident. They have been trying to contact the owner in order to get access to the logs but so far have not been able to reach them.
At this point, it looks like this accident has nothing to do with autopilot.
Autopilot (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Elon, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
Why? That is what it is...
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
How about private pilots in little 4 seat planes that have autopilots? Can they just have a nap while the plane flies?
Re:Autopilot (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Joe Average buying a car probably does think that, yes. Look at the comments anytime there's a news article about a crashed airliner and you'll see the ridiculous misconceptions the general public has about aviation. After Germanwings 9525, it became clear that a substantial number of people fully believe that the autopilot does everything from rotate to landing on every commercial flight, and that human pilots are an outmoded concept. (I'm aware that CATIII autoland exists, but it's rarely used.) I lost track of how many times I heard or saw someone say "the planes fly themselves these days anyway, if there wasn't a pilot, nobody would be in there to fly the plane into a mountain, we should get rid of pilots" etc.
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Joe Average can afford a Tesla?
Wow, the economy was recovering while I wasn't looking!
Re:Autopilot (Score:4, Insightful)
Auto means self. Pilot means pilot.
If you call something an autopilot it must pilot itself.
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Auto means self. Pilot means pilot. If you call something an autopilot it must pilot itself.
I agree with your premise, but just to nit here, "auto" is short for "automatic", which means working by itself with little or no direct human control [google.com]. So technically autopilot means piloting with little or no direct human control.
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Not necessarily. "auto-" can be a prefix which means "self" [dictionary.com], as the GP posted. It can mean "automatic", when used in some compound words, but if you look at those words, the "self" is implied. So "autopilot" really does mean "self-piloting". The alternative would be "remote control".
TL;DR: "auto" implies that the device does not rely on external control for its function.
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If you want to claim it comes from automatic, and not autonomous or anything else, then auto means self and matic means moving or thinking, from matos. Automatons are literally automatic things.
If you claim autopilot means automatic pilot then that means the pilot is an automaton.
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Auto means self. Pilot means pilot. If you call something an autopilot it must pilot itself.
And if you don't RTFM, then you deserve what you get.
Sorry if that means we add a few to the illustrious list of Darwin Award winners. I have no stomach for placating to those with more money than brains.
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Yeah, but does it have to pilot itself WELL?
For example you could have an appropriately named "auto F1-Pilot" that crashes all the time and claim it is modeled after Maldonado...
But, yeah, even if airplane autopilots are not exactly "leave it at auto and get a drink while it lands", I can see how many people can get confused with the nomenclature, especially if they try it a few times and it seems to them it is doing well enough. So, another name would be more appropriate...
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Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Why watch a movie if you can also sleep: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
Re:Autopilot (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Pilots operating under autopilot do not need to "keep [their] hands on the steering wheel at all times." Tesla's "Autopilot" is not an autopilot. They created a media sensation with the deceptive "autopilot" marketing, and now they are rightly bearing the brunt of it.
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I'd expect that (in large planes) the autopilot could land the plane, but that usually the pilot would land the plane when conditions are good, while if conditions are bad he'd have the autopilot land.
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Large airplanes have been able to land themselves since the 1970s...
That still doesn't mean the pilot can watch Netflix while the plane lands and if it crashes, it is still his fault...
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You can expect whatever you want, but that doesn't make it so. An autopilot is not an automatic landing system. An automatic landing system has to interact with ground based support (instrument landing system or microwave landing system at the airport).
And no, an automatic landing system isn't a magic cure for "bad" conditions. It shines in conditions of poor visibility, but aside from that benefit it in fact has severe limitations. In fact, the automatic landing system in a Boeing 747-400 cannot be used in
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It is because Boeing autolanding system is shit. Buran had no problems with automatic piloting and landing with a crosswind of 32 knots - near gale.
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But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Do you think that operation of a Tesla is restricted to a highly trained and certified pilot?. Airplane manufacturers can call their system whatever they want to because:
The operator is trained, and certified with the lingo (including "autopilot").
There is a redundant operator.
Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
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Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Perhaps I should blame the driver training then, which is a complete joke in the United States anyway...
If we treated driving as an earned privileged rather than a right, and had REAL training on how to drive, perhaps we'd have fewer problems...
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Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Perhaps I should blame the driver training then, which is a complete joke in the United States anyway...
Perhaps you should; maybe it should be updated to reflect what "autopilot" means.
If we treated driving as an earned privileged rather than a right, and had REAL training on how to drive, perhaps we'd have fewer problems...
True, but until that has happened, perhaps car manufacturers should take into account what words mean to the target market when they are doing their marketing. There is absolutely no doubt that the overwhelming target market for automobiles believes "autopilot" to mean "self-piloted".
FWIW, I usually agree with you on most things, however with this particular issue the lingo matters. Hacker meant something very different from C
Re:Autopilot (Score:5, Interesting)
Insightful, MY ASS. This is an ignorant observation. An autopilot is EXACTLY what the fuck it is. In an airplane, an autopilot controls the speed, altitude, and attitude including course. It doesn't do SHIT about collision avoidance. That is the subject of OTHER systems, and of manual vigilance.
The Tesla's autopilot controls the speed and direction. There is no "altitude" control in a car, and the analog to "course" control is simply holding the lane. The Tesla does exactly this, PLUS it does collision avoidance, which an airplane autopilot does not.
Now, how good is the Tesla's autopilot, is a separate issue. But claiming the name "autopilot" is misleading is just STUPID.
Re:Autopilot (Score:4, Interesting)
Autopilot, to people who are engineers, or familiar with planes, etc.. yes.
The term autopilot does not convey the same meaning to an average person. When you market a product to people, often you should not use the correct terms. Sometimes you use terms that are technically not correct, but practically convey the meaning you need to get across to them.
I deal with this often. Oftentimes a department will want to use legalese on a web site we are creating for them. We have to remind them that while yes, the terms they want to use are correct, very few of their readers will understand them.
That said, none of that excuses someone driving a heavy killing machine without reading the manual first and following the guidelines in that manual...
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I like Elon, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
I don't give a fuck what they choose to call it. Anyone who engages such a feature without fully understanding what it means to put a car in charge of your life should be slapped repeatedly with the owners manual until the actually read the fucking thing.
Sorry, but in this case, I don't feel like watching our legal system side with Darwin Award finalists. Humanity deserves better than that shit.
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Some points of note (Score:5, Interesting)
From this report [dot.gov] (chart on page 7), a passenger car rollover (ie - not a light truck) begets a 16% chance of fatality.
This is not the first Tesla rollover crash I've read about, the other one [electrek.co] would lead me to believe that Teslas are in fact safer than average. (Click the link and see for yourself, the crash was reportedly spectacular.)
Of the crash in question, Tesla had this [electrek.co] to say:
“We received an automated alert from this vehicle on July 1 indicating airbag deployment, but logs containing detailed information on the state of the vehicle controls at the time of the collision were never received. This is consistent with damage of the severity reported in the press, which can cause the antenna to fail. As we do with all crash events, we immediately reached out to the customer to confirm they were ok and offer support but were unable to reach him. We have since attempted to contact the customer three times by phone without success. Based on the information we have now, we have no reason to believe that Autopilot had anything to do with this accident.”
The owner *claims* that the car was in autopilot, but we don't really know yet.
Also of note, the following (from same link):
[...] As reported yesterday, the police investigator on the case, Dale Vukovich, said that he is likely to charge Scaglione after his investigation without specifying the charges.
I'm going to wait a couple of days before making any judgements on this specific incident.
At the worst, it *may be* that autopilot mode isn't appropriate for human drivers simply due to the chance of it being misused. If too many people are relying on it when they shouldn't, then it likely should be taken off the market.
But that's an entirely different situation from Tesla being negligent, or unsafe, or unpromising.
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I'm going to wait a couple of days before making any judgements on this specific incident.
I'm not. A person survived a crash and crashes happen constantly. That's good enough for me.
Meanwhile (Score:2, Interesting)
Tesla's coverage of these incidents is a smear campaign.
GM, Ford and Chrysler experienced hundreds of vehicle accidents in the same time span.
In 2014, there were 32,675 deaths by vehicle incident. Not one of those is getting the same attention as these Tesla reports. Why?
Because the media is in the pockets of Big Auto. Every day in 2014, there were almost 90 deaths in all the other car manufacturers vehicles. I'm counting only two accidents in Tesla vehicles. That's actually quite good!
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla's coverage of these incidents is a smear campaign.
Tesla brought this upon themselves with a massive marketing campaign claiming autonomous driving features that are safer than humans, when the truth is, they are nothing of the sort. I love Tesla's technology, but no company should get a pass when they make lies that have, allegedly, led to death.
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While I agree that the Tesla accident coverage has, and likely will continue to be, insanely overstated in comparison to anyone else who makes cars (including other 'semi-autonomous' cars). I do not agree that the entire cause is "the news is in the pockets of Big Auto". It's far more likely that it's other factors like: Tesla being fairly new in public perception (It is 13 years old, but I can't recall even their first roadsters being 'out' over a decade ago), highly visible due to hype, 'cutting edge', an
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Ok, but how many Teslas are on the roads today? Under 200,000 for sure.
How many GMs, Fods, Chryslers are out there? Tens of millions if not more.
You can compare them but you have to do it right.
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It may "require" that instructively, but it can't/won't enforce it rigorously as it stands. And in fact NO ONE keeps both hands firmly on the wheel 100.0% of the time in ANY case. You can't perform a manual gearshift or turn the windshield wipers on without removing at least one hand from the wheel to do it.
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Allow me to introduce the most useful maths course you may ever use in real life: Statistics.
How many Teslas are there on the road?
How many GM / Ford / etc.?
How many of those Teslas are new or only a couple of years old?
How many of the GM / Ford / etc.
How many of those Teslas are used regularly for long-haul driving trips?
How many of the GM / Ford / etc.?
How many of those Teslas cost a fortune to repair and so are driven more carefully?
How many of the GM / Ford / etc.?
How many of the people who drive Tesla
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Again, not comparable if Tesla's have, say, a limited range and therefore aren't driving on long highways in anywhere near the same amount as ordinary-engined cars.
Or, say, there just aren't enough of them to form a statistically significant average over that amount of miles, where a small fluke of careful driving would reflect much "better" than a huge amount of older, cheaper cars which *CAN* form a statistically significant number over a million miles.
Statistics is hard. And horrible. And often complet
Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well firstly it doesn't require you to keep your hands on the wheel, but that is highly recommended. ... just like an aircraft autopilot. ... just like an aircraft autopilot. ... just like an aircraft autopilot.
Secondly it guides the car in a lane on a highway
Thirdly it requires a pilot in the cockpit
Fourthly it hands control back to a pilot in an unexpected or uncontrollable scenario
Finally it only gets you to the end of the highway and hands control back to the driver for final manoeuvring near the design
People are stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously I don't care how good a system is, you give up control of the car to any auto system where the operator now will do everything but pay attention, you're gonna get crashes. Even the few extra second lost to trying to recover to manual driving is enough to potentially get into an accident and win an award..
Tesla had better be careful (Score:2)
If there are more crashes and they change public opinion on safety of autonomous driving, then it could delay the adoption of autonomous automobiles for a decade or more.
The problem is the feature's *name* (Score:3, Insightful)
"autopilot" suggests hands-free, driverless.
This is exactly what it has meant in aviation for decades.
The feature would be better called "driver assist" or something--clearly indicating in the name itself that it absolutely does not *replace* the driver.
I don't care how many warning labels you attach to it and instruction manuals telling you not to let go of the wheel--if you call it *autopilot* people are going to think the feature is more than it is--and they *will* test it--as obviously has already happened.
When you called it an Autopilot --- (Score:3)
---- what did you think was going to happen?
I am not willing to let Musk off on this one. He is a promoter whose spell-binding sales pitch always promises more than he is able to deliver.
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---- what did you think was going to happen?
Exactly what did happen when you fail to RTFM.
I am not willing to let Musk off on this one. He is a promoter whose spell-binding sales pitch always promises more than he is able to deliver.
And I'm not willing to let humanity placate to fucking idiots. Sorry, but learn to RTFM, or become a Darwin Award winner. Plain and simple.
Re: When you called it an Autopilot --- (Score:3)
Well,a plane autopilot's only job is the boring "uneventful freeway" of the air, and the pilot has to take over in unexpected situations.
The normal phrase "I was on autopilot" is always used to describe subconscious activity that doesn't handle well the unexpected.
So yes, "autopilot" is exactly the right word for what tesla does today.
Once they start calling it "self driving", that'll be something different.
Strict liability? (Score:5, Informative)
They also said Autopilot "is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times."
Here's the problem with that. The folks at Tesla HAVE to know that at least some of the people who use the technology are going to take their hands off the wheel. If they don't then they are weapons grade stupid and that seems unlikely. IANAL but it may not matter that Tesla warned people to keep their hands on the wheel given that it is reasonably foreseeable that some portion of the drivers would ignore those instructions. After all, they called it Autopilot for crying out loud... If strict liability [wikipedia.org] is applied there is no need to prove fault, negligence, or intention. See Escola v Coca-Cola Bottling [wikipedia.org]. Now maybe strict liability doesn't apply here but the point remains that manufacturers tend to be responsible for reasonably foreseeable consequences of the features of their products. I have a feeling that the autopilot features may have been released prematurely regardless of the claims of Tesla to the contrary. I love that Tesla is pushing boundaries but they need to tread carefully when it comes to safety.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
A recent Ars Technica article [arstechnica.co.uk] covers some of the details of this:
Keep your hands off the wheel for too long (about 90 seconds) and the car will sound an alert tone and display a dialog on the centre console asking you to please grasp the wheel. If you ignore the warning, the car sounds another. If you ignore that one, the car will disengage the auto-cruise and auto-steer and slow to a stop (apparently on the assumption that you’re incapacitated, dead, or otherwise unable to grab the wheel).
So the system does actively nag the driver to put their hands on the wheel.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's what I think your argument is: It was negligent for Tesla to provide a feature that a reasonable person would foresee substantial misuse leading to death.
This kind of product liability in cars has had lots of cases to work through the elements in the past... see Jablonski v. Ford Motor Company as a recent case.
When the use and misuse of a product results in death, the burden of diligence is on both the manufacturer and the operator. If you try to make all products perfectly safe that's an impossible
something fishy (Score:2)
Teslas do not have a "self driving mode". They have a limited autopilot in no way meant to be a "self dirving mode". Are people making the mistake of acting it is supposed to do all the driving for them?
Lies stack up (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't recall seeing where AutoPilot drops out if both hands come off the wheel, Elon.
Pride goeth before the crash.
Why the shyness to look inward Tesla? (Score:3)
They also said Autopilot "is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times."
With outward sensors almost capable of highway driving (almost, but not quite), you'd think inward-facing sensors (that ensure the driver's attention is on the road) would be a piece of cake for Tesla.
But no. Instead, Telsa 'requires' something, and simultaneously makes it trivial to ignore that requirement. Tesla must enforcing inward looking sensors. With power comes accountability.
Unless, in some weird way, avoiding the 'look in' is a hallmark of Tesla's culture.
killers (Score:2)
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People didn't die and Tesla hasn't gotten access to the data from the vehicle, obvious Musk conspiracy.
Re:It's a conspiracy! (Score:5, Funny)
Conspiracies are the homeopathy of the paranoid delusional; the less evidence there is, the more true it must be!
=Smidge=
On the contrary (Score:3, Insightful)
Where it most definitely does not make sense is in passenger cars, where the moronic part of
Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla is hardly the only one to make jumped up cruise control for their cars, just the only one who have software updates which seems to get them to add more and more features. I mean normal car companies like BMW and well just about anything from Europe offer cruise control that has added features like distance following of the car in front (or at least auto breaking if you get to close during normal cruise) and things like the ability to park themselves. None of these is as high profile and it's pretty well always understood still that the driver is responsible for whatever happens. It also helps that these features are exclusive to the high end, typically luxury, offerings from the companies. I'm sure some of these have failed as well, but good luck finding stories and federal investigations about those.
Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, "autopilot" would imply that it performs a similar role to autopilot in aircraft. Which is to say, the plane is NOT fully autonomous and requires the driver (pilot) to stay alert and attentive.
Or that's what it should imply, a reasonable analogue to the proper usage of the terminology. But typical modern television and movies exaggerate this function to the point that the general public thinks that planes basically fly themselves. But this isn't true at all, it's mostly just a glorified cruise contro
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That only works if drivers have the same extensive training as pilots. And aren't allowed to drive in rainy or foggy conditions or at night without additional training. And aren't allowed to drive cars that have motors more powerful than 180hp unless they had an additional training. Oh, and aren't allowed to carry more than one passenger without further training. Almost forgot, also aren't allowed to drive on or near the same roads that professional drivers with more extensive licenses are allowed to use.
Re: On the contrary (Score:2)
One can argue that drivers need more extensive training, period, and autonomy is just a factor which has little to do with the length of training.
But drivers certainly don't need the "same" amount of training as aircraft pilots.
Re: On the contrary (Score:4, Insightful)
In an airplane if you keep a consistent speed and heading chances are you're not going to run into anything. Sure we have visual flight rules, but most pilots depend on ATC to keep them away from other aircraft. On the ground you can't see things coming. The things you typically have to worry about in the air are usually miles away which gives you plenty of time to react. It's just a much more predictable environment despite being more complicated. That's why airplanes have been landing themselves for decades.
4 lanes of traffic, no one else on the road and I still never see it coming when some idiot nearly merges into me. Then again I've seen someone cut in the landing pattern one time. ATC was pissed.
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"The truck probably didn't see the car either."
That seems to be an overlooked bit of this case. From all the accounts I've read, the truck driver was at fault for making a left turn into oncoming traffic. The truck driver made an illegal turn, then both the Tesla autopilot and the driver failed to avoid the danger. Blaming that on the autopilot seems a pretty big stretch.
Slashdot in particular seems to have this weird cognitive dissonance around AI in general, and automatic car features in particular: the
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Sorry, but no. "Automatic" does not mean "no manual intervention required". It means "working by itself with little or no direct human control". And that it does. The Tesla "autopilot" operates the vehicle by itself AS LONG AS it is capable of doing so. It does NOT mean that no manual intervention will be required under circumstances that are not within the execution parameters of the automation.
A soda filling machine is fully automated. Yet you will notice that there is a supervisor always on duty in case
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Nissan say they will launch a single lane self-driving mode this year. They haven't released too many details yet, but they are promising a full hands-off system that doesn't require you to jump in at a moment's notice.
It has to be a real auto-pilot, anything less and I wouldn't trust myself to use it.
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I was always certain that marketing will eventually cause our civilization to collapse.
Re: On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
But that "begs the question" (I know it doesn't using it to demonstrate my point)... who is everyone?
Language means whatever people THINK it means. What is "correct" is irrelevant, as "correct" is just a historical record of what the majority have previously decided. This can then be periodically updated and "correct" changes.
What does "stakeholder" mean
- someone with a vested interest (now)
- someone with no vested interest, a person who held the stakes while others duelled (original)
So it is not their fault at all, if someone uses a term which currently has multiple acceptable meanings (the current correct as defined by "everyone" vs the historical correct).
TLDR version - you are wrong. language has and always will mean whatever people think it means.
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Sorry, but no. It does NOT matter what "everyone" thinks something means. If they're too stupid or lazy to look it up, it's THEIR fault, not the one using the term correctly.
His point was dead on, and relevant to the discussion.
Nobody gets to decide the definition of a word as it suits them, and the definition of autopilot is most definitely going to come up in court proceedings as it relates to this case.
Re:On the contrary (Score:4, Funny)
offer cruise control that has added features like distance following of the car in front (or at least auto breaking if you get to close during normal cruise) and things like the ability to park themselves.
Can you switch these features off? It sounds like they're trying to destroy two important parts of New Mexican culture.
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Not really, but you can blindfold the camera.
Won't help much with radar and lidar and ultrasonics, but those mostly serve different purposes.
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The jail's going to be overcrowded with Italian drivers...
Despite the name it is not autopilot (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not auto-pilot or an autonomous car, it is just an advanced cruise control with a lane warning and brake assist system. Any driver that fails to stay focused while behind the wheel of a vehicle under any circumstances gets what they deserve and should be further prosecuted for negligent operation of a car.
Just because a route is predetermined does not mean that outside factors can be mitigated in any meaningful way. Jackasses cut off busses and cross over in front of light rail trains all the time.
Any system that can assist and warn a driver should be heralded not bashed when the failing component is almost certainly going to be the air-gap in the driver seat.
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"...and that the manufacturers should have known better than to put such half-baked systems in their vehicles in the first place..."
Mmmhmm. You should wait for the NTSB's report before declaring this half-baked. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if you were shorting Telsa stock.
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The article says that the Florida fatality driver was watching a video. ON the one hand, this is a Darwin award candiate.
On the other hand, seems to me this is something that can be improved upon. I would hope that the video wasn't on the console. If it was, obviously that should not be capable of showing videos whilst the car is in motion.
If the video was on a secondary device, perhaps a camera mounted on the ceiling near the driver's head could look for video devices, and refuse autopilot if so. It'd also
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Unsafe behaviour doesn't get more safe by disabling safety systems. People do stupid shit behind the wheel every day. If you want to monitor autopilot users, perhaps we should start with something that makes more sense in terms of accident rates by installing breathalyzers in all cars?
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A much simpler solution would simply be to put touch sensors in the steering wheel and refuse to engage autopilot if the steering wheel isn't being touched. It also avoids difficulties with say - passengers who are watching a movie (as opposed to the driver). Also throw in a large visual and audible alarmif you let go of the wheel for more than 3 seconds or such and keeps blaring until you take it again.
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An autopilot function makes sense in, say, a bus.
I've spent too much time driving around buses to think that's a good idea, or that bus drivers are smarter or better drivers than the rest of us. No, the penalty for failure is much higher with a bus, so that's double-extra the wrong vehicle to automate.
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I don't see any advantage to what you're suggesting. You have a driver there who's paid to drive. Let him drive, rather than building a system where he has to switch in an instant from passive supervisor to active driver. That instant won't be long enough.
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Except that buses have predefined routes, allowing the road and signposting quality to be better controlled, and perhaps even technology built into the road itself. And bus drivers are employees who could, if needed, be subjected to regular testing and training on the capabilities of their systems, and perhaps even subjected to real-time monitoring to ensure they're not abusing the system. Agree or not, but public transport is a much better-controlled environment for a system like this.
I still think buses are a terrible test-bed.
1) The risk way worse. Not only do you have potentially dozens of passengers at risk on board the bus. But the bus itself is massive and could cause a huge amount of damage to other vehicles and pedestrians.
2) The utility is nil, there's already a highly skilled full-time driver.
3) The environment is not more controlled, buses are much more complicated to operate, regularly pulling in and out of traffic and generally being massive and unwieldy. And even a regular
Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
Could not disagree more. Driving is the most dangerous activity we do on any given day and a large number of fatalities and injuries are caused by lapses of judgement which a computer is not capable of.
Tesla is a 16 year old boy who just got his first license. He's just gotten on the road for the first time. He's leaning. He'll make mistakes. When he's done however we should see a mature technology that is far better at driving than any fleshy meatbag currently powering 1.5ton death machines down the road.
Bring on more crashes, bring on continuous improvement, bring on the days where we no longer have accidents.
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But you have lots of avoidable fatalities now ! If the long-term result is to greatly reduce the fatalities that's a win - and it's not coming with any ethical quandaries as you suggest because guess what, if you don't go through the avoidable deaths maturing this technology you would STILL have been going through the avoidable deaths that are constantly associated with the CURRENT technology.
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Careful what you wish for. Because in such an environment where corporations have financial interest, the driver will be eliminated faster than in one where the person in the car has a vetted interest in the car not crashing due to self preservation reasons.
Re:On the Contrary (Score:2)
Where it most definitely does not make sense is in passenger cars, where the moronic part of our population (that is, most of it) will assume it to be far more capable than it really is, and who will choose simply to ignore the system once it is operating. In passenger cars, nothing less than a 100% reliable, full-time autopilot function is acceptable, and we're not even slightly close to that being a reality.
This. Like the first idiot, who circumvented the Tesla's inability to play movies while driving, (why do we even have video players in cars?), people will quickly get the notion that they don't have to pay attention. They will get bored sitting there with nothing to do. Shit, nowadays people can't concentrate on anything, and play with their phones even when they're supposed to be in control of their vehicles. And we're going to put people in a vehicle that can miss a 13'5" high, 70' long vehicle because th
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tldr; people are the problem, not the technology
fwiw; trains still have "drivers" and I think people are still at the cause of most train crashes
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Re:On the contrary (Score:5, Insightful)
In passenger cars, nothing less than a 100% reliable, full-time autopilot function is acceptable, and we're not even slightly close to that being a reality.
Why does it have to be 100%? Nothing in this domain is 100%. It just has to be more reliable than people on average. The failure modes may be different from those committed by people, but that's not relevant. Only the final accident statistics are relevant. With enough semi-autonomous vehicles on the highway, I think we'd see a reduction in traffic jam severity because there would be fewer people driving like jerks and trying to get ahead.
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That remains a bullshit comparison, same as day before yesterday.
Divided highway driving is about 1/4 as dangerous as all driving. So the comparative statistic to tesla's autopilot is about 1 in (92.6 * 4) million miles. Tesla has a long way to go.
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Re:Hoping (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's hoping that a few fools silly enough to trust their lives, and by extension others' lives, with something in beta doesn't mess up everything for autonomous vehicle research.
Here's hoping that companies have the ethics to not deceptively name their products as being more autonomous than they are. The term "autopilot" strongly suggests an automatic pilot, i.e., with little or no human intervention. Tesla created a media firestorm with their "Autopilot" feature, which very likely increased the number of deposits placed on the Model 3, bumping their bottom line. But the truth is that "Autopilot" is nothing at all like an autopilot. Tesla's branding, marketing and product information is misleading, deceptive, and already appears to have taken a life. I love technology, but I despise misleading claims, especially deadly ones.
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Well that depends on what you think an Autopilot actually is, doesn't it? An avionics autopilot pretty much flies in a straight line and warns you if it notices something it doesn't know how to deal with, with the assumption that you have at least one or two pilots at the helm at all times monitoring for more complex problems. The Tesla autopilot is far more competent that that.
On the other hand, in the air there's rarely any nearby obstructions, nor surprises other than turbulance, so the urgency of main
Drivers are not pilots (Score:2)
An avionics autopilot pretty much flies in a straight line and warns you if it notices something it doesn't know how to deal with, with the assumption that you have at least one or two pilots at the helm at all times monitoring for more complex problems.
This isn't an avionics system and the person behind the wheel is not trained with anywhere near the rigor that the FAA demands from pilots. Furthermore there is a LOT less risk of hitting anything while flying through the air. I think you are trying to make the point that calling this an autopilot system may confuse people into believing that the system is more capable than it actually is because they don't understand what autopilot actually means in a plane. If so then I agree.
The Tesla autopilot is far more competent that that.
The person behind the whee
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On the contrary, it does not matter at all how you or I interpret the meaning of "autopilot" to be. Until Tesla limits their sales to licensed aviation specialists, the only thing that matters is what a legal reasonable man thinks as determined by the courts. I am curious as to where this is going to go, but I have some considerations about Tesla convincing anyone of this interpretation of "autopilot" being a common one.
Is there still a steering wheel mounted in the car? Was it not printed in the manual as to the limitations of this technology, along with beta-tech-idiot warning lights that most likely come on when you engage this feature?
I'd say the reasonable answer is rather obvious. It's called RTFM.
Let's hope the courts aren't forced to side with Darwin (as in Awards).
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Here's hoping that a few fools silly enough to trust their lives, and by extension others' lives, with something in beta doesn't mess up everything for autonomous vehicle research.
Here's hoping that companies have the ethics to not deceptively name their products as being more autonomous than they are. The term "autopilot" strongly suggests an automatic pilot, i.e., with little or no human intervention. Tesla created a media firestorm with their "Autopilot" feature, which very likely increased the number of deposits placed on the Model 3, bumping their bottom line. But the truth is that "Autopilot" is nothing at all like an autopilot. Tesla's branding, marketing and product information is misleading, deceptive, and already appears to have taken a life. I love technology, but I despise misleading claims, especially deadly ones.
I have a label too; Darwin Award Winner, as I rather despise fucking idiots who can't read the manual. I'm fairly certain the flashing-lights-beta-mode warning signs were thought of well before putting this technology in the hands of the average moron with more money than brains.
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autopilot is an add-on (something like $5k) depending on whether or not your car already has the needed sensors. You don't HAVE to buy it. You can have a "normal" electric Tesla.
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So then buy a Tesla.
It's not like you need to use the functionality. Heck you need to jump through some serious hoops to use it.
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I'd trust a Tesla car in "autopilot" mode to not hit me on the road a lot more than I trust the cars under the control of most of the human drivers out there.
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Yes, which is why pilots have extensive training and planes costs millions of dollars. Neither is true of a tesla or tesla owners.
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Aaaaand.... where does the hydrogen come from?
Electrolysis?
Uhuh.