Elon Musk and Tesla ignored Autopilot's fatal flaws, judge says evidence shows
arstechnica.comPrevious discussion was flagged - Self driving cannot work with the existing insurance and civil systems in place. By definition it can't be the driver that is solely responsible if the vehicle has automated driving. You can argue the driver was negligent in not stopping in time, not paying enough attention, etc. However civil isn't a blame it all on 1 person situation. Blame is distributed, as are the costs. So perhaps the driver is 50% responsible while autopilot is 40% with the other driver at 10%.
Especially with a name like "autopilot" the system is ripe for litigation. We would need new laws that specially protect automated driving if we wish to continue it. I imagine some cities and states may do it, but not others.
Or here is a revolutionary idea: get the fuck off public roads with your beta poorly tested tech and come back wheb it's truly self driving and you accept full liability for whatever it does.
One issue: To get a "good enough" self driving system, it needs millions of miles of testing on public roads.
Seems like you are pointing out one obvious challenge to any company that wants to develope such technology.
Maybe it is my european upbringing, but this is not my problem, but the problem of said company. I don't see why they should be allowed to test on public streets.
You should care because it will save the average western family ~$5k/year and reduce the 1.5million fatal accidents and >10million serious injuries that result from car crashes worldwide.
Just the insurance savings alone could give up to $800 billion back to rate payers in the US.
And how would that fare against something like decent public transport?
Let me guess, cars are king that's why we should sacrifice our kids to their cold hard steel bodies. /s
No seriously. This saving money doesn't mean they should be allowed to cut corners. If you truly want self driving you should be behind not using public roads as experimental tracks (with all the fallout that could come from that).
The saving money comes from saving lives, not the other way around.
Public transport and car sharing are two sides of the same coin. They approach the same solution from two different avenues. Public transport does not address the "last mile" problem of getting to the bus stop. Solving this issue would require more stops and smaller busses with complex adaptable routes. This is cost prohibitive if you have to have drivers. Car sharing is expensive and inconvenient because cars often end up parked in places were they are not needed and parking itself is expensive. Self driving cars (which will naturally evolve to mini busses) solve all these problems. No parking, no making grandma, and expectant mothers walk a mile to the bus stop. Everyone gets a cheap chauffeur service. And massively reduced road fatalities.
You say this as if it were fact, when it's really speculation of a possible future. Not unfounded speculation, but speculation nonetheless.
In the meantime, in the here and now, these things are obviously hazardous and shouldn't be on the public roads. Even if they would lead to a better future, no company has the right to endanger unconsenting others now to accomplish it.
If they are shown to be endangering people you have a point. If some drunk asshole plows into someone on autopilot I don't put that on Tesla.
No one even bats an eye when this happens on cruise control, and no the name autopilot doesn't make people think it's okay to be inattentive while driving. I have a Tesla and the number of nags warnings beeps admonishments you get is more than enough to let you know to pay attention.
>If some drunk asshole plows into someone on autopilot I don't put that on Tesla.
Is that what happened here? No
Some guy drove into the side of a truck. Tesla is highly aware that the system is not perfect, that's why it nags you, beeps and flashes at you, kicks you off autopilot for repeatedly ignoring warnings AND makes you acknowledge that if you use it you are completely liable for any crashes.
If I drove into the side of a truck I would not blame my car.
You could easily extend the line of thinking in this article to all cars. All companies are aware their designs are flawed, but they let people use their cars anyway.
He didn't drive into the truck, Autopilot did.
> AND makes you acknowledge that if you use it you are completely liable for any crashes
This is just Tesla's deficient legal wrangling - it's certainly not a good point for you to stand on. Tesla is a product manufacturer and cannot waive away their liability for selling a defective product, nor gross negligence.
Nah. It's either autopilot or ot's not. You cannoy take the credit when it works and blame the driver when it fails. That's not how life works and how self driving cars should work. It's not self-driving and the stupid deceptive marketing makes it hard for legit tech to actually get adopted.
If a drunk asshole plows into someone, the drunk asshole is responsible. Period.
If a "self-driving" car plows into someone who is responsible?
I'm not sure that's true. Even if the cops show up and give someone a DUI, I'd imagine civil courts would still do a proximate cause analysis in a negligence case.
>If a "self-driving" car plows into someone who is responsible?
If the car was driving itself, then I'd think the manufacturer of the self-driving feature would be. I still think there would be a proximate cause analysis in this situation too.
>You should care because it will save the average western family ~$5k/year and reduce the 1.5million fatal accidents and >10million serious injuries that result from car crashes worldwide.
When? What's the social cost to affording these companies public spaces to test their products?
Drivers are testing the product. I use FSD all the time. It's my choice.
If think that's making you unsafe too bad for you. I think it's vastly more unsafe to share the road with a million half blind geriatrics but nobody suing the AARP.
You are sharing the road. So if your car does something stupid that gets me killed you cannot claim that "hey bro, i'm just testing it". Also, I am not sure that you are qualified to test a car and not sure that legally you are allowed to test things on public roads.
I accept all liability and my insurance is happy to accept my payments. If I don't pay attention and kill you it's my fault. Just like if I drink and drive.
Does your insurer actually know you aren't driving your car?
> I think it's vastly more unsafe to share the road with a million half blind geriatrics but nobody suing the AARP
You seem to be either incredibly confused, or just making a bad-faith analogy.
Self driving barely works in the US as it is. Go to a country where there are billions of people and shoddy infrastructure. Those places will take even longer to get self driving cars. And as it is now, those places are overcrowded with vehicles, and many of them have the majority of people on scooters and motorbikes. If all those people end up in cars, it'll be the end of those places, as congestion will be completely unbearable. There just isn't room for more cars in most places around the world. So I'm not sure how self driving cars will end all accidents world wide, other than clogging the roads up so badly, that nobody will want to go anywhere.
So? Either accept liability and/or be way more conservative when making decisions or you don't belong on the PUBLIC roads. They are literally gambling with people's lives.
Waymo seems to be progressing much faster and at much lower risk to the public.
Tesla's approach specifically is just hubris/greed with the commons footing the bill.
It's almost like they actually are thinking about safety.
Tesla could buy land, develop it with roads, and build a fleet for testing. They can get to multiple 9's of reliability before the need for public testing, over the course of a few years and tens of thousands of testing hours. Obviously, that would have a worse effect on the bottom line versus charging customers $10-15k for the "privilege" of being beta testers.
Or they could test it like Waymo is. I don’t ever see complaints about them on HN and it’s my understanding (but to lazy to verify right now) that they have one of the strongest track records on safety. Then again it shouldn’t take much to beat the safety of releasing it while lying about its capabilities and turning it loose on an unsuspecting public.
Waymo's tech is way better and they do think about safety vs Melon where everyone seems to be a gimmick geared towards drawing attention.
If that's actually true and there's not another way, then tough. They shouldn't be on the roads.
Most states already use a comparative negligence system exactly like you describe: https://usaccidentlawyer.com/blog/comparative-negligence-for...
Musk can't even get "autopilot" to work in a closed system like his "Vegas Loop". Why would anyone expect it to work anywhere else?
and that's just the beginning. Heavy rain, snow, fog. There are tons corner cases and yet they couldn't have something working in a continuous loop
If it's your car and you turn on the autopilot button why shouldn't you be responsible?
Because you have been given the marketing material that it is safe.
Now let's continue this thought. Which company, do you think will produce the safer vehicles: The one liable for the faults of it's technology or the one not liable?
Now maybe the interesting question is why so many people shill (against their own interest) for the company known for the least responsible way of dealing with the matter.
Because you don't control what the autopilot system does. Tesla does, and as the manufacturer of the product, is the party in place to minimize the risks it creates. Most especially in this sort of context where they have prior warnings as to the product's failings, and neglect to provide warnings or to fix the problem.
Of course you have control, you can not turn it on and drive safely like everyone else.
If someone sold you some kind of funky DIY autopilot system on ebay that turned the wheel for you and you decided to put it in your car and go in traffic, are you not responsible just because the seller assured you it's safe?
"In Europe, side and rear underrun protection are mandated on all lorries and trailers with a gross weight of 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb) or more"
I wonder why it's still not a thing in the US
In US, rear underrun has been required for longer than I knew about these things. Considering miles travelled and risk and limited funds, side underrun funds are better spent on other safety items.
More earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38418282
It's interesting the earlier post is flagged. This one sits in page 2 after receiving close to 30 votes in under an hour. Normally, this would be near the top of HN. Either the ranking algorithm works in even more mysterious ways or Tesla posts are flagged heavily.
>Tesla posts are flagged heavily
A lot of people, like a friend of mine, have put their entire life savings in tesla stock when was rocketing to the moon during covid, because they were bored of crypto and were worshiping Elon. They have the most to loose from this stuff, so my friend spends the morning bus ride to work arguing on Twitter and other social media with people why tesla is the best and any any evidence otherwise is fake news or tesla shorts trying to manipulate the stock. Poor guy.
It could be that such an army exists on HN as well that abuses the flag button to protect the image of the company and their investment. Just a hypothesis.
I'd be curious if dang has some analytics on this.
This isn't the first time I've seen this either. It's definitely a pattern: new post generates a lot of discussion in a short time, but then disappears from the front pages.
I hope dang can analyze past posts to see if manipulation is happening.
There’s one for Matt Levine; is it securities fraud to manipulate coverage of stock you own by mass-flagging on an obscure website?
30 votes is nothing. It'll be a blip. Not to mention having already been discussed / news from days ago. Nothing shady about it.
~30 votes in the first hour definitely gets you to the front page. It's not nothing.
Yeah, but not for a long time. And if there's flagging (for whatever reason), and ppl just not interested because it's a dupe/old, not going to last long. It'll get a bit of time, that's all.