> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD.
This just isn't true, "Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control" is a feature of basic autopilot on Model 3s.
It differs based on when you purchased the car and package. I have “Advanced Autopilot” (which is no longer for sale in my market) that does not stop for stop signs or traffic lights.
Earlier this year they stopped selling Autopilot altogether in the US and Canada.
Too much variation to make a call on whether their version sips have been stopping under these conditions.
I don't know anything about this specific case but this exact thing will be a major barrier for autonomous vehicles to overcome. Instead of benchmarking AVs against the current, human-caused number of vehicular deaths - people will naturally benchmark AVs to 0 and treat every instance of death as a failure of AVs, even if the reality is that AVs end up 99% safer than human controlled vehicles.
Imho part of isuse here is that you cannot "partial AV" it.
You cannot have a car that will EVER need you to intervene or else it does not work because of awful human nature. The amount of tesla uber drivers ive had literally browsing tiktok, watching youtube UNTIL the car beeps that it is a green light detected, then they immediately hit the accelerator before looking up is ridiculous. You cannot have a half ass "autopilot" driving experience where you are expected to zone out and then be expected to take control within a millisecond during uncertainty. It does not help that FSD, AP, aAP, bAP, the model, whether the car is visual only all apply differently
As it should be. “Safer on average” is not a defense for failing something as basic as stopping at a stop sign. The bar for not running one and killing someone is not unreasonably high.
It should be a critical part of the evaluation. If you set the bar higher than “safer on average” then you’re going to delay the switch, and every month of delay will cost more lives. “Safer on average” is exactly when you should start using the new thing, even if it’s uncomfortable and even if it’s a low bar.
We do tend to impose them on individual drivers who make egregious and consequential failures, that’s the point. If every car running the same software is functionally the same ‘driver’ this class of failure absolutely should trigger a moratorium.
What percentage of road accidents involve broken down old cars, drugs and alcohol, irresponsible and risky behavior?
Because most of us don’t have that problem, and insurance stats suggest we’re a hell of a lot safer drivers than a hypothetical aggregate including stolen car joyrides by teens and 50 year old teetotalers in a well maintained, modern car.
> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD.
I don't understand this part. My understanding is the basic Autopilot is very similar to the what on other cars would be adaptive cruise control plus lane finding/lane keeping.
If so, isn't the expected behavior that if you do not manually intervene at stop lights and stop signs it will remain engaged and drive right on through?
Yes, that's what autopilot will do. Even though I knew that with my tesla, I thought it could be confusing because the visualization does show traffic lights and stop signs and other cars/pedestrians. So a driver might think that if the computer obviously knows about the stop sign, it would stop there.
I can't help but think we need a more extensive "Flight Data Recorder" sort of object for, at least, self-driving cars if not all of them. Event Data Recorder's are coming and mandated for 2021+ but I think they need to go further, IMO. Police in my area already do not bother responding, and insurance just does 50/50 unless theirs dash cams. Why not just make them integrated and mandatory along with other telemetry?
Tesla now has ~40 level 4 automated taxis in operation with no pedals or steering wheel. When these have an accident they can't blame a non-existent driver for mashing a non-existent accelerator pedal. And they are their own insurance company. A few fatalities in the Cybercab could squelch the whole rollout, even if the stats show it's safer than human drivers.
As a human driver with declining capabilities who will need level 4 autopilot before long to stay independent, I'm rooting for FSD.
If they hadn't scammed millions into paying for the FSD scam starting Oct 2016 (see their "Driver is just there for legal reasons" video) - then there would be no headlines for a driver assist system occasionally failing like this.
I teach Tesla FSD as a cautionary tale of malicious business practices, how to deploy robots in the least safe way possible, and an anti-example of how to be a good engineer. It should be a crime to have as little a grasp on engineering and to have as much input as Musk does.
It's because Musk fired his PR department. Tesla have no ability to damage control stories like this because it's no one's job at the company.
A normal firm would have a heads up warning when requests for comment hit their media inboxes and internally could start collecting data and developing a response: thanks to Elon they don't. The story hits first and goes completely unchallenged until investigators get involved.
Regardless of what you think of Tesla or Musk, they repeatedly kick own goals on basic product brand management.
Humans can go to prison [1], and depending on the state there are specific vehicular homicide laws or they are could be charged under normal homicide laws, specific statutes exist because vehicular laws can have higher punishment than typical negligence/reckless standards.
In California the charge can be anything from vehicular manslaughter to second degree murder, that means 15 years-to-life without parole, depending on other factors such prior(murder) convictions or if the victim is a peace officer and so forth.
In comparison self-driving systems do not have any punishment mechanism in the penal code. There is not even a well established liability standard, or ban/suspension threshold or any regulatory body equipped to audit a self driving system specifically [2]
[1] if found guilty - we may disagree on the mechanisms, effectiveness ,conviction rate and other details, nonetheless there is enforcement and there are going people in prison for this type of crime everyday.
[2] yes NTSB can do investigations but only for accidents (and give recommendations) and also has just 400 employees and $150M budget to cover everything from aviation to marine or pipeline and rail accidents.
I think, pragmatically, we have to accept that death is the outcome for us all, and trending towards fewer avoidable deaths and longer fuller lives is approximately the aim. Nonetheless deaths from a technology is inevitable.
I believe what you're trying to talk about are excess deaths when a technology is less capable than the incumbent? I'm not sure the stats, but I'd suspect FSD is already superior to the often distracted, sometimes drunk, phone in hand driver that is the norm today.
If chatgpt is to be trusted, Waymo and Tesla FSD are already massively safer than human drivers.
We do not generally hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement when driving. Only in cases of extreme recklessness is it normal for a driver to be 'held responsible'.
It is silly that we hold self driving cars to an astronomically higher standard. We all know they are safer than human drivers. And that is true even if they kill 50 people a day.
> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD.
This just isn't true, "Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control" is a feature of basic autopilot on Model 3s.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/2017_2023_model3/en_eu/GU...
It differs based on when you purchased the car and package. I have “Advanced Autopilot” (which is no longer for sale in my market) that does not stop for stop signs or traffic lights.
Earlier this year they stopped selling Autopilot altogether in the US and Canada.
Too much variation to make a call on whether their version sips have been stopping under these conditions.
I don't know anything about this specific case but this exact thing will be a major barrier for autonomous vehicles to overcome. Instead of benchmarking AVs against the current, human-caused number of vehicular deaths - people will naturally benchmark AVs to 0 and treat every instance of death as a failure of AVs, even if the reality is that AVs end up 99% safer than human controlled vehicles.
Imho part of isuse here is that you cannot "partial AV" it.
You cannot have a car that will EVER need you to intervene or else it does not work because of awful human nature. The amount of tesla uber drivers ive had literally browsing tiktok, watching youtube UNTIL the car beeps that it is a green light detected, then they immediately hit the accelerator before looking up is ridiculous. You cannot have a half ass "autopilot" driving experience where you are expected to zone out and then be expected to take control within a millisecond during uncertainty. It does not help that FSD, AP, aAP, bAP, the model, whether the car is visual only all apply differently
As it should be. “Safer on average” is not a defense for failing something as basic as stopping at a stop sign. The bar for not running one and killing someone is not unreasonably high.
It should be a critical part of the evaluation. If you set the bar higher than “safer on average” then you’re going to delay the switch, and every month of delay will cost more lives. “Safer on average” is exactly when you should start using the new thing, even if it’s uncomfortable and even if it’s a low bar.
I agree; that’s why I think we need a moratorium on human drivers while we figure this all out.
We do tend to impose them on individual drivers who make egregious and consequential failures, that’s the point. If every car running the same software is functionally the same ‘driver’ this class of failure absolutely should trigger a moratorium.
I think this is a fantastic distinction to make, and one I haven’t seen before.
This also solves the rising oil and gas prices issue as well!
Humans fail to stop at stop signs all the time. Their failure to stop kill people as well.
And we take away people's ability to drive when they kill people.
What percentage of road accidents involve broken down old cars, drugs and alcohol, irresponsible and risky behavior?
Because most of us don’t have that problem, and insurance stats suggest we’re a hell of a lot safer drivers than a hypothetical aggregate including stolen car joyrides by teens and 50 year old teetotalers in a well maintained, modern car.
This part is wild to me:
If true, how could the driver of the other car have been killed?And all 4 Tesla occupants were injured too. Something doesn't add up.
It's almost like, and hear me out, Tesla's internal diagnostics might have been manipulated.
No one outside Germany would ever do that ! /s
2-way stop and the other guy hit the Tesla at 40-60 no seatbelt?
That would track with the injuries in the Tesla as well.
Gotta come up with the energy somehow. If the Tesla doesn't have it the other car needs to.
possible if it accelerated after crashing
> Reading a stop sign and deciding whether to stop is a City-Streets function, and that’s FSD. Basic Autopilot is built as a highway lane-keeping system, and it does not respond to stop signs. So a driver-assist car verified engaged as it ran a stop sign was, most likely, running FSD.
I don't understand this part. My understanding is the basic Autopilot is very similar to the what on other cars would be adaptive cruise control plus lane finding/lane keeping.
If so, isn't the expected behavior that if you do not manually intervene at stop lights and stop signs it will remain engaged and drive right on through?
> most likely, running FSD.
"most likely running FSD" so was it running FSD or are we speculating?
Yes, that's what autopilot will do. Even though I knew that with my tesla, I thought it could be confusing because the visualization does show traffic lights and stop signs and other cars/pedestrians. So a driver might think that if the computer obviously knows about the stop sign, it would stop there.
I can't help but think we need a more extensive "Flight Data Recorder" sort of object for, at least, self-driving cars if not all of them. Event Data Recorder's are coming and mandated for 2021+ but I think they need to go further, IMO. Police in my area already do not bother responding, and insurance just does 50/50 unless theirs dash cams. Why not just make them integrated and mandatory along with other telemetry?
Tesla now has ~40 level 4 automated taxis in operation with no pedals or steering wheel. When these have an accident they can't blame a non-existent driver for mashing a non-existent accelerator pedal. And they are their own insurance company. A few fatalities in the Cybercab could squelch the whole rollout, even if the stats show it's safer than human drivers.
As a human driver with declining capabilities who will need level 4 autopilot before long to stay independent, I'm rooting for FSD.
If they hadn't scammed millions into paying for the FSD scam starting Oct 2016 (see their "Driver is just there for legal reasons" video) - then there would be no headlines for a driver assist system occasionally failing like this.
Scam or not, "Robot kills human" was always going to be news.
Will be talking about this in my robotics class. Here's my current indictment of FSD, hasn't been updated in a year but I'll add this one to the list:
2016 - Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/self-driving-tes...
2016 - Tesla working on Autopilot radar changes after crash - https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/07/16/tesla-auto...
2017 - NTSB Issues Final Report and Comments on Fatal Tesla Autopilot Crash - https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15339472/a-tesla-crash-bu...
2019 - Tesla didn’t fix an Autopilot problem for three years, and now another person is dead - https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629214/tesla-autopilot-...
2021 - Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilo...
2021 - Tesla announces transition to ‘Tesla Vision’ without radar, warns of limitations at first - https://electrek.co/2021/05/25/tesla-vision-without-radar-wa...
2022 - Former Head Of Tesla AI Explains Why They’ve Removed Sensors; Others Differ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2022/10/31/former...
2022 - Tesla Dropping Radar Was a Mistake, Here is Why - https://www.idtechex.com/en/research-article/tesla-dropping-...
2023 - Tesla reportedly saw an uptick in crashes and mistakes after Elon Musk removed radar from its cars - https://archive.is/mL7zy
2023 - Elon Musk Overruled Tesla Engineers Who Said Removing Radar Would Be Problematic: Report - https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overruled-tesla-...
2023 - How Elon Musk knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ off course - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/19/elon-mu...
2023 - The final 11 seconds of a fatal Tesla Autopilot crash - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/t...
I teach Tesla FSD as a cautionary tale of malicious business practices, how to deploy robots in the least safe way possible, and an anti-example of how to be a good engineer. It should be a crime to have as little a grasp on engineering and to have as much input as Musk does.
AI slop to the max, what a bad article.
Now on the issue itself: Why doesn't Tesla report the version and whether it was FSD or Autopilot?
Because for some reason Tesla is exempt from reporting specifics about their safety reporting. Can’t possibly imagine why…
It's because Musk fired his PR department. Tesla have no ability to damage control stories like this because it's no one's job at the company.
A normal firm would have a heads up warning when requests for comment hit their media inboxes and internally could start collecting data and developing a response: thanks to Elon they don't. The story hits first and goes completely unchallenged until investigators get involved.
Regardless of what you think of Tesla or Musk, they repeatedly kick own goals on basic product brand management.
Do you know how humans run stop lights and kill people, how does it compare?
Humans can go to prison [1], and depending on the state there are specific vehicular homicide laws or they are could be charged under normal homicide laws, specific statutes exist because vehicular laws can have higher punishment than typical negligence/reckless standards.
In California the charge can be anything from vehicular manslaughter to second degree murder, that means 15 years-to-life without parole, depending on other factors such prior(murder) convictions or if the victim is a peace officer and so forth.
In comparison self-driving systems do not have any punishment mechanism in the penal code. There is not even a well established liability standard, or ban/suspension threshold or any regulatory body equipped to audit a self driving system specifically [2]
[1] if found guilty - we may disagree on the mechanisms, effectiveness ,conviction rate and other details, nonetheless there is enforcement and there are going people in prison for this type of crime everyday.
[2] yes NTSB can do investigations but only for accidents (and give recommendations) and also has just 400 employees and $150M budget to cover everything from aviation to marine or pipeline and rail accidents.
You're right, we should ban cars.
Their point, presumably, was that we shouldnt be anti-tech but we have to compare the statistics.
Their point is whataboutism to somehow defend autonomous deaths as acceptable.
I think, pragmatically, we have to accept that death is the outcome for us all, and trending towards fewer avoidable deaths and longer fuller lives is approximately the aim. Nonetheless deaths from a technology is inevitable.
I believe what you're trying to talk about are excess deaths when a technology is less capable than the incumbent? I'm not sure the stats, but I'd suspect FSD is already superior to the often distracted, sometimes drunk, phone in hand driver that is the norm today.
If chatgpt is to be trusted, Waymo and Tesla FSD are already massively safer than human drivers.
At least we can hold them directly accountable by the law.
We hold the driver accountable.
We do not generally hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement when driving. Only in cases of extreme recklessness is it normal for a driver to be 'held responsible'.
It is silly that we hold self driving cars to an astronomically higher standard. We all know they are safer than human drivers. And that is true even if they kill 50 people a day.
The thing is it's a hypothetical 50 humans a day killed by the same driver.
Thanks for the input Elon.
Ah yes, we would never hold a driver accountable for running a stop sign and killing someone. It doesn't meet the bar for seriously reckless
Plenty of examples of this. In many jurisdictions even accidentally rolling through a stop sign does not even come close to 'serious recklessness'.
https://www.gulfcoastnewsnow.com/article/12-year-old-dead-af...
Yeah, but you asserted that we do not hold drivers responsible for slips in judgement.
We regularly hold drivers responsible for minor infractions that are otherwise consequence free.
what an assertion