I always get baited by Electrek headlines and then remember it's some of the most blatant examples of AI writing. They don't even pretend to write it themselves.
Oh good. I may be put at unnecessary risk because people have higher standards for automation, but at least the guy who killed me will go to jail, maybe.
But they don't. Thousands of people are being killed at intersections, yet unless there is some proven intent, it's extremely rare to go to jail.
Maybe this might be valid if this was a realistic thing and every bad driver who pulls out of a side street and kills someone suffers serious consequences, but they don't and it's not.
self driving is safer than human driving, why should we apply urgent attention to AI driver safety. Human drivers are killing hundreds of people daily.
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.
> 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.
My 2024 Model Y has "Autopilot" mode that does not stop for stop signs. It just keeps the car in the lane and maintains distance from the car in front.
The article is pretty clickbait-y, acknowledging it is unknown whether or not the car was using FSD or Autopilot, and then going on to speculate it probably was FSD, and then again saying "That's not a certainty".
>Because Tesla redacted the software version, we can’t say for certain whether this was basic Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving.”
I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information.
I've had a pretty wild ride from being hit at probably less than that speed.
I'm sure you've seen video of the police performing a PIT maneuver. That's basically what happened to me--tapped by a car starting from a stop sign. They got a scrape, I got totaled. And, yes, it works as advertised--totally confusing, my foot somehow found the brake but I have no recall of doing so.
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?
Or better yet, non-integrated and mandatory, and only accessible with the owner's consent or a court order, connected to the rest of the car's electronics through a strictly one-way pipe.
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.
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.
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
Another huge problem is that error rate it not error shape. We have an enormous body of knowledge and process for guessing what might cause problems for human drivers, how to deter the problems, and how to mitigate the damage.
For example, you'll have a pretty good idea how our fellow humans will react to rumble-strips if I describe them or play a recording. I don't need to consult a datasheet or design an AI test suite with a zillion simulations and a bunch of closed-course tests.
Safer than the highest level numbers isn't really a win though for autonomous driving. All human caused deaths includes drunk drivers, inexperienced drivers, and elderly drivers. An autonomous system should never be any of those things, so comparing them against is disingenuous at best and outright manipulative at worst.
That's extremely silly. drunk, inexperienced, and elderly drivers are all human drivers. You can't just exclude them from your baseline because they are not in perfect driving form.
Let's also exclude young drivers, stupid drivers, distracted drivers, drivers who never took driver's education classes, short drivers, barefoot drivers, glasses-wearing drivers, and one handed drivers.
The insane variation of human drivers is exactly why AVs should ultimately bring vehicular deaths down.
You absolutely can and should exclude the known bad drivers from the stats because they are essentially outliers. If you don't, it's very possible that widespread adoption of AVs actually makes the average driver more dangerous.
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.
You can disagree, and I do too, but it is the basis of an interesting discussion.
Personally I think that fully autonomous vehicles need to be at minimum 100x safer than humans in order to maintain a social license to operate. I’m not saying the law needs to codify that. I’m saying that society couldn’t accept a system which was merely 10x safer than humans. Imagine if every vehicle in NA was a robotaxi and road deaths dropped to 500 per year. That’s an article every day about a “Tesla murder”.
Supervised systems do not need to be. But here’s an idea: if you want to use supervised FSD, that’s fine, but every collision gets automatically uploaded to a repository that is searchable by law enforcement and insurance companies.
> 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.
As an avid fsd user, your list makes me more comfortable using fsd than not. If there were more you’d parrot it around, but in the end, fsd is safer than humans at the wheel. As much as you dislike it because of Musk, fsd will continue to march forward and improve and millions will use it. You are beta testing fsd even if you don’t want to be.
> You are beta testing fsd even if you don’t want to be.
Exactly, that's precisely the wrong way to do ethical, responsible engineering. It's one thing to put your own life in the hands of a beta test, but it's another to put all of our lives at risk without our consent. Such ego.
Distinguish a beta test from a learner driver or first year licensed driver. Why should I share the road with anyone who isn’t an experienced and competent driver?
Consent. We've consented to people learning to drive. Everyone is aware of those risks and they act accordingly. Often, to make other drivers aware of the driver's learning status, it's customary to affix a sticker to the car.
On the other hand, the public generally is not aware that these FSD machines are operating without critical safety equipment, and if they knew and were properly informed I'm not sure they would agree to be part of the test. I think Elon Musk knows that as well which is why he hasn't bothered to ask.
Moreover, I'm shocked and horrified by the number of people going around "beta testing" new versions of FSD. You'll see someone go to an area where a previous FSD version is known to fail just to see if the new one works. How is that a good idea at all? The last time you were here the car lurched into oncoming traffic unexpectedly and went down a one way, so let's see if it does it again, fingers crossed?
How the hell is Tesla (or any other car co) allowed to redact fields in a safety report as “confidential business information"? and how the hell are they still allowed to call this "FULL SELF DRIVING"
Fred Lambert is very biased against Tesla to the point of forsaking journalistic integrity. I fact checked a few of his articles and found a number of omissions that benefit his narrative.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 4.5 ms ] threadCan we make it a new thing, that we guess the model, instead of just calling it slop? I'm betting... Claude.
100% Claude
Now on the issue itself: Why doesn't Tesla report the version and whether it was FSD or Autopilot?
Maybe this might be valid if this was a realistic thing and every bad driver who pulls out of a side street and kills someone suffers serious consequences, but they don't and it's not.
Only if you intentionally drive recklessly, for example speeding and racing, is it easy to charge a driver for manslaughter.
As a human driver with declining capabilities who will need level 4 autopilot before long to stay independent, I'm rooting for 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...
The article is pretty clickbait-y, acknowledging it is unknown whether or not the car was using FSD or Autopilot, and then going on to speculate it probably was FSD, and then again saying "That's not a certainty".
>Because Tesla redacted the software version, we can’t say for certain whether this was basic Autopilot or “Full Self-Driving.”
I would like to know why Tesla (or any automaker) is allowed to redact this information.
That's an easy one, donate enough money to elected officials who would be the only ones that could prevent this from happening :)
I'm sure you've seen video of the police performing a PIT maneuver. That's basically what happened to me--tapped by a car starting from a stop sign. They got a scrape, I got totaled. And, yes, it works as advertised--totally confusing, my foot somehow found the brake but I have no recall of doing so.
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.
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
For example, you'll have a pretty good idea how our fellow humans will react to rumble-strips if I describe them or play a recording. I don't need to consult a datasheet or design an AI test suite with a zillion simulations and a bunch of closed-course tests.
Traffic engineers have been doing this for decades though?
Let's also exclude young drivers, stupid drivers, distracted drivers, drivers who never took driver's education classes, short drivers, barefoot drivers, glasses-wearing drivers, and one handed drivers.
The insane variation of human drivers is exactly why AVs should ultimately bring vehicular deaths down.
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.
Personally I think that fully autonomous vehicles need to be at minimum 100x safer than humans in order to maintain a social license to operate. I’m not saying the law needs to codify that. I’m saying that society couldn’t accept a system which was merely 10x safer than humans. Imagine if every vehicle in NA was a robotaxi and road deaths dropped to 500 per year. That’s an article every day about a “Tesla murder”.
Supervised systems do not need to be. But here’s an idea: if you want to use supervised FSD, that’s fine, but every collision gets automatically uploaded to a repository that is searchable by law enforcement and insurance companies.
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?
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.washingtonp...
Exactly, that's precisely the wrong way to do ethical, responsible engineering. It's one thing to put your own life in the hands of a beta test, but it's another to put all of our lives at risk without our consent. Such ego.
On the other hand, the public generally is not aware that these FSD machines are operating without critical safety equipment, and if they knew and were properly informed I'm not sure they would agree to be part of the test. I think Elon Musk knows that as well which is why he hasn't bothered to ask.
Moreover, I'm shocked and horrified by the number of people going around "beta testing" new versions of FSD. You'll see someone go to an area where a previous FSD version is known to fail just to see if the new one works. How is that a good idea at all? The last time you were here the car lurched into oncoming traffic unexpectedly and went down a one way, so let's see if it does it again, fingers crossed?
Utter recklessness, far worse than a 16 year old.
Also can you please check whether articles about Tesla with FSD or Autopilot tend to get flagged a lot? It seems so to me but I can't tell for sure.