Meanwhile, Tesla is busy putting out press releases saying "We believe the driver was inattentive, and the car was warning him to put his hands on the wheel."
I am utterly, completely lacking in surprise that they didn't provide the relevant context, "... fifteen minutes prior."
This just looks... really bad for Tesla. It's more important to them to protect their poor software than drivers.
It is a car company. Their products directly kill over a million people every year. The injure 10x as many. Their pollution causes a similar number of deaths. They are responsible for so many horrible side effects, including dangerous city and suburbs to people taking up more and more space.
Yes, cars kill, injure, and create disease, but they also connect people across the world, to relatives, to work, to buy and deliver goods and services.
Without cars, our level of productivity would be a fraction of what it is today as employment is confined to a tiny geography. Many more people would die from fires, disease, and crime as emergency services arrive on horse drawn carriage. Most people would never venture out of their hometowns.
Car companies, for all their faults, for all their fraud and corruption, create products that immeasurably benefit us every day. Before we call them evil, we must look at the impact they have on each of us. That impact is decidedly positive, as evidenced by the widespread ownership of cars.
No, it is not the crash that makes the evil. It is how they handle it. And how they put blatantly misleading marketing out there, along with poorly researched features that may or may not have lead to overconfidence from the drivers along with half baked tech, that resulted in crashes such as these.
There haven't even been five deaths yet in the entire history of Tesla autopilot car accidents, but there are more than three thousand deaths a day due to car accidents. Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day. Their marketing reflects this. So does their communication on the topic. I know it can sound offensive when they say that a driver died without his hands on the wheel in the six seconds leading up to the crash, but their communication is reflective of a desire to preserve life. So I wouldn't call it evil, let alone call it blatantly evil.
Stepping back further, away from this accident, Tesla is also a leading player in moving away from destroying our planet. By that I mean they are pushing renewable energy. Again, not something I would call evil, let alone blatantly evil.
* every update to the software makes the record irrelevant, because one is no longer driving the same car which set the previous record. Lane centering for instance was introduced in an OTA update and it likely contributed to this accident.
* most of the safe miles driven by Teslas are not with autopilot on. The NTSB explicitly said they did not test autopilot.
* finally, some HN users did the math and it turns out that humans have overall a better safety record than autopilot Teslas.
To me it looks like Tesla's communication is only reflective of covering their asses. From blaming that journalist to the latest accident.
I agree that there are aspects of the Tesla safety record which have caveats, but even when I take those caveats into account, I still come out thinking of the Tesla as being relatively safe. The same feature which adds danger at every update is one that also has the potential to add safety at every update. Eventually for example, that same update feature is expected to bring the car to the point of being superhuman in its ability to drive safely. The inability to rely on the autopilot means that I'm still responsible for my own safety, so the autopilot safety isn't as important as the car's safety in general.
I disagree that their communication is only reflective of them covering their ass. I feel their is the expectation that self-driving is going to prevent more deaths than it causes. Especially as the technology improves, but even to an extent now if only through the virtue of it not being a system people should be using without being ready to intervene.
Don't get me wrong here, you raise good points. I just don't think it's a case of blatant evil.
Also, if you have the link to the math, I'd love to read it.
An ad hominess attack doesn't not trump evidence. My claim is true. The above article talks about an example of an update which improved the safety of the vehicle.
Dude, that is not an attack. Only if you have written software, you ll be aware of how seemingly innocent changes can break it in unexpected ways...And your "proof" article does not change anything...
You question my credentials, while quoting one of my premises. This is, implicitly, an ad hominem argument against the premise you quoted.
In addition to that, you're arguing against a strawman. I never disagreed that there was potential for the safety to be negatively impacted with every update. In fact, I explicitly agreed with this claim.
>I never disagreed that there was potential for the safety to be negatively impacted with every update...
The point you are missing is that while update might be slightly enhance safety, the negative, unpredictable impact might be catastrophic. because one is planned and other one is not.
No, the point you're pretending I'm missing is that there is this potential. You quoted text in which I explicitly acknowledge the danger of updates. Read it. Also, read further down where I explicitly ask that I not be taken the wrong way, because good points were made.
My acknowledgement only make sense if I agree that there is some level of danger in each update. That is why you're addressing a straw man.
Or maybe you're being uncharitable with me, because as you put it in our other thread you find the things I've said "stupid". So you are just guessing that I hold the stupidest possible belief you can ascribe me, even when I tell you otherwise.
>No, the point you're pretending I'm missing is that there is this potential
No. You are not missing the potential. But you do not seem to get difference in magnitude. One is incremental, reviewed safety enhancement, Other is unpredictably catastrophic.
You only seem to grasp very superficial aspects of my comments, which is why I requested to give some thought before responding. So I think there is some kind of barrier. But it is not of language. but for lack of a better word, I think it is of a lack of enough shared sensibilities..
You're projecting that the projected future upside isn't superhuman. My comment projects that it is. We disagree on projected benefits.
Right now human driving is one of the leading causes of death. I believe that technology can eventually eliminate this as a leading cause of death. So I project a much greater potential upside. I also figure this is a matter of time and effort applied to the problem. Or in other words, there is a finite amount of time before an update brings the car to this point. This puts a ceiling on my mental tabulation of the amount of risk endured prior to achieving an extremely good end. So despite the severe risks, the limited nature of that risk allows me to rule in favor of taking the risk despite its presence.
You're assuming that I haven't pictured a sweeping update which adds the car murdering anyone who was unaware. I have! Your assumption is incorrect.
And if I was being superficial, I would have answered that yes, I'm a software developer. But its a fallacious appeal to authority.
Your first point is absolutely misleading.
You can apply the same logic to the other cars saying that they are all different because of the different tyres, the different conditions of the tyres, of the brakes, the different degree of care and so on.
You can’t just say that they are not the same cars because of the different variables.
>Tesla's safety record actually is such that if scaled up, their would be a massive drop in the number of deaths per day...
There is not enough data to do this "scaling up". So doing so would be incredibly misleading (But doesn't stop tesla's PR from doing the same).
>Tesla is also a leading player in moving away from destroying our planet.
The actions of this company and the persons behind this somehow does not feel compatible with such a goal. I am sorry. I am just not buying it. It is more probable that this "saving the planet" narrative is something that is meant to differentiate from the competition and to attract investors. Do you think Elon Musk could have created a company that builds ICE cars and emerged as a major player? It is "save the planet" for tesla and "save humanity by going to mars" for spacex..
> There is not enough data to do this "scaling up". So doing so would be incredibly misleading (But doesn't stop tesla's PR from doing the same).
There are tens of thousands of Tesla vehicles on the road, many of which have been driven for years. However, the strength of Tesla vehicles safety doesn't rest on Tesla vehicles alone. Tesla vehicles are a class of vehicle which implement driver assistance technologies. There are many other cars that do this. Independent analysis of these cars in aggregate have shown them to reduce car accident frequency and severity.
> The actions of this company and the persons behind this somehow does not feel compatible with such a goal. I am sorry. I am just not buying it. It is more probable that this "saving the planet" narrative is something that is meant to differentiate from the competition and to attract investors.
Tesla is a leader in the renewable energy sector. There is a need for renewable energy as a consequence of climate change. Being a leading player in renewable energy means being a leading player in combating climate change. So Tesla is a leader in combating climate change. Combating climate change is an effort to save the planet. So Tesla is a leading player in the effort toward saving the planet.
At no point in the chain of logic is it necessary to call upon the motivations of Elon Musk. If someone were kill another person, the motivation for doing that deed would not change whether or not they did in fact kill someone. In the same manner, the fact that Tesla is helping to solve the problem of climate change is a fact irregardless of the motivation of its founder.
To be clear, by misleading marketing, I meant things like the "autopilot" feature. And claiming that they have "full self driving hardware". I am not sure how the safety of vehicles with assistive tech is relevant. I am not at all disagreeing on that aspect. You were saying that fact that vehicles with assistive tech are safer is reflected in tesla's marketing and PR. I am still not sure how that could be the case. How does it justify calling a half baked self driving tech as autopilot and selling them to unsuspecting people?
>At no point in the chain of logic is it necessary to call upon the motivations of Elon Musk.
We are interested in their motivation because we are thinking long term. When you are need of a million bucks, and a person shows up with a million bucks that they are willing to give you, without asking for payback, will you accept it right away? Or will you try to infer the true motivation behind the act, that may turn out to be sinister? This is irrespective of the fact that the other person is giving you real money, that can help you right now. Will you think like, we don't need to worry about their motivations as long as we are getting real money. Will you?
> I am not sure how the safety of vehicles with assistive tech is relevant. I am not at all disagreeing on that aspect. You were saying that fact that vehicles with assistive tech are safer is reflected in tesla's marketing and PR. I am still not sure how that could be the case. How does it justify calling a half baked self driving tech as autopilot and selling them to unsuspecting people?
I brought up driver assistance technology as a way to continue discussing safety statistics. If you recall, I claimed autopilot was safer and you ruled this out on the basis of not enough information. Now you are saying that you don't feel the broader class is relevant to the discussion. So we return to the point where there is not enough information to make statistical claim about safety. As a consequence of returning to this point, your own claim about the system being half baked is without merit. Its a claim about the performance of the system which you have claimed we can not characterize with the currently available statistics.
> We are interested in their motivation because we are thinking long term.
The thing I'm ultimately arguing against is the idea that Tesla is as you put it blatantly evil. Blatant means to be open and unashamed, completely lacking in subtlety and very obvious. The things Tesla is doing with regard to the environment are blatantly good. They say they are doing it because of care for the environment and their actions reflect that. If we think long-term, their actions are part of what allows the long term to exist in the first place. They are not just lacking in shame for that, they are proud of it. Brag about it. Exult in it. It is blatant that they care about the environment.
In your post you're saying that you speculate that their motivations might not be what they have claimed. This contradicts the idea of blatant evil. Blatant evil is obvious, lacking in shame, lacking in subtlety. The hiding of something is the definition of subtlety. The need to hide is reflective of a shame.
> Its a claim about the performance of the system which you have claimed we can not characterize with the currently available statistics.
I claimed the feature they call "Autopilot" is unsafe because it has only limited capability (as per Tesla's documentation). But the naming of the feature and its marketing inspires false confidence in the drivers, leading to accidents. This is a very simple fact, and it should have been apparent to people a Tesla, and the fact that they went ahead and did this kind of marketing makes them "blatantly evil" in my books. Because, as you said, it is open and they are unashamed about it. Other safety features that are widely available in similar cars from other companies is irrelavant here. I am not even sure why you dragged it into this.
>If we think long-term, their actions are part of what allows the long term to exist in the first place.
What kind of circular logic is that? If they are not really interested (their real motivation) in the "long term", then their actions cease to be part of "what allows long term to exist".
> I claimed the feature they call "Autopilot" is unsafe because it has only limited capability (as per Tesla's documentation).
In citing their documentation, you acknowledge that there communication is enough to deduce the limits of their technology. In claiming that there is not enough data to make declarations about safety, you disavow the validity of your own proclamation of (a lack of) safety. In doing so, you've refuted many of the premises of your own argument.
> But the naming of the feature and its marketing inspires false confidence in the drivers, leading to accidents.
How is this different from any other name? Every word concept pair starts out without the word and the concept linked together. For example, the name given to our species is 'homo sapien' which means roughly 'wise human being'. But humans aren't always wise. So why isn't the person who coined the term 'homo sapien' blatantly evil for coining the term?
> If they are not really interested in the "long term", then their actions cease to be part of "what allows [the] long term to exist".
Maybe we're talking past each other but this is... an absurd idea. And wrong. So very wrong.
If someone wakes up in the morning and they say they got up because they wanted to see the face of their loved one, but really they got up because they wanted to pee, they still got up out of bed. The existence of imperfectly stated motivations doesn't cause a cessation of causal history.
> there communication is enough to deduce the limits of their technology..
Not deducing. By what they explicitly state in the manual. About the "need to keep hands on the wheel always". So again. I am not "deducing" it.
>So why isn't the person who coined the term 'homo sapien' blatantly evil for coining the term?
I don't know. Was the person who coined the the term trying to sell human beings as being wise? Are people suffering because of this word? What is your goddamn point?
Tesla is evil because they use lies to SELL. use lies and project a false image to get INVESTMENT. Please keep this in mind when coming up with further examples.
>The existence of imperfectly stated motivations doesn't cause a cessation of causal history.
Ha. Now you are talking about "history" that does not exist yet. Are you really this misguided or just faking it?
You clearly don't know what deduce means. You've also clearly haven't understood anything I've said during this entire conversation. Or even much of what you've said, since you don't seem to realize you've refuted your own points.
> Tesla is evil because they use lies to SELL. use lies and project a false image to get INVESTMENT. Please keep this in mind when coming up with further examples.
You've utterly failed to establish that they are lying.
> Are you really this misguided or just faking it?
Tesla already has an established history. Therefore, it is not necessary to speculate about future history.
>You've also clearly haven't understood anything I've said during this entire conversation.
Oh I understood you just fine. I just find it stupid.
>You've utterly failed to establish that they are lying.
That is because you are overly generous with assumptions to justify their claims, which is typical of people who are apologetic of fraudulent entities such as Musk
>Tesla already has an established history...
But they haven't save the planet yet. Please give some thought about what you are writing before responding.
> That is because you are overly generous with assumptions to justify their claims, which is typical of people who are apologetic of fraudulent entities such as Musk.
No, I actually conceded. I gave up the generous assumptions on safety, backed by data, because you claimed we couldn't generalize from that data and I agree that doing such a generalization would be in some ways misleading.
This is what I mean by a lack of understanding on your part. Even in the post where you are telling me that you understood me just fine, but find my ideas to be stupid, you don't actually address what I'm saying.
As a consequence, I'm not going to continue this conversation. Have a nice day.
I am utterly, completely lacking in surprise that they didn't provide the relevant context, "... fifteen minutes prior."
This just looks... really bad for Tesla. It's more important to them to protect their poor software than drivers.