Comment by spenvo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spenvo | Hacker News Reader

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> My hand being on the wheel at all times is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for verifying that I am paying attention and am ready to take over control.

Then you are not using the feature the way Tesla says you should, the only way Tesla says it's safe to be used.

> I am sick and tired of absolutist statements about risk.

Recklessly rolling out tech is screwing the industry-at-large, given the regulatory hurdles that must be overcome.

>> One death is too many.

You took this out of context. When Tesla makes no genuine, up-front attempt to educate users on how to use Auto-Pilot--yes, one death is too many.

Correctly-deployed autonomous driving stands to save thousands of lives annually; what's at risk is some overeager company @#!$ing the regulatory efforts by being irresponsible at scale.

You're ignoring the other half of the quoted sentence.

> a necessary nor a sufficient condition

As in, not only can you pay attention without having your hand on the wheel, but you can also have your hand on the wheel without paying attention. Having your hand on the wheel is "safety theatre"—something done because it makes you feel like you're in control, not something you do because it actually puts you in control.

Cars could do a lot of things to actually ensure the driver is in control. A start would be administering a breathalyzer-like automated attention test (dual-N-back?) before the car will start, and then every few hours of continuous operation after that. Tired drivers would be pulled over to the side of the road and told to take a nap and resume in the morning. (This would probably automatically cover drunk drivers as well, now that I think of it.)

Some models of Volkswagen now include driver fatigue detection, based on analysing steering inputs (and possibly other signals?). It just warns you to pull over, though.

> Then you are not using the feature the way Tesla says you should, the only way Tesla says it's safe to be used.

Sometimes public demand forces vendors to add disclaimers to their products despite the fact that everyone knows the disclaimer is a lie. Drug paraphernalia come to mind.

And then the vendor uses the same disclaimer to wash their hands of responsibility.

You can't have it both ways.

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