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Comment by ArkyBeagle | Hacker News Reader

It's quite strange to view how ... flexible the requirements-level changes are. As someone steeped in safety and human life critical software development, this seems very odd.

This is especially true of "Interface alerts are much more prominent, including flashing white border on instrument panel." This has been a huge thing in aviation automation for like ... forever.

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The speed with which these changes are rolled out, especially considering the scale of the changes, is also … impressive while under design controls.

If they are doing this in the sort of controlled fashion I'd consider necessary, then this needs to be considered a public good and studied well.

Completely agree---it could also make for a very lucrative consulting business.

I'm keeping my tone positive, but behind it is skepticism that they've solved this problem - because it's an extremely profound problem and it's resisted solution for as long as there have been humans building dangerous things.

We are on the same page I think, the skepticism is shared: I'm in medical and not automotive, but much of our PLM process is shaped by what was learned in the automotive and aerospace worlds. It boggles my mind to imagine how Tesla can get all of the responsible parties to even sign off on the documentation alone at the speed they work. I am quite serious (and I think correct) that if Tesla's process is as efficient as it appears, they are sitting on a gold mine for consulting considering all the organizations in regulated industries that are incapable as moving as fast. Musk wants to change the world? Sharing this secret would count.

Another question that popped in my head: what did the requirements look like that allowed such a huge (I assume) CPU and memory budget available that they could improve the system with "six times as many radar objects with the same hardware with a lot more information per object."

"Autopilot" is "experimental" so whenever there's a problem, they blame it on the driver.

I wonder if they have heard of Six Sigma.

I was under the impression that the driver is blamed because the driver was actually at fault (such as sometimes not even having autopilot on when crashing).

There is currently no legal framework which would allow anything else than "driver is responsible for vehicle". (I suppose that might change soon)

More accurately, there is no true legal system period. Tesla's playing PR to avoid a damaging precedent.

Surprisingly correct: USA did not sign the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, as the only western country. Special snowflake as usual :D

I have, and Six Sigma only has weak and thready influence on software as I've seen it. And I have looked very hard.

Six Sigma has been, in my view ( appeal to observer bias ) dominated by supply chain activities. There is too much delay variation in software for it to be much use.

(this being said, internalizing at least JIT to software seems pretty useful ).

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