Hacker News Reader

Comment by escoz | Hacker News Reader

CA law says every autonomous car in testing needs to have an operator in charge, so technically all incidents are due to human error.

Also: Uber is not listed in the CA DMV list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles? https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...

View on HN

They seem to claim that it's assistive technology, not self-driving and therefore not required to register as autonomous: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/uber-tests-self-driving-...

Funny , because they say "self driving" on their own website:

https://newsroom.uber.com/san-francisco-your-self-driving-ub...

Sounds like a Tesla PR play: call it Autopilot, except when the context is liability.

The airplane technology that Tesla's Autopilot is named after is also an assistive technology, not a replacement for pilots. The complaint people have around the name is that people don't understand what autopilot is, not that Tesla are equivocating.

>people don't understand what autopilot is

Much effort is expended on branding and naming. This would, at a bare minimim, include a basic consideration of how a word is commonly perceived, irrespective of whether the common perception is accurate.

Tesla is fully aware of the cachet that the name confers upon the brand, while displaying it prominently and relegating the absolution and disclaimers to the finer print. I like Tesla. I admire Musk's acumen and vision. But, here, they are certainly equivocating and it's irresponsible.

Language evolves. If the vast majority of people understand by Autopilot the capability of driving alone without assistance, and you know it, I don't care that the proper textbook definition of that technology refers to assisted driving.

You are being disingenuous at best.

I agree that relying on archaic definitions would be sneaky, but I'm not talking about "the proper textbook definition," I'm talking about how it's used in the real world by people who actually create and use autopilot systems in airplanes. Just because some people use "quantum" to mean "huge" (e.g. "It's a quantum leap forward") doesn't mean somebody is being disingenuous to use it in the sense of "a minimal amount."

Yeah, well, they say they're not a taxi service, too.

unsure if the dmv requires a human operator since uber's argument for not needing dmv's permission is there is a human operator in the car, and therefore it's not a self-driving car.

Uber Marketing: "self driving car!"

Uber Legal: "assisted driving"

Pick one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com