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Comment by TwoBit | Hacker News Reader

"An experiment is worth a thousand opinions" - Wernher Von Braun

Until these people actually try this steering wheel they should shut up.

Uuuuh, no. Raising safety concerns is important. And it is a safety concern. I had the same exact concern when I saw it just as I had safety concerns about hypothetically owning KITT growing up.

It is a concern, it could cost lives, it should be raised.

I'd have a hard time believing that the first time Tesla considered the safety aspect of this steering wheel was when customers brought it up. It's likely that if they choose to communicate on the matter, they can explain how they went through the analysis and how they mitigated any issues.

(no snark need reply, please)

Someone inside has almost certainly considered it, but that was likely also true when they put beta autonomous software in the hands of untrained consumers on public roads after driving a grand total of 12.2 autonomous miles the previous year. It doesn't seem unfair to question their conclusions regarding safety in light of past actions.

That does sound irresponsible. I found a Seattle Times article on the matter, and it implies to me that the consumers getting the initial release are limited in number and know they are getting it. It seems likely that the data streams of their cars' utilization will be monitored and also seems likely to me personally that they signed releases allowing Tesla to collect and analyze that data. A quote from Musk in the article [0] reads, "“We’re starting very slow, and very cautiously, because the world is a complex and messy place,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes and probably release it to more people this weekend or early next week and then just gradually step it up until we have hopefully a wide release by the end of this year.”"

Words are one thing, actual implementation another, but at least he's publicly acknowledging the precipitous nature of introducing this technology to the public.

[0] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tesla-is-putting-self-...

When you're providing safety critical equipment, records transparency and testing are critical expectations. In this case, human accidents are incredibly rare. You need on the order of millions of miles to verify that a particular system is statistically safer under similar conditions. A safety conscious company would have done the testing to be sure of this prior public release to non-experts (i.e. licensed drivers making test rides like every other SDC employs). Tesla recording only 12.2 miles means they either haven't done the requisite testing to be sure non-experts are safe, or are failing to report the results of that testing to the government.

Either one should be an immense red flag, regardless of what agreements they've gotten beta testers to sign.

Just b/c someone internally may have brought it up doesn't mean it shouldn't be brought up externally. It also doesn't mean the powers that be internally aren't doing a "can we get away with this" simply because it is cool, it does generate buzz, etc.

experiments are great...when done safely.

There are lots of stories of 'experiments' done wrong, and these are why research ethics and review boards exist.

Experiments have no inherent value.

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