Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ Beta Software Used on Public Roads Lacks Safeguards

Absolutely, an essential part of driving is predicting how the state of the world will change in the future - and the behaviour of a motorcycle is vastly different from the behaviour of a stroller.

In this case it doesn't matter, because there's a car in front anyway.

I don't know how much the system can ignore or mislabel people and still drive safely, but right now it's not really safe and it's not necessary to have the car drive while improving object recognition.

Presumably strollers and motorcycles have very different behaviors to predict.

generally speaking the cloud of future position where a person or a bike can be is wildly different

If your grandfather drove bad enough to pull two such stunts on a single drive he wouldn't have a car to drive anymore. So an alpha flag would at least indicate: "drives literally worse than rcMgD2BwE72F's grandfather" .

Many people would argue drivers should be regularly tested so that people like your grandpa can’t drive.

I agree that people skills change over time, which is why I, as a driver, am in favor that every driver should retake the driving exam and a health exam every 2 years.

I am also in favor of enforcing this for all foreign drivers going through my country somehow, since most of them don’t really know how to drive here.

Your grandfather's license should be taken away (and, if he drives anyway, his car should be confiscated so that he stops before more drastic solutions are needed)

One problem we have here (in the UK) is that unless you've committed a crime the most likely person to assess that you shouldn't drive any more is your GP (doctor). But doctors operate in an ethical framework that prioritises the interests of each patient as an individual, resolving both silly theoretical ethical problems ("Do I kill this healthy patient to save these other dying patients?") and real world practical ones. So, "grandpa's driving is bad" only meets the threshold when it's so bad he'd likely die, if he will just kill or injure other people that's not an ethical obstacle in this framework unless grandpa is uncomfortable with it, in which case he should stop driving without waiting for the license to be taken away.

This is something you're seeing in health policy right now. Sticking needles in people's arms is something medics do, but they all operate under this ethical framework. So, while a government may have good reason to vaccinate Bob, the doctor is only willing to vaccinate Bob if Bob wants to be vaccinated and it's personally in Bob's interest, regardless of whether it'd be better for everybody else.

Still, where it's important to public policy you can sidestep the ethical problem by sidestepping the medical procedure, here are two examples used today in the UK:

1. If somebody claims you're the other parent of their children and you owe child support but you disagree, the government can decide to make you get a DNA test (you get a refund if they aren't your kids). But the DNA test is a medical procedure, so if you really don't want it, the medics won't do it. Instead you'll end up in court, and the court will look at the available evidence and most likely say, well, seems to us if you were not the parent of these kids you'd have taken that DNA test and proved it. You owe child support. (Owing child support isn't a crime, so, there's no need to meet the criminal evidence standard).

2. If you're in a vehicle accident or just it seems obvious to them you might be drunk, the police can decide to test for alcohol. Some of the tests they could try don't need a medic but do need your co-operation, others would need a medic. Either way you might refuse and so, the law just provides for a penalty for "Refusing to provide a sample" that's almost exactly the same as the penalty for drink driving you might hope to avoid by doing so.

Public roads are full of HumanDrive Betas that are learning to drive.

And release version HumanDrivers who kill 3000 people per day.

It seems to cope find with moderately busy streets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtPGTOJ5Nks

I mean it's not showing to the user everything it's using to route through the world, you can't tell from that view what it's going to run straight through

You should have a camera and report those drivers to police.

Not exactly a good argument for Tesla. All of those ought to be illegal too, perhaps with the exception of learners out of necessity.

Wait, yes they do. Every other car has a driver who, presumably, does not want to randomly veer off into concrete pillars or oncoming traffic like FSD seems to do with an alarming frequency. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes when distracted or driving illegally (under the influence of alcohol or drugs or without a license or with poor eyesight...) but the argument that a Tesla operating under FSD is just as safe as this most dangerous class of drivers is an extremely unconvincing one.

For several years now, in the EU at least, all new cars need to have automatic emergency breaks. It's basically impossible to run into something, run someone over, etc. This kind of system reduces stress and gives at least me a certain peace of mind. In this regard Tesla self driving is a step backwards.

FSD videos -- hands off, car does something dumb and they grab the wheel.

I did, it's bad. I don't think this will happen soon.

> I think a lot are just pranks

I haven't seen a single one that didn't obviously look like a prank.