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Comment by movedx | Hacker News Reader

Because as the driver you're responsible for the tool you're using to drive your self to your destination. That means you're responsible for whether or not you use Autopilot, do 200kmph, take your hands off of the steering wheel, turn your lights on at night, and everything else associated with the operation of that vehicle.

> ... at some point in time along the technological advancement of self driving technology we'll have to stop blaming ourselves.

No we don't. We built it, so we're responsible for it and the consequences associated with its operation, regardless of how well it's engineered or how smart we think we are.

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Yes, and no. With other dangerous tools, society decided manufacturers have responsibilities, too.

If you buy a chainsaw, you can trust it has certain safety features. If you buy a children’s toy, you can trust it doesn’t use lead paint, etc.

Those aren’t features you, as a consumer, have to explicitly test for before using them.

Similarly, I think society will demand that cars behave as cars, and not as projectiles. If a manufacturer claims a car has auto-pilot, but that auto-pilot has a tendency to rear end other cars, the manufacturer should carry at least some blame.

I think that should be true even if they explicitly mention that problem in the instruction manual. Certainly in the EU, whatever you buy, you can assume it is “fit for its purpose”.

The problem here is Tesla does not make the claim that the car is autonomous, in fact they clearly state otherwise, nor it is legal for any driver to operate the car like it was autonomous

To continue your analogy Chainsaw manufacturers include clear instructions, and directions to use safety PPE.. if a operator of the chainsaw fails to follow the instructions, or where the PPE and chops their leg off the manufacturer is not liable.. Hell even if they did follow the instructions and chop their leg off it would be unlikely the manufacturer would be liable.

Lets take the analogy one step further. Imagine we have an Autopilot chainsaw, you just have to touch it every once in a while to tell it to keep sawing. Then suddenly it starts sawing in a completely unexpected way and causes an accident. Are you at fault because you have to, in theory, keep in control at all times? Even though you in practice relinquish control and humans don't have the ability to context switch without a delay? The issue would not have occured if the chainsaw didn't start behaving in an unexpected way but it also would not have occured if you didn't use the Autopilot function.

>> Are you at fault because you have to, in theory, keep in control at all times?

Yes...

We already have examples of this with machinery that is automated. The Humans in charge of these automated machines are responsible for monitoring them, and have things like emergency shut downs, and various other safety protocols to shut them down when (not if When) they do unexpected things.

Machines are machines, they fuck up. The manufacturers are not held liable because the know these types of abnormal conditions exist they is why they have the safety protocols and human minders.

An example of this is the auto manufacturer i believe in TN or TX that did not train the operators properly on the safe way to operate, and lock out a machine, this failure to train lead to human injury. The manufacturer of the robot was not liable, the company that failed to train the human staff was.

Stick to my example please, your example is not the same type of situation.

There is no need to stick to your strawmen when we have real world actual examples. If you demand others only address your strawmen then you have recognized the weakness of your argument

I merely changed a car to a chainsaw, it's an analogous situation. There is no strawman, a strawman is a fallacy where the new argument is easier to attack. This is the same argument.

Your example on the other hand is not relevant to the situation at hand, it misconstructs the problem. The machine required trained operators to operate the machine, driving a car requires a trained operator but that is where the similarities stop. You don't need any additional training to operate autopilot. If someone without a license sits behind the steering wheel they're at fault cause they're not supposed to drive the car in the first place, this would be an analogous situation. Yours, as pointed out, is not.

He answered your question with a yes. If you buy and operated some chainsaw with an assistance technology and it automatically cuts down your neighbors tree then you are responsible. Your neighbor doesn't sue the chainsaw manufacturer, they sue you. You can sue the manufacturer all you want too, but the court won't let you tell your neighbor its the chainsaw manufacturer's fault and you are innocent.

I know what he replied with, a yes and an irrelevant example so that leaves just the yes. What I'm after is a stronger, relevant argument.

Let us not forget my original argument. Where I said that this is the current legal situation, I just think that this will change in the future if autonomous actions (driving or other behaviors) keep improving. I believe we have reached a point where it's not necessarily clear anymore who is in the wrong. Not in a legal sense, the law tends to run after the facts. More in a moral sense.

> The problem here is Tesla does not make the claim that the car is autonomous

Tesla's own marketing disagrees with this. Here's what Tesla says they mean when they say "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving":

> The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...

That is marketing video from 2016, which many including the NTHSA criticized Tesla over, and which Tesla has updated documentation, driver prompts, and other marketing to reflect that the system is not "autonomous" infact if you look at the product pages they clearly say "full self-driving capabilities in the future—" this is also reflected by prompts to the driver, warnings to the driver, and the requirement that the driver provide feedback to the car they are in control...

>That is marketing video from 2016, which many including the NTHSA criticized Tesla over, and which Tesla has updated documentation

I can speculate from people sleeping when driving Teslas that there are some drivers that interpret the marketing and documentation contradiction as "the laws forced Tesla to add this warnings in the documentation, Elon said autopilot is OK".

but the autopilot makes you nudge the wheel every 30 seconds. if people are really sleeping in their teslas they have added a device to defeat this attention tracking mechanism

This makes my point that those sleeping drivers when they had to chose between

1 marketing message" Autopilot works and stupid politics forces us to release it with this tons of boilerplate warnings and having to pay attention"

2 the actual disclaimers the car will show you

this drivers chose to believe 1, this is obvious that marketing is undermining the reality, so IMO Elon and his marketing should be criminally responsible for undermining their own official message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability:

“Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause.”

A specific example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escola_v._Coca-Cola_Bottling_C.... : somebody uses a soda bottle as intended, gets hurt, and wins a case against the manufacturer of the bottle.

If you don’t follow instructions, that still can happen, but it will be harder to argue that a problem originated with the manufacturer.

Yeah and honestly the chain of responsibility is driver first then tesla. What's important is the victim gets their payout. It's the drivers responsibility to provide that payout / get dinged on insurance. if the driver then wants to complaint to tesla for damages that's totally fair. But the victim's compensation should come first from the driver. The driver can't say "but muh autopilot" and release all blame

The OP was very clearly not looking at a payout, but at preventing future incidents.

Incorrect. You are responsible for using the tool responsibly and according to any applicable directions and best practices.

> We built it, so we're responsible for it and the consequences associated with its operation, regardless of how well it's engineered or how smart we think we are.

That's my point. The company that built the self driving technology should be held responsible. If you're not driving you're not responsible, that's how it works when somebody else is driving your car as well so why would it be any different if that somebody else is code? It seems like a good way to align the incentives to create a safe system. You could claim that at this point in time you still have to pay attention and take control when necessary, the issue I have with that argument is that we already have research showing us that the context switch results in a delay that's too long to be really useful in practice.

I didn't build it, Tesla did, and I personally think the company that signed off on "touch screen controlled window wipers" is the one with the most liability in autopilot failures.

Context: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53666222

The question is the driver responsible? Should it be the owner? Should it be the company who made the failing product?

If your toaster blows up and kills someone a solid case against the maker of toasterb

I agree, but if you bought a tool called "autopilot" and it piloted you into another car, there is something wrong, no? Maybe not the NHTSA, but it seems like someone should be tallying that.

Has Tesla ever said anything like: the “auto” in this case means “automobile” and not “automatic”?

But yeah, they shouldn’t call it that.

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