If I program my Bendix-King autopilot to fly heading 270º at 4K feet and there's a 5K foot mountain directly west of me, the autopilot will do exactly what I told it to do and I will make a smudge on the side of the mountain.
In Germany, a court ruled that they misled customers on the capabilities of autopilot and banned advertising it: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/tesla-autopilot-self-driving...
And it is "statistically" which is how all safety measures are evaluated.
It turns out it's a lot easier to not crash on a highway than to do it on surface roads with many stops and starts.
https://www.tesla.com/autopilot
And note that this is the current marketing material.
Edit: It's not mentioned in the article, as far as I see, but it's likely the driver was on the cell phone. It mentions the data shows the driver had their hands on the steering wheel, but that can be easily thwarted, to my understanding. The fact that they didn't brake at all implies they weren't actually holding the steering wheel, at least in a way where they were paying attention. In my opinion, both the driver and Tesla bear responsibility.
/s
Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.> Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction.
And the rest is marketing copy explicitly written to make it sound more fully-featured than it actually is.
[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20180211121851/https://www.tesla...
> It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval.
So while you can argue that the marketing is deceptive, that can't really be read as saying that you could let the car drive itself at that time.
Well I suppose it'll be up to the judge to determine if a relatively recently added disclaimer on the website trumps years worth of bold claims and tech demonstrations.
Tesla can’t have it both ways. Tell everyone that they have autopilot/self driving to sell car and build hype, but then claim that the website says the opposite so there’s no problem.
The general public is extremely stupid and believe everything they see in movies/TV. In fact a large part of the population believe that Fentanyl can kill you just by touching it which is the most ridiculous thing ever. Yet people are so paranoid about it that police officers have collapsed in hysteria after touching Fentanyl. [1]
Candy wrappers say "Do no eat!" on them in the Unites States so you can not assume people know how an actual Autopilot works. Now you may say this is because companies are getting sued but that proves the point that you can actually sue someone for being this stupid and win.
[1] https://healthandjusticejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/1...
Bendix/King autopilot has a feature called Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System which would be hard to ignore. Some models have "terrain avoidance maneuvering" which would actually prevent it.
Autopilot and FSD are two different things ... I'm sure the consumer is fully aware of that /s
The car doesn't ship with autopilot or FSD turned on.
“Terrain, Terrain, PULL UP, PULL UP”
Hopefully you were not sleeping. ;)
On a related note, although they usually mean something's going wrong, which isn't cool, I've always been impressed by the way those warnings are delivered in airplanes. The tone and cadence of the warnings really communicate that this is something serious and you should respond to it and also communicates what exactly you should do.
Here's a video of the exact scenario being discussed in a Boeing 747-400:
That said, the selling of FSD has, to my knowledge, always been positioned as the selling of hardware that is expected to be capable in the future of FSD. Sometimes you have to read all of the words in a paragraph to get that meaning, but that is the clear reading I get from that same autopilot page:
Full Self-Driving
All new Tesla cars have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.
The future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. As these self-driving capabilities are introduced, your car will be continuously upgraded through over-the-air software updates.By the same logic an Hello World Python script has the capability for general AI, i just need to wait enough years then add later add the missing part that accidental is the essential thing.
Nobody disputes the terms of service language, but the advertising language, the intentional misleading names and stats greedy companies use. We are sure lawyers checked those terms of service very well and worked fine for US, seems German judges are not tricked by this trickery though, would be nice if more countries punish missleading advertising.
I imagining new Elon product "Clean Drinking Water" and ads showing people drinking it, BUT with small text that mentions that the "safe for drinking will happen in 10 years after we fix our shit" and fanboys defending the naming because you should already know that Elon is always doing this and you should read ignore the advertising and go to the legal documents about the product to figureut all the real details.
Fighters with FBW like the raptor can't be over G'd because FBW takes precedence over pilot input.
I don't fly but have an autopilot on a boat, same thing. It'll happily hold a heading onto the rocks if I set it. But everyone knows that's what it does, the company doesn't make any claims or insinuations otherwise.
However, we've made getting licensed to operate a vehicle way too easy. We should also make drivers get training on equipment type so switching from a mid-sized sedan to a gianormous SUV requires more than just being handed new keys.
The extent of training increases the investment a person has around the regulated activity. The person is more likely to abide by the rules because (a) they have a deeper knowledge, and (b) they don’t want to lose the privilege of being able to carry it out.
Increasing the strictness of license requirements could be a small nudge towards decarbonization to slow the growth of personal vehicles on the road.
Sadly, I'd have to disagree. I think all this would do would be to increase the number of drivers operating illegally. Increase the friction, and people will just find a way to avoid it all together. The only real way to stop it would to have mandatory checkpoints. The push back from the masses for any kind of change like this would be enormous that you'd be asking Roe v Who? in comparison.
It is impossible to get insurance, plates, tabs, park your car in your apartments lot without proper licensing.
Everyone eventually messes up and gets pulled over or gets in an accident and then you are basically going to jail.
In theory your cousin can buy and register your car but if you kill someone he will be legally and monetarily responsible.
Logically it would have to be fantastically burdensome to convince many people to drive without licenses.
It is silly to both pretend we absolutely must impliment a law either without the slightest bit of sense or not at all and presuppose that everyone is going to ignore the law when clearly this is actually fairly hard to do.
If you are operating a car in someone else's name does not mean they are ultimately on the hook. Yes, they will probably be main suspect, but they will/could be able to prove not involved. Easiest would be to say you were using the car without permission.
>Logically it would have to be fantastically burdensome to convince many people to drive without licenses.
WAT! this happens every. single. day.
*I know direct 2nd hand is counter-intuitive, but I mean I personally know people with cars like this.
Based on experience (admittedly biased), plenty of people are driving without a valid license or insurance right now.
That’s not an argument not to increase proficiency standards, but I think people who naturally follow rules (like my spouse) have a hard time comprehending people who would see a rule and then evaluate whether or not to follow it.
But honestly I think demands to make a driver's license harder to get largely miss the point. From my own experience, time on the road makes far more difference than training or harder tests. As does, general maturity and attitude which isn't going to be taught by a class.
What does this have to do with anything? Advocating that people that can't afford to take training shouldn't be restricted from getting licensed? With that logic, let's all become pilots for free too!
>time on the road
The rest of this I can almost agree with, but you're glossing over that bad habits become entreanched. Distracted driving from today's smartphone use to the classic putting on makeup while driving, constant changing of the radio/spotify/etc, or just shoving fries/chips down your gullet while driving is never going away no matter how many years you've drive. In fact, the longer one goes with out having a wreck with these bad habits, the more one is emboldened that they are safe.
It's not just teenagers with low hours behind the wheel that do any of the things listed above.
So, you must be the change you wish to see in the world. So in today's view, we're all screwed!!
I think we're in general agreement. My original point was that making getting a driver's license a leetcode interview-level requirement puts more barriers in place but probably doesn't (by itself) mean you have a lot better drivers on the roads.
To be clear, if you can afford it, a high-end driving course is probably both useful and a lot of fun. Though I wonder if it's more useful for someone who has some experience. (I've never take a course though I have done some driving on BMW's track in SC which was a great experience.)
There was a post here a while back where someone built a keyboard that would deliver shocks when it detected improper typing techniques. It wasn't enough to do anything other than make you really want to type well. It was funny that they went through with it, but that's the level of schtick I'm intending by gentle shock.