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Comment by appplication | Hacker News Reader

Looking at the evidence, it would be quite hard to argue that Tesla is not in the wrong. Despite the other commenter focusing on tangential issues like semi side skirts, the fact is that Tesla autopilot has been represented as being capable of handling complex road conditions as well or better than a human. And this is a simple case that demonstrates that it is not capable of detecting an object in front of it, on a flat road in good weather, that it will clearly impact.

The problem is not Tesla experimenting with self driving tech. The problem is Tesla is overstating its capabilities, confusing consumers with mixed messaging between their marketing/CEO statements and reality, and reaping the financial benefits of convincing users they are buying autonomous-capable cars when they are nowhere near autonomous.

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I would say the problem is they are experimenting with self driving tech on the general public. And it’s resulting in deaths of people not driving teslas - like heck read how the truck driver feels post incident dudes shook up

It's wild that this experimental feature is legal.

Even more wild they haven’t been fined or successfully sued for millions by the families of the dead yet

True. Where is this crazy habit of American consumers winning absurd amounts of money in court for big corp faults of extremely varying severity when you need it just once to stop an actually severe practice?

> Tesla autopilot has been represented as being capable of handling complex road conditions as well or better than a human

Has it? In question here is Autopilot and not FSD Beta, with the car stating that Autosteer is just to keep you within the lane lines with this popup required to enable it[0] (and a different popup to enable auto-lane-change, if you pay for enhanced). Note that rental cars (or at least my Hertz rental) also have it turned off by default to make sure the person driving sees this.

The post also mentions:

> However, the NTSB also cited Banner’s “overreliance on automation,” saying Tesla’s design “permitted disengagement by the driver” and contributed to the crash. Four years later, despite pleas from safety investigators, regulators in Washington have outlined no clear plan to address those shortcomings, allowing the Autopilot experiment to continue to play out on American roads, with little federal intervention.

In relation to Tesla's efforts, they have since implemented active driver monitoring - if you look down at your phone, or even passenger, for more than a few seconds with it engaged, it loudly beeps and requires you look back at the road. If you don't look at the road, or with enough instances of this, it will suspend your autopilot privileges until you put it in park and back in drive.

0: https://rr.judge.sh/Starling/a850b5/36G5oYNYqt.jpg

> Has it? In question here is Autopilot and not FSD Beta

Per Musk himself[1]: “The data is unequivocal that Autopilot is safer than human driving by a significant margin”

Also Musk famously overrepresented in a promotional video[2]

The worst part about this is that I think Elon genuinely believes that this is correct. And that is a huge problem that creates complacency. He is already benefitting from convincing some portion of the public of this view.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/magazine/tesla-autopilot-... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-19/elon-musk...

The data backs him up there[0] - note that

> To ensure our statistics are conservative, we count any crash in which Autopilot was deactivated within 5 seconds before impact, and we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed.

Focusing on single incidents will pull at your heartstrings, but each incident is one in a sea of data that shows an overall improvement despite isolated heart-breaking incidents as a result of our inability to create a perfect system.

Although I agree that his "tweets" are garbage and his cult mentality/god-like demeanor puts a lot of false confidence in people (who are likely a majority of those paying the $200/mo for beta), not to mention that thousands of people won't consider buying a Tesla due to his involvement. Chances are Tom Zhu will take over eventually.

0: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/... from https://tesla.com/vehiclesafetyreport

The phrasing “Autopilot is safer than human driving” makes it sound like Autopilot is a replacement for human driving, rather than a supplement. That kind of marketing is part of the problem: it’s teaching consumers to rely on Autopilot too much and encouraging users to misunderstand Autopilot’s capabilities and limitations.

This Consumer Reports review from January this year, rates the three top Active Driving Systems, and none of them is the one from Tesla. Tesla it now at the middle of commercial offers. It also call Tesla driver monitoring not effective.

https://reprints.theygsgroup.com/cr/reprints/FordBlueCruise....

You are confusing Autopilot with FSD which are two very different systems with very different capabilities.

Autopilot doesn't even stop at a red light, no Tesla owner thinks it's more capable than human.

> You are confusing Autopilot with FSD which are two very different systems with very different capabilities.

This is exactly the problem: consumers are confusing Autopilot and FSD. The part where liability comes in is that confusion is not accidental, but rather a direct and deliberate product of Tesla’s marketing around these products.

Maybe the CEO of Tesla would feel less empowered to make those claims, if many of the darlings of AI, would not be silent, while sharing the stage with him during those wild statements.

https://youtu.be/zhr6fHmCJ6k

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