Uh oh, another Tesla autopilot crash fatality

[Pooft Lee]

Originally Posted by seifrob

So please explain why is someone investigating Tesla???
IMHO their worst fault was to market it as "autopilot" instead of "smart drive-assist" and not to inform their stockholders about the incident (but why they should in the first place??)

Tesla put something extremely powerful out to market and have covered their butts as far as accident liability, but don't seem to have adressed ethics and social issues connected to it. Most famously, "the handoff";

Pilot tells copilot "I'm going to hand you the controls"
Copilot confirms "I'm ready to take the controls"
Control is passed to the copilot. Someone is always flying the plane.

In a self driving car, the car is faced with a situation it isn't able to handle, and either doesn't realize it (taking a random freeway exit instead of continuing on, driving under a trailer, etc) or taps out and abandons the controls. These situation happens very quickly on a road full of cars, and if the driver isn't watching or anticipating the handoff, then no one is flying the plane. The first thing you do when told the car will drive itself, is stop worrying about driving. Our roads and Tesla's cars are not really equipped for autonomous driving, even if they can get the car to put on a good show most of the time. Heck, I've had close calls with regular cruise control that wouldn't have happened if I was regulating my own speed

Originally Posted by seifrob

--and, although slightly off topic, but three other questions:
there are some urban legends or jokes about American law system, so I would like to know:
- do you have warning in your microwave ovens that you are not supposed to let animals dry inside? (based on urban legend)

Mine does not, but it could well be in the manual. Ridiculous warnings are more a product of our very letigious legal climate than a widespread lack of common sense. However something like that might have been necessary when the microwave first hit market.

Originally Posted by seifrob

- is it true that it is explicitly stated that one cannot leave to pee while driving his mobile home? (that is one of the urban legends Fingie wrote in earlier post)

Depends on how many people tried it. But if mobile homes implement autonomous driving, you bet there will be warnings like that

Originally Posted by seifrob

- how about match boxes. Do have label "Open the other side up"?

Mine only says close before striking, but the packaging is printed to suggest a clear top/bottom

Originally Posted by seifrob

-- I don´t want to sneer at you, I am really curious.

No offense taken, its good to be able to laugh at each other and ourselves. After all, someone out there has actually wrecked their motor home thinking they could run back and take a quick leak

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by seifrob

But it poses interesting question and I hope someone can clarify it to us (confused europeans):

From european-law point of view:
- was the driver warned that so called "autopilot" feature is driver assist only?
- was the driver paying constant and full attention to traffic?
- did the driver damage more property or claimed someone elses life so we can claim reward on his insurance company?
Case closed.

So please explain why is someone investigating Tesla???
IMHO their worst fault was to market it as "autopilot" instead of "smart drive-assist" and not to inform their stockholders about the incident (but why they should in the first place??)

Tesla explicitly states that the feature is a driving aid, and that full attention is required. I believe the car progressively slows if you don't have your hands on the steering wheel. Furthermore, most jurisdictions likely have laws that require hands to be on the steering wheel at all times.

Obviously, the driver was not paying attention, otherwise he would have made some attempt to avoid what should have been an obvious danger.

Any legal system naturally grows in complexity, becoming cumbersome as new laws are introduced, while few previous laws expire. This has the effect of slowly removing the rights and responsibility of the individual, and making it impossible to know what is legal, and what is not.

All systems of organization are doomed to collapse at some point, usually with the result of a new simpler system being created.

Back on topic, innovation is difficult to implement because people don't have any tolerance for tragedy that can even remotely be attributed to the innovation, regardless of how it improves life. The problem is compounded by the fact that there is no way to determine the instances where an automated system prevented or reduced the severity of something bad happening.

Media and our own attention is almost never focused on real threats or issues that most affect us. We would rather expend disproportionate resources on things like terrorism, which kills so few people compared with the more likely threats of heart disease, cancer, auto fatalities, etc.

Our laws are largely based on emotional reaction, rather than reasoned responses to objective facts.

With regard to the urban legends you mentioned; I'm not aware of them, and don't have answers to any of your questions. I have a friend that tried to dry his cell phone out in a microwave and was surprised to find that it destroyed it. I asked him "didn't it seem obvious that would be the outcome". His response was "I didn't put it in for very long". My reply "1 second is more than enough to completely destroy it". Somehow it wasn't obvious to him that hitting a nano-engineered device that is designed to operate at no more than about 5 watts, with 1000 watts of microwave radiation, was recipe for disaster.

[seifrob]

Thanks to all answers. It seems very turbulent times are still ahead.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Tesla explicitly states that the feature is a driving aid, and that full attention is required.

Does that absolve them of legal and/or ethical responsibility, though? Isn't this equivalent to handing a loaded gun to a child or irresponsible person (one that you have reason to know is not responsible for their actions). Doesn't matter how much you tell them not to point it at someone and pull the trigger, because you know (or should) that they're not going to listen.

Seems pretty much the same here. Tesla most likely knew that some of their customers, including this idiot 'cause he posted videos of his reckless behavior, were misusing the autopilot feature. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd certainly say they'd be ethically responsible if some other idiot like this one kills someone else.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Isn't this equivalent to handing a loaded gun to a child or irresponsible person (one that you have reason to know is not responsible for their actions).

No, not equivalent at all. Tesla owners are adults, not children. That is a legal distinction which places responsibility on the owner.

A better analogy would be a pharmacist explaining how to safely use a prescription drug, and the consumer being responsible for following, or not following those directions. If the consumer harms themselves by deviating from the instruction, then they are solely liable for the outcome.

We don't want to offload responsibility to other parties, because that also offloads freedom. The government should exercise as little control over individuals as possible, and her people should be willing to violently maintain their freedom. North Korea isn't the model of a Utopian society.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

North Korea isn't the model of a Utopian society.

Neither is letting the idiots run things :-) Always a good time to (re)read Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons".

Seems to me your ideas of freedom and responsibility are pretty one-sided: you get to do whatever you want to do, yet when I want to do what I want - defend myself - I'm interfering with your freedom.

[gone-ot]

Tesla "software verification Beta testing" = Tombstone mentality?

[Pooft Lee]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

No, not equivalent at all. Tesla owners are adults, not children. That is a legal distinction which places responsibility on the owner.

A better analogy would be a pharmacist explaining how to safely use a prescription drug, and the consumer being responsible for following, or not following those directions. If the consumer harms themselves by deviating from the instruction, then they are solely liable for the outcome.

We don't want to offload responsibility to other parties, because that also offloads freedom. The government should exercise as little control over individuals as possible, and her people should be willing to violently maintain their freedom. North Korea isn't the model of a Utopian society.

I don't think they're liable for anything, but that doesn't mean they aren't being irresponsible by beta testing their self driving car using consumers on live roadways.

There's good reason other manufacturers aren't marketing any kind of autopilot, even though they have similar sensor hardware and programming. Other systems are intended for intervention, not autonomous operation.

It was a bad idea but Elon wanted media attention to market his product

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Neither is letting the idiots run things :-) Always a good time to (re)read Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons".

I'll look into the book recommendation.

Seems to me your ideas of freedom and responsibility are pretty one-sided: you get to do whatever you want to do, yet when I want to do what I want - defend myself - I'm interfering with your freedom.

Defend yourself all you want; I'm all for gun ownership!

[Hersbird]

People can say Tesla isn't liable but bet your ass they will get sued on this kind of thing and juries historically look at the parents of a dead 16 year old, and then a billion dollar company and guess who pays? There was a crash here that a jury awarded $240 million to a family where their kids had a broken steering knuckle on a 10+ year old 100,000+ mile Hyundai even though experts said if the knuckle had broken it would have turned the car the opposite way and witnesses said something like a firework went off inside the car just before it swerved into the other lane. Corporations always lose on these deals.