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US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

(www.reuters.com)
410 points jjulius | 2 comments | 18 Oct 24 16:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.957s | source
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AlchemistCamp ◴[19 Oct 24 17:17 UTC] No.41889077[source]▶
The interesting question is how good self-driving has to be before people tolerate it.

It's clear that having half the casualty rate per distance traveled of the median human driver isn't acceptable. How about a quarter? Or a tenth? Accidents caused by human drivers are one of the largest causes of injury and death, but they're not newsworthy the way an accident involving automated driving is. It's all too easy to see a potential future where many people die needlessly because technology that could save lives is regulated into a greatly reduced role.

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Arainach ◴[19 Oct 24 17:25 UTC] No.41889128[source]▶
This is about lying to the public and stoking false expectations for years.

If it's "fully self driving" Tesla should be liable for when its vehicles kill people. If it's not fully self driving and Tesla keeps using that name in all its marketing, regardless of any fine print, then Tesla should be liable for people acting as though their cars could FULLY self drive and be sued accordingly.

You don't get to lie just because you're allegedly safer than a human.

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1. mrpippy ◴[19 Oct 24 21:23 UTC] No.41890885[source]▶
Tesla officially renamed it to “Full Self Driving (supervised)” a few months ago, previously it was “Full Self Driving (beta)”

Both names are ridiculous, for different reasons. Nothing called a “beta” should be tested on public roads without a trained employee supervising it (i.e. being paid to pay attention). And of course it was not “full”, it always required supervision.

And “Full Self Driving (supervised)” is an absurd oxymoron. Given the deaths and crashes that we’ve already seen, I’m skeptical of the entire concept of a system that works 98% of the time, but also needs to be closely supervised for the 2% of the time when it tries to kill you or others (with no alerts).

It’s an abdication of duty that NHTSA has let this continue for so long, they’ve picked up the pace recently and I wouldn’t be surprised if they come down hard on Tesla (unless Trump wins, in which case Elon will be put in charge of NHTSA, the SEC, and FAA)

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2. ilyagr ◴[20 Oct 24 03:22 UTC] No.41892629[source]▶
I hope they soon rename it into "Fully Supervised Driving".