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

(www.reuters.com)
410 points jjulius | 3 comments | 18 Oct 24 16:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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bastawhiz ◴[19 Oct 24 17:33 UTC] No.41889192[source]▶
Lots of people are asking how good the self driving has to be before we tolerate it. I got a one month free trial of FSD and turned it off after two weeks. Quite simply: it's dangerous.

- It failed with a cryptic system error while driving

- It started making a left turn far too early that would have scraped the left side of the car on a sign. I had to manually intervene.

- In my opinion, the default setting accelerates way too aggressively. I'd call myself a fairly aggressive driver and it is too aggressive for my taste.

- It tried to make way too many right turns on red when it wasn't safe to. It would creep into the road, almost into the path of oncoming vehicles.

- It didn't merge left to make room for vehicles merging onto the highway. The vehicles then tried to cut in. The system should have avoided an unsafe situation like this in the first place.

- It would switch lanes to go faster on the highway, but then missed an exit on at least one occasion because it couldn't make it back into the right lane in time. Stupid.

After the system error, I lost all trust in FSD from Tesla. Until I ride in one and feel safe, I can't have any faith that this is a reasonable system. Hell, even autopilot does dumb shit on a regular basis. I'm grateful to be getting a car from another manufacturer this year.

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TheCleric ◴[19 Oct 24 20:03 UTC] No.41890342[source]▶
> Lots of people are asking how good the self driving has to be before we tolerate it.

There’s a simple answer to this. As soon as it’s good enough for Tesla to accept liability for accidents. Until then if Tesla doesn’t trust it, why should I?

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bdcravens ◴[19 Oct 24 21:30 UTC] No.41890927[source]▶
The liability for killing someone can include prison time.
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TheCleric ◴[19 Oct 24 22:09 UTC] No.41891164[source]▶
Good. If you write software that people rely on with their lives, and it fails, you should be held liable for that criminally.
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_rm ◴[20 Oct 24 00:18 UTC] No.41891890[source]▶
What a laugh, would you take that deal?

Upside: you get paid a 200k salary, if all your code works perfectly. Downside: if it doesn't, you go to prison.

The users aren't compelled to use it. They can choose not to. They get to choose their own risks.

The internet is a gold mine of creatively moronic opinions.

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1. chgs ◴[20 Oct 24 12:28 UTC] No.41894907[source]▶
Need far more regulation of the software industry, far too many people working in it fail to understand the scope of what they do.

Civil engineer kills someone with a bad building, jail. Surgeon removes the wrong lung, jail. Computer programmer kills someone, “oh well it’s your own fault”.

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2. caddemon ◴[20 Oct 24 13:20 UTC] No.41895200[source]▶
I've never heard of a surgeon going to jail over a genuine mistake even if it did kill someone. I'm also not sure what that would accomplish - take away their license to practice medicine sure, but they're not a threat to society more broadly.
3. _rm ◴[21 Oct 24 12:09 UTC] No.41903272[source]▶
You made all that up out of nothing. They'd only go to jail if it was intentional.

The only case where a computer programmer "kills someone" is where he hacks into a system and interferes with it in a way that foreseeably leads to someone's death.

Otherwise, the user voluntarily assumed the risk.

Frankly if someone lets a computer drive their car, given their own ample experiences of computers "crashing", it's basically a form of attempted suicide.