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DVD Player Found In Tesla Autopilot Crash, Says Florida Officials (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A digital video disc player was found in the Tesla car that was on autopilot when its driver was killed in a collision with a truck in May, Florida Highway Patrol officials said on Friday. "There was a portable DVD player in the vehicle," said Sergeant Kim Montes of the FHP in a telephone interview. She said there was no camera found, mounted on the dash or of any kind, in the wreckage. A lawyer for a truck driver involved in the accident with the Tesla told Reuters his investigators had spoken to a witness who said the DVD player was playing a "Harry Potter" video after the accident, but the lawyer was unable to verify that beyond the witness account. Lawyers for the family of the victim, 40-year-old Joshua Brown, released a statement Friday saying the family is cooperating with the investigations "and hopes that information learned from this tragedy will trigger further innovation which enhances the safety of everyone on the roadways." Lawyers for the family of the victim, 40-year-old Joshua Brown, released a statement Friday saying the family is cooperating with the investigations "and hopes that information learned from this tragedy will trigger further innovation which enhances the safety of everyone on the roadways." Tesla said in a statement Friday, "Autopilot is by far the most advanced driver assistance system on the road, but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."
What exactly is the point of it? To lull you into a false sense of comfort and security? I look forward to autonomous vehicles, but if it still requires me to keep my attention on the road and ready to respond, I'd rather just be in control of the vehicle to begin with.
It's auto pilot not auto do everything for me. Even an airplane with auto pilot on will run right into another airplane if it gets in the way.
The problem is that if it slightly resembles a full-on AI based driverless system, that's how people are going to treat it no matter how many layweresque warnings you thrust in front of them and no matter how many forms they have to sign telling them it is just fancy lane assist.
It's just human nature: if people aren't actively involved in the driving process, their attention is going to wander. It's how we as humans are wired up. For a long trip, I'm not sure I could stay focused at all times, even though I'd know perfectly well I was risking my life if my attention wandered. If I'm driving, that's one thing, but if the car is doing 99.9% of it, the other 0.1% is going to pose a real serious problem.
If you build "almost an autopilot", that is a recipe for people treating it like what it resembles but isn't.
Autopilot on my boat does not prevent me from running over fish traps or floating debris.
The Tesla isn't autonomous. This is a case of operator error and it's a good thing nobody else got killed.
"Autopilot is by far the most advanced driver assistance system on the road, but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."
Then maybe they should start by stopping to use the misleading name of "autopilot" for this functionality.
but that does not change the fact that they released a fundamentally flawed and extremely dangerous product.
At this stage, that is your opinion and not a fact. Don't purport it as such.
driver who was paying attention
Probably because sitting there doing nothing is boring as fuck, and the natural result is the attention of the "driver" will wander. You'd probably be busy bent over giving a blowjob to the blow-up Musk you have in your passenger seat. This dude chose to watch Harry Potter. No real difference.
But no, people are going to try and blame automation
Yes, because the bullshit of, "LOL ITZ AUTOMATED AND RULEZ! But uh you had better stare blankly out the windshield for all six hours of your drive..." is just that - bullshit. It's horrifically dangerous, because even if the natural reaction was not to fuck off and let Musk's Magic Moolamobile do its thing... Identifying the random point where the autopilot is going to fail and then trying to seamlessly take over is not going to work.
The fact is that Tesla states that: ""Autopilot is by far the most advanced driver assistance system on the road, but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."
According to the GP, while taking human psychology into account, this is what makes this a fundamentally flawed and extremely dangerous product. People will watch Harry Potter movies in this car, they will have horrible response times because they don't need to pay attention, they will get into accidents when the 'driver assistent' fails, and Tesla will try to abdicate responsibility each and every time based on contractual terms.
Then that is Darwin award territory.
That's a leap. The Tesla's autopilot features are more akin to cruise control or auto-braking when backing out if someone should walk behind the vehicle. The Teslas were never designed to be autonomous and are severely limited compared to a Google self-driving vehicle. They also clearly state that the driver is liable and should have proper control over the vehicle at all times (hands on wheel, foot near brake, eyes on road, etc.), so there's little wiggle room for anyone to be at fault other than the driver except in cases of severe malfunction where the driver is unable to regain control of the car at all.
Their most autonomous modes are to "summon" the vehicle at 5 mph or less in a parking lot and/or to parallel or perpendicular park on their own. I could see the potential for some lawsuits questioning who was at fault if the Tesla hit something while in summon mode with no one behind the wheel.... but, I would hope that would also be the owner's responsibility for not ensuring a safe, unobstructed path for summon to work properly. The Tesla's sensors are few and not very advanced compared to cars designed for autonomous driving. Basing liability laws on what they do would be a bit like basing laws for adults on toddler behavior. A three year old stripping down naked and smearing crayon and magic markers all over a public area would likely be the parents' or guardians' fault for lack of supervision... an adult performing the same behavior would likely be considered fully responsible and find him or herself fined, imprisoned, and/or institutionalized and possibly on the sex offender registry.
Unfortunately the Tesla system did not even provide any warnings, you really can't have a similar warning system as planes because you will typically have a lot of cars in the vicinity. So comparing car to plane autopilot is very applish-orangish. Plane autopilot is actually a lot simpler to accomplish.
Allowing the user to have hands off for 30 seconds is problematic for Telsa. A lot can happen in 30 seconds, its an arbitrary duration. Why not 5 seconds?
imho, it should not be called auto-pilot or autonomous driving because its not truly that yet. Assisted control is more appropriate.
6 seconds