Elon Musk: Negative Media Coverage of Autonomous Vehicles Could be 'Killing people' (theverge.com)

On the sidelines of the Tesla announcements, CEO Elon Musk accused media of "killing people" by dissuading consumers from using an autonomous vehicle. Musk said that media is aggressively reporting on autopilot crashes, but does "virtually none" reporting of hundreds of thousands of actual accidents that involve non-self driving cars. He said, via a report on The Verge:Once you view autonomous cars sort of like an elevator in a building, does Otis take responsibility for all elevators around the world? No, they don't. What really matters here at the end of the day is "what is the absolute safety." One of the things I should mention that frankly has been quite disturbing to me is the degree of media coverage of Autopilot crashes, which are basically almost none relative to the paucity of media coverage of the 1.2 million people that die every year in manual crashes. [It is] something that I think does not reflect well upon the media. It really doesn't. Because, and really you need to think carefully about this, because if, in writing some article that's negative, you effectively dissuade people from using an autonomous vehicle, you're killing people.

Comments

Live by the media hype die by the media hype.

[CajunArson]

So Elon's panties are all up in a bunch over supposedly overblown negative media coverage?

How about all the overblown positive media coverage he's been lapping up for years while running an unprofitable business that caters to wealthy customers getting taxpayer funded bonuses to buy his cars?

Isn't it fair that all of that media coverage should be withdrawn too?

You are wrong. Elon is right.

[Kludge]

I hope Elon continues to take the press to task for this.
The news media is deplorable for their reporting. Virtually nothing you see in the media has any chance of killing you.
The news media reports on home invasions and shootings, but the chance of you being shot in your home by a stranger is incredibly low.
The news media reports on terrorist attacks, but the probability that you will die in a terrorist attack is less than 1 in a million.
The news media does not report on the 1.2 million people who die in car accidents, nor the tens of millions who die from cancer, nor the tens of millions who die of heart disease.
IF YOU SEE IT ON THE NEWS IT WILL NOT HAPPEN TO YOU. Unfortunately most people do not understand this.

Re:You are wrong. Elon is right.

[tsqr]

When I started reading this post, I thought you were being sarcastic or ironic, and I was looking forward to the punchline. Then I realized you were actually serious. The thing is, the news media report on what is unusual and what is likely to attract consumer attention, not necessarily in that order. You know: man bites dog, rather than dog bites man; it doesn't matter that dog bites man happens a lot more frequently than man bites dog. You're free to consider this deplorable, but that's the way it's always been and it's very unlikely to change.

Re:You are wrong. Elon is right.

[saloomy]

Right, but a small mention of "Entire family wiped out in car crash" pales in comparison to the news coverage that a Tesla just scraped a parked car .

This shows the the level of media attention does not correlate to the appropriate levels of concern. Just like the terrorist attacks. Tobacco companies kill far more Americans than terrorists. Do not ramble on on the argument that smokers choose to risk their health and life, I'm talking about second hand smoke.

Tesla's autopilot will save many lives on the motor ways. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be statistically better than you or I. Even though this technology is in its infancy, it is already a better than you are, statistically.

Think I've heard this one before

[rasmusbr]

The proponents boldly claim how the new technology is going to be completely safe and how it'll be available for everyone everywhere at virtually no cost.

Then mistakes are made and there is a minor accident. Nothing too bad in the big scheme of things, but a serious accident nonetheless.

Then the accident is followed by attempts to cover it up by lying to the public about minor details about the accident, followed by more bold claims about how the technology is so absurdly safe that the opponents can only be evil. The media has field day after field day exposing the lies. Soon, there is a public outcry, which causes the government to step in with draconian regulation.

And then it's all over. The regulations make it impossible to build and operate the technology at a reasonable cost.

Re:Indeed

[Copid]

God, I can't wait for this election to be over.