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

Some truth...

[galabar]

There does seem to be some logic in that argument. However, the question is about this particular feature. Has it killed more people by existing (or never having existed). We don't actually have any autonomous offerings out there, so there isn't really anything to dissuade.

Re:Some truth...

[jxander]

We definitely don't have the data Teslas is claiming that we have.

Not from Tesla, we don't. You're right about that.

However Google has been much more open with their data. Google's automated car was just past 1.3million miles before its first automated accident: a minor fender bender.

I say "automated accident" because it's actually been in a over dozen other crashes, all minor. Most of them involved getting rear-ended at a red light. That statistic alone should be enough to reinforce Elon's point, but we'll need several million more miles before any definitive conclusions can be drawn.

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?

Re:Live by the media hype die by the media hype.

[thegarbz]

while running an unprofitable business

You mean that unprofitable business which was the only car company to repay the American government? One which did so with interest, and before the payments were due?

Yeah they can have a bit more free media coverage as far as I'm concerned.

Short summary

[Locke2005]

Sure, autonomous vehicles are dangerous, but they are orders of magnitude less dangerous than the assholes you already see on the road every day! Like the moron I saw trying to ride his bicycle down I-5 in downtown Portland during rush hour the other day...

Re:Short summary

[Moof123]

How about the dumbass driver that nearly mowed me down while I was cycling in the bike lane? Oh, wait, that was like 3 different drivers this year alone... Last one went through the bike lane to get to the turn lane while I was in it, missing my front wheel by about 2 feet. Yes, I am very visible, wiht multiple lights, light clothes, reflectors, flashers, etc. Let me cry a river for the occasional driver inconvenienced by a bicycle.

Autonomous cars have been getting incredible, and often unbelievable hype with lots of wild and unfounded claims, often from fanboys who are blinded by their own excitement. It is appropriate for the news media to look behind the curtain and report on what they find.

The reality so far has been rather sobering, and indicate to me we are still farther away than we think.
- Google employees sleeping or working on laptops in beta vehicles on the way home from work, reminding us that humans cannot be trusted to be a backup safety system if HAL gives up or makes a mistake. More recently the Tesla driver who apparently was watching a DVD player rather than the road when the Autopilot drove under a truck.

- Uber cars that throw up their hands and require driver intervention for situations as basic as driving over a bridge, reminding us that we are a long way off from being able to remove the steering wheel and let the "driver" tune out and relax.

- No autonomous vehicles claim to handle dirt roads without markings, snowy conditions that blind lidar, or construction zones all on their own. I still fear a large increase in the error rate for manual driving by drivers who become rusty and have to take over under the worst driving situations (possibly after being summoned from a nap). On the plus side, their pickiness might finally get some money spent to properly maintain the roads.

Re:Short summary

[Ichijo]

they are orders of magnitude less dangerous than the assholes you already see on the road every day! Like the moron I saw trying to ride his bicycle down I-5 in downtown Portland during rush hour the other day...

I would say the same thing if I were envious of the bicyclist passing all that stopped traffic! Like that scene from Office Space.

But really, what's so dangerous about bicycling past a bunch of stopped cars? As long as the person isn't riding in the door zone..

Re:Short summary

[yuriklastalov]

No autonomous vehicles claim to handle dirt roads without markings, snowy conditions that blind lidar, or construction zones all on their own. I still fear a large increase in the error rate for manual driving by drivers who become rusty and have to take over under the worst driving situations (possibly after being summoned from a nap). On the plus side, their pickiness might finally get some money spent to properly maintain the roads.

These fucking cars are going to be just like everything else that comes out of the tech industry these days: It works best in the only place on earth that matters, San Fransisco. Are there any dirt roads in San Fransisco? Probably not, so it doesn't matter if the car can handle them. You know what else it doesn't do in California? Snow.

Everything the tech industry does these days is useless shit tailored to rich techies in southern California. It's so blatantly obvious I don't know why they bother to pretend they care about anything else.

waah waah i oversold my product

[hsmith]

Autopilot was billed as this revolutionary technology that got idiots to think "hey we don't have to drive anymore the car will do it." Musk is basically beta testing with his customers as the beta group.

Autonomous driving will be great when it gets here, but he is trying to oversell the current tech as revolutionary autonomous driving tech.

Re: waah waah i oversold my product

[bestweasel]

It's Musky's own fault for calling it Autopilot. If he'd called it Driverassist or similar, idiots would be less likely to assume they can watch TV or send texts while driving.

We will use the DMCA to remove any video showing

[Joe_Dragon]

We will use the DMCA to remove any video showing any of our auto driver cars doing unsafe stuff or even just mock up's just like Samsung!

https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

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.

Re:You are wrong. Elon is right.

[ShanghaiBill]

Aside from this, anyone who watches local TV news sees frequent stories along the lines of "Entire family wiped out in car crash."

That isn't quite the same. People drive cars everyday. So when they see a story about a car crash, they can weigh it against their personal experience. People are also familiar with men and dogs, so they can dismiss a story about a man biting a dog as an anomaly. But people don't have personal experience with terrorism or self-driving cars, so when the media reports on rare events involving them, they should provide some context.

The Horror

[Anonymous Coward]

So, by extension, Musk making this argument has caused more media coverage, which results in killing more people, and these Slashdot postings kill more people, around and around...

It's a bloodbath.

He's totally right

[Miamicanes]

The fact of the matter is, every day, millions of commuters drive to and from work while distracted. If I'm going to be driving anywhere near somebody who's surfing the net on his phone while driving, I'd sure as HELL prefer that his car have some kind of autopilot capabilities paying attention to the road when he's not. At the very least, cars with limited autonomous driving have the potential to eliminate most rear-end collisions and accidents caused by drifting out of a lane.

Maybe South Florida is unique, but I've noticed an EXPONENTIAL increase in both gridlock, phone use while driving, and rear-end collisions over the past few years. The moment traffic slows down to 5mph or less, you can literally see every driver around you reaching for his or her phone (or already using it). Even a PRIMITIVE system that's only capable of "stay in the current lane, follow the car in front of you if the lane becomes ambiguous, and maintain speed while braking if necessary to avoid a rear-end collision" on limited-access roads would be a net improvement over what we have today.

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.

Teslas are doing just fine killing people

[superdave80]

Call me about your 'kind-of-autonomous-vehicle-but-not-really-but-I-want-to-sound-cool-that-we-have-autonomous-vehicles' when they don't do stupid shit like run smack into a giant semi-trailer in the middle of the road. Until then, stop saying you have an autonomous vehicle.

Re:Incidents vs. population?

[fluffernutter]

Furthermore, Autopilot only drives the simplest miles of road and always has a human monitoring it. It shuts down if something complicated happens, and it doesn't attempt difficult manoeuvres such as passing other vehicles. So in order to make some sense of the numbers, you must omit all accidents by people not happening within the ability of Autopilot.

Re:Indeed

[31415926535897]

You think Clinton bashing will stop when the election is over?!

Re:Incidents vs. population?

[HornWumpus]

They match the statistic for all human driving. But automated cars only drive in the safest circumstances. Where human drivers also have about 1/4 the overall accident rate.

Best data is: Current 'automated' cars are about 4x as dangerous as the average driver.

You've heard this one before?

[tpgp]

You've heard this one before?

Please give an historical example that follows your timeline.