# The Tesla Revolution - Man versus Machine



## electrico (May 18, 2017)

Good opinion piece.

"There are those that welcome the technology, but like Will Smith, I’m a bit old school and somewhat suspicious of robots – whether they be in the form of humans, animals, appliances or cars. However, where cars are concerned, there is a balance to be had and car makers are testing those bounds and as consumers we do have a say in where they take us in the not so far off future."

https://www.torquenews.com/1/tesla-revolution-man-versus-machine


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Self drive cars don't need to be perfect - just better than we are!

And the data so far is about 25% of the accidents/mile with the current early Tesla model

And unlike human drivers they will get better


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## electrico (May 18, 2017)

Duncan, how do you explain that to drivers, so they don't put their 100 percent trust in Self-driving cars? Most people are tempted and think this is it: leave the wheel and it will take you to the destination. I think Tesla's 3000 dollar package basically promises that.


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

electrico said:


> Duncan, how do you explain that to drivers, so they don't put their 100 percent trust in Self-driving cars? Most people are tempted and think this is it: leave the wheel and it will take you to the destination. I think Tesla's 3000 dollar package basically promises that.


That is a major problem:

if the car is self-driving, then owners must put their trust entirely in the vehicle - the owners are not drivers at all during automated operation, and will leave it to the vehicle to take them to the destination
if the vehicle has only assistance features (such as Tesla's Autopilot), then the driver cannot trust the vehicle at all and remains entirely accountable for the vehicle's operation.
Any Tesla owner who disregards the many warnings of this in the owners manual and from the vehicle during operation is responsible for whatever happens when Autopilot fails. And it does fail, and will continue to fail.

I looked at Tesla's web page on Autopilot today, and was both surprised and disturbed to see that they are claiming self-driving capability, in stark contrast to the reality of the system.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

electrico said:


> Duncan, how do you explain that to drivers, so they don't put their 100 percent trust in Self-driving cars? Most people are tempted and think this is it: leave the wheel and it will take you to the destination. I think Tesla's 3000 dollar package basically promises that.


Well you can't. The whole reason it seems so plausible to make a self-driving car "better" than humans is that there is such a wide variation in human behavior.

"Accident statistics" are nonsense. They don't tell you how likely a particular driver is to cause an accident, only how likely it is that among a given random sample of humans one stupid one will cause an accident.

Someday there will be amazing AI better than a human in most ways. Then very few accidents will happen. In the meantime, however, when you put a stupid human in a smart car then they (and everyone else) are probably better off if they DON'T think about taking over for the computer. So go ahead and advertise that people are better off; the smart ones will know better.


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## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Which of your children do you want the Tesla software to kill?


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## el_gallo_azul (Nov 22, 2015)

The youngest. She'll be the only one left are people bang their cars into the ollder 3.


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## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

el_gallo_azul said:


> The youngest.


I hope you inform the others


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## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

"Is Autonomous Vehicle Legislation Being Held Up? And Why?"


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## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

Unsafe At Any Speed Redux, Self-Driving Cars, and Legal Liability

“Going back 50 years, I’ve never seen a more brazen attempt to escape the rule of safety law, and the role of the courts to be accessible to their victims,” longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader told CNN. “With their unproven, secretive technology that’s fully hackable, the autonomous vehicle industry wants to close the door on federal safety protection and close the door to the court room.”


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Kevin Sharpe said:


> Unsafe At Any Speed Redux, Self-Driving Cars, and Legal Liability
> 
> “Going back 50 years, I’ve never seen a more brazen attempt to escape the rule of safety law, and the role of the courts to be accessible to their victims,” longtime consumer advocate Ralph Nader told CNN. “With their unproven, secretive technology that’s fully hackable, the autonomous vehicle industry wants to close the door on federal safety protection and close the door to the court room.”


Exactly. Auto makers want to escape product liability any way possible, and are hoping this red herring distracts lawmakers into believing that "the computer did it" is an acceptable defense.


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## Kevin Sharpe (Jul 4, 2011)

NTSB preliminary report released 

Tesla involved in fatal crash sped up before hitting road barrier

"There was no braking or evasive steering detected prior to impact”


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