[Iolaum]

To add context. In Aviation, if they do find a bug in the software running an airplane's engine they do ground planes until they know more about impact and mitigation.

Not saying cars should do the same, just that it's not absurd to consider it.

[hef19898]

Well, to be honest something like Tesla's Autopilot would never have been certified in Aerospace anyway. And yes, the question of what authorities would do in such a case is a valid one. It seems like authorities are struggling with functions like that, would it be simply hardware, e.g. faulty airbag sensors, recalls would have been already be issued.

[ClumsyPilot]

" It seems like authorities are struggling"

I would rather describe it as sleeping at the wheel, passed out drunk and having pissed their pants after vomiting a bottle of hard liquir.

Okay, maybe i got carried away with the metaphor, but you get the idea

[hef19898]

Funny how someone on the internet can translate my understanding of "struggling" into plain English! Appreciate it!

Disclaimer: I really try to work on my ability to word stuff more diplomatically. HN is a good training ground for that!

[leesec]

It's funny how super pro regulation people never consider the lives lost caused by slow regulation. If Tesla solves driving it will lead to tens of thousands of lives saved a year. Since 2015 there have been 20 deaths in 16 accidents related to autopilot, globally. Doesn't sound like a lot in comparison to highway death numbers, over 6 years.

[jcranmer]

On a per-mile-driven basis, Tesla's self-driving accident rate is somewhere in the region of 5-10× that of human drivers, IIRC. And keep in mind that the self-driving here is already in a state of selection bias where it's more likely to be used in safer conditions (i.e., fully-grade-separated highway driving in clear conditions, rather than dense urban environments in inclement weather).

[Domenic_S]

Maybe you were thinking the autopilot accident rate being 5-10x _less_ than human drivers?

> In the 2nd quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.41 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.2 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.

Tesla publishes these safety reports; the accident rate has held fairly steady quarter over quarter: https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

[jcranmer]

I know there are several wildly different statistics for Tesla's crash rate. Some of these statistics suffer from poor data quality, and the first big study saying "Tesla is safer than average drivers!" was really affected by this (I don't recall the exact details, but the consensus of pretty much everyone not Tesla was the statistics were complete garbage).

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

You really can’t compare the average mile with the average autopilot mile. The best analogy I’ve heard is comparing human aircraft pilots (takeoffs, landings, weird old planes, all kinds of pilots) against aircraft autopilots only cruising at 30,000ft.

[diggernet]

And how many disconnects do Teslas log per million miles on Autopilot? Because every disconnect is the car saying "I'm not good enough, humans are better than me".

[hef19898]

It's funny how people ignoring regulation, that developed during decades for very valid reasons, usually do so to further businesses and projects that benefit greatly by doing so. Tesla is one example when it comes to self-driving, Uber another one when it come to the Taxi business. All for the greater good of course.

[leesec]

You think Uber doesn't provide a good service to the world? You are in favor of Taxi/Medallion monopolies?

[Apocryphon]

Perhaps it can be simultaneously true that Uber is providing a good service to customers against an outdated and badly-run industry, while they are doing many bad things.

[hef19898]

Not necessarily, just the a huge portion of Ubers competitive advantage comes from ignoring existing rules. Rules incumbents do follow.

[ClumsyPilot]

"You don't like you country being occupied by Soviet Union? Would you prefer Nazi Germany instead?"

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

> If Tesla solves driving it will lead to tens of thousands of lives saved a year.

That’s a big if. If we solved aging, we’d save nearly all lives, so please don’t regulate my medical practice. I expect to have aging solved and millions of treatments rolled out by 2020.

[mullingitover]

Solving aging would be a massive win for humanity at the individual level, and a horrific catastrophe at the species level.

[BurningFrog]

If new technology X saves 100 lives for each person it kills, it will be banned.

Because the dead person has a name, a tragic story, and grieving relatives, which will make the news.

The 100 saved people are anonymous, don't know they were saved by X, and this will be unreported outside of obscure research journals.

[ClumsyPilot]

If you save a child from drowning you don't get a 'a kill coupon' you can retrieve next time you are accused of murder.

[Sodman]

Certainly not, but if we invent a life-saving medicine that 1 in 1 million people have a fatal reaction to, we'll still consider it enough of an overall positive for humanity to celebrate it as a technological win for society.

The ratio isn't 1:1 or even 1:10, but there is a line somewhere where X deaths <caused by new tech> is acceptable because of the X^Y lives saved <by new tech>.

See also: Most modes of transport, most medicines and surgical procedures.

[BurningFrog]

Deliberate murders of individuals are morally very different from tiny risks of deaths in a large population.

Nothing good comes from trying to treat them as the same.

[ClumsyPilot]

Are in favour of medical experiments on random strangers?

The same argument applies - sorry you died, but the data might save someone else's life down the line.

A lot of unique medical data was produced by Nazis doing cruel experiments on people.

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/learn-from-nazi-medical-res...

[Consultant32452]

I’ll be happy if “AI” cars are safer than human drivers on average. Zero accidents/deaths can come later.

If everyone was flying their personal planes around and constantly banging into each other a minor software bug would not ground any planes. It would be more like a malfunctioning airbag recall.

[zibzab]

I can already see Elons angry tweets if MVA ever even thinks about that. Remember the Corona tweets?

What we need is a big fat lawsuit, since the government will not do anything to anger the only profitable US automaker.

[taneq]

That’s the theory but the recent issues with Boeing show that practice doesn’t always follow.

[hef19898]

Boeing lobbied the FAA for way too long to avoid grounding of the fleet. It did happen so, after it turned out Boeing's SW fixes didn't work.

Also, just how that part of the 737MAX was certified is the real scandal, if you ask me. This is the literal example proofing the rule, so.