[freerobby]

> Humans are terrible at vigilance tasks, and if you ask them to passively monitor a system that gets things right 98% of the time, you're going to have a bad time.

I understand this as a hypothesis but it hasn't been borne out by any of the Autopilot usage data. I suspect the reason is that humans suffer greatly from fatigue and ADAS systems reduce fatigue.

[mrguyorama]

Humans being bad at vigilance tasks isn't a hypothesis, it has been thoroughly studied for aviation safety reasons and is one of the hundreds of social and behavioral changes that aviation made to better interact with the human machine.

Hundreds of people have died explicitly because well trained people with thousands of hours of experience got distracted from their vigilance task. This isn't a hypothetical. There are bodies in the florida everglades.

[freerobby]

That isn't what I'm saying.

I'm saying it was a reasonable hypothesis that "you're going to have a bad time" with a system like Autopilot, because of the vigilance concern you're referencing. But there is clearly more at play than vigilance, because it's not shaking out that way -- Autopilot (and similar lanekeeping + adaptive cruise systems from other manufacturers) aren't killing people left and right.

So, I was sharing my own hypothesis for why that may be: that the benefits of reduced fatigue are outweighing the drawbacks of distraction and complacency.

[jwestbury]

As mentioned by another poster, there is actual research[0] showing that, once controlling for additional factors, Autopilot actually increases crashes by 11%. This is utilising Tesla-provided data, too, which could mean the data itself is already biased.

0. https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973

[itsoktocry]

>I suspect the reason is that humans suffer greatly from fatigue and ADAS systems reduce fatigue.

I understand this hypothesis, but has it borne out by any independent analysis of Autopilot usage data?

Tesla is selling expensive software and claiming it's safer. It should be safer, I want it to be safer. But is it?

[freerobby]

With specific respect to ADAS systems reducing fatigue:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13698...

> We investigated the effects of ACC and HAD on drivers’ workload and situation awareness through a meta-analysis and narrative review of simulator and on-road studies. Based on a total of 32 studies, the unweighted mean self-reported workload was 43.5% for manual driving, 38.6% for ACC driving, and 22.7% for HAD (0% = minimum, 100 = maximum on the NASA Task Load Index or Rating Scale Mental Effort).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136192092...

> Interviewees reported being less mentally and physically tired—though most focused on the former—both while in transit and upon arrival at their destination. Twelve (12) interviewees mentioned this. The reduction in tiredness seems to be because, from the interviewees perspective, partial automation takes over a substantial portion of the driving task.

[sumeno]

> I understand this as a hypothesis but it hasn't been borne out by any of the Autopilot usage data.

Which independent Autopilot usage data are you referencing?

[freerobby]

I don't have any independent data, just what Tesla reports: https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

I've read the many critiques of Tesla's analysis, and I tend to agree the benefits are overstated, but I haven't seen any reasonable empirical case that Autopilot hurts safety on net.

[mrguyorama]

>but I haven't seen any reasonable empirical case that Autopilot hurts safety on net.

because tesla does not release their data

[rvnx]

You can compare Tesla death rates per vehicule sold vs similar cars however:

https://www.flyingpenguin.com/?p=35819