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by dns_snek 364 days ago
> the reality is that likely all of them are already much safer than human drivers if you define "safety" in terms of severe accidents per million miles.

There's no chance this includes Tesla with their disengagements (equivalent to the driver passing out) and even then it's only true under the restricted set of conditions these systems actually operate at compared to human drivers.
1 comments
jfoster 364 days ago
It wouldn't make sense for the robotaxis to ever disengage in the same way that you might've seen in FSD videos.

I'm guessing that they just stop if they ever encounter a situation where they don't know what to do.

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dns_snek 364 days ago
Yes but what I was getting at is if the autonomous system is allowed to disengage every time it encounters a "difficult" situation (as Tesla "FSD" does) then its safety record can't be compared to human drivers even in otherwise comparable road conditions.

Human drivers don't get the luxury of disengaging and having a more skilled driver take over when they're struggling. If Tesla FSD drives for 100km before overwhelming glare causes the system to disengage, that'll go on record as "100km driven without accident", but when the human driver is blinded by the same glare and ends up in an accident 5km later, that'll go on record as 1 accident per 5km driven for the human driver.

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jfoster 364 days ago
OK, but if the system avoids an accident by not driving in glare whereas the human doesn't, that is still one accident avoided, isn't it?
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trust_bt_verify 364 days ago
> they just stop if they ever encounter a situation where they don’t know what to do.

Oh my god that’s terrifying if true. I can think of many situations when driving when slamming on the breaks is the absolute wrong choice. Tesla is pushing this out way before it’s safe enough to operate in public.

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averageRoyalty 362 days ago
Not justifying it, but there is a reason the person behind is almost always responsible in accidents. You are responsible for maintaining a safe distance in case the person in front of you (for whatever reason) stops or acts erratically.
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jfoster 364 days ago
What would be a better option if the system doesn't understand the environment? Can happen in any system, right? There's really only two options:

1. Keep driving in some way

2. Stop

Which one do you think Waymo (or any other system) does when it doesn't understand a situation?

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