this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 118 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Who the hell thinks beta software is appropriate for real-world applications in something as dangerous as vehicle control at highway speeds?

I've come to believe that all Teslas should be recalled until they get their act together. They're getting people hurt and killed by field testing their experiments on roadways that we paid for.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (3 children)

More importantly, hold musk responsible for the mayhem. They call it "full self driving" when it has not qualified to be called that.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I agree. However, I also acknowledge that with the US's legal fiction that "Corporations are people," it's unlikely that any CEO will ever be held personally responsible for anything except failing to make enough profit for greedy moneygrubbers.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Corporate death penalty. Revoke their corporate charter. No more company.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

While I personally agree, under US shareholder-primacy laws, this would likely be impossible in the current era.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not true. Corporations can't commit crimes because they are just legal entities. People commit crimes.

Your main issue is that many things that you think are crimes (dumping waste, not paying employees, stiffing suppliers, accidents) are not crimes. They are civil or regulatory issues. If you care, you should pick one and lobby your state to make it a crime.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Corporations can’t commit crimes because they are just legal entities.

The US Supreme Court begs to differ:

The list goes on.

[M]any things that you think are crimes (dumping waste, not paying employees, stiffing suppliers, accidents) are not crimes.

Again, the US federal and state governments would like a word. There's not a locale in the country that considers theft and intentional illegal pollution not to be criminal acts with fines and, for natural person, imprisonment as punishments. However, you are correct that accidents are generally not considered crimes, although penalties may still apply if they were the result of carelessness or neglect.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Yeah that's straight fraud. FTC should penalize them for every fsd car sold. And make them liable for each crash when it was enabled.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it's a beta for "full self driving" and it's really quite easy to argue that it even is capable of doing that. It's just not really close to the required certainty. It propably acts fine in 99%+ of decisions. It's just such a bitch to get that last percent filled in as much as required

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'll clarify, I don't mind it being called FSD beta because that is the end goal, but Elon has tweeted about FSD being "released" and very public accidents have occurred shortly afterwards. He should be adding disclaimers all over, but instead he makes it sound like it's totally safe.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While I agree, let's not pretend like this is limited just to Tesla. My feed lately has had numerous stories of crazy FSD taxis as well.

I also have to say that one of my concerns with FSD is the deterioration in people's driving skills and their awareness of their car's abilities (especially as those change over time). Leaving aside all the wisecracks about people's normal abilities or not paying attention anyway, let's take a snowstorm. FSD can't drive in it, so you're left with regular human drivers going manual in their cars. But they haven't actually driven themselves in a while, so they've forgotten some of the lessons they learned like how to apply the brakes differently in ice and snow, they don't know where the corners of their car are, they're driving entirely too fast and - because their FSD car was compensating for mechanical issues - they're not aware that their tires are near-bald and the brakes are iffy.

Thing is, I know this is something that's going to happen. I just don't know how we can mitigate the risks.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

IMHO, Waymo a Cruise AVs are different animals. They have LiDAR. Musk is still hell bent on developing a camera-only system, which is inferior. But it’s cheaper and less bulky, so Musk is all about it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oh, I completely agree on all points. None of them are ready for full autopilot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/are-self-driving-cars-already-safer-than-human-drivers/

It seems that both Waymo and Cruise are more likely to already surpass average human driving safety, than not.

I'm really curious on how the next FSD version (which apparently completely relies on neural nets for driving) play out.
Not that I think it'll be particularily good, just particularily interesting.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Who the hell thinks beta software is appropriate for real-world applications in something as dangerous as vehicle control at highway speeds?

Ruling class investors, techbro grifters, and the credulous rubes that believe the Singularity(tm) is right around the corner and every person killed in a janky car is only making the car smarter.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Who the hell thinks beta software is appropriate for real-world applications in something as dangerous as vehicle control at highway speeds?

I honestly think it's a mixture of public perception and liability. The company can try to spin negative insurances as "well, we said it's still in beta, there are bugs we're still ironing out". And legally I think the stance is "we said it's a beta version, if you used it in a dangerous situation that's on you".

I know it doesn't exactly work that way, but I genuinely think they're positioning that way at that if (read: when) a legal case pops up they can use the "beta" moniker as part of a defence.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Agreed. I’m just not sure how regulators justify allowing software that claims to be beta to operate a vehicle autonomously.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Users do. See all the people running iOS betas on their daily drivers, then complaining about a forced reset or data loss.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

A cell phone is not a motor vehicle.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My GF had a tesla, we turned it in yesterday after the lease was up because Elon is terrible. But I had simmiliar experinces with the FSD THE ONE AND ONLY TIME I tried using it. I was drifting lanes almost immediately and making a dangerously wide turn in an intersection. I seriously almost hopped the curb a few times. We disabled it entirely after we parked.

FSD absolutely is not ready. Not even close. Wildly reckless that is being deployed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It’s awful and it feels like it has gotten worse. FSD is the second worst purchase I have ever made, a hot tub being the first. We bought our Tesla and my wife loves it so we will have it for a while. The motors and batteries are excellent with Tesla, but everything else is mediocre at best. Without a doubt, it will be the last one we own if I have my way. Elon is a con man.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago

In the meantime, please always use Autopilot and FSD Beta as intended, which means with your hands on your steering wheels and your eyes on the road.

This isn't how people work if you aren't driving then your reactions will on average be substantially slower than if you were attending to the task directly and you have no reason to expect the sudden death wish. If you have to babysit it with your hands on the wheel poised to avert death at any moment it is fact much worse than nothing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The question is why are Tesla's and self driving still allowed?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Rich people write their own rules.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"OMG! This buggy software almost killed me! Let's try that again." Idiot.

Like seriously, maybe Elon will see this article and have it fixed in a day or two. Great, you're risking your life to do beta testing and you're doing it for free. I'm sure he appreciates it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

and you're doing it for free

Full self driving is a paid add-on, this person actually paid real monies (and a lot of monies at that) to beta test this... So basically Tesla gets money and free data

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So Tesla is basically selling assisted suicide package? Interesting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The fact that there are still people willing to use this astounds me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Meanwhile Comma is looking pretty interesting

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

But you did kinda have it coming....