[HN Gopher] Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving cl...
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Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims
Author : brandall10
Score : 217 points
Date : 2022-10-26 19:44 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| wilg wrote:
| I don't understand why Elon claiming that the cars will be able
| to drive themselves in the future could be considered any kind of
| crime? I don't think Tesla has ever said "hey you can get in the
| car today and it is fully autonomous". They've just said that's
| what they will do in the future. They've also shown and talked
| about products in-development.
|
| You might think they are full of shit about whether it will ever
| be delivered, which is a fair argument, but that's much different
| than lying about the actual product in people's hands.
| mike_d wrote:
| It is a crime because he is collecting money for it now.
|
| At the minimum it is a violation of the "30 day rule." If you
| accept money for a preorder of something, you must clearly
| state a delivery date. If you do not, it is assumed within 30
| days of an order.
|
| Tesla can face FTC fines of $16,000 per Autopilot sale, in
| addition to lawsuits from consumer protection agencies in every
| state where a vehicle was sold with the undelivered feature.
|
| This is why all the crowdfunding platforms are basically
| donations with "rewards" of products and not preorders.
| wilg wrote:
| This is interesting and very specific. I would think that if
| this applied it would be quite open-and-shut, and handled by
| the FTC directly. So my guess is it does not apply. Perhaps
| because it is not "merchandise"?
| mike_d wrote:
| I believe the lack of enforcement action is because FTC is
| understaffed for the amount of stuff under their purview,
| combined with the fact that not enough defrauded consumers
| know they need to file complaints.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/media/71268
| AlexandrB wrote:
| They allowed you to buy the "car can drive itself" capability
| and never fully delivered. It's not like this was just a
| promise, it was something you could pay for _years ago_.
| wilg wrote:
| Yeah, but that isn't a crime. You can pre-order things. They
| still claim they will deliver it. Seems like maybe you could
| do a class-action or something to get your money back, but
| not argue that actually it was reasonable to believe you
| already had it and therefore are not liable for a crash or
| whatever.
| mike_d wrote:
| > Yeah, but that isn't a crime. You can pre-order things.
|
| It actually is. When accepting a preorder you have to
| provide a fixed delivery date, or it is assumed to be no
| later than 30 days after sale (or 50 days if you offer in-
| house financing). The fraud case here is actually very
| straightforward.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-
| gui...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| IANAL but I think you could call it fraud if you never had
| any intention of delivering. E.g. if I kickstart a
| perpetual motion machine and then move to the Bahamas with
| the funds.
|
| What's ironic is that despite his image as a genius no one
| ever holds Elon to account for his failure to accurately
| predict the state/progress of his own technology. He's
| either not as smart as people think or he's knowingly
| lying, but I think you have to pick one.
| wilg wrote:
| Seems like since they are delivering things, albeit
| slowly, and spending tons of money developing it, that it
| would be hard to make that stick.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Yeah, probably true.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Their marketing has lots of videos where they tout self-driving
| (calling it full self-driving or Autopilot) without any
| clarification it is a future promise. And then there is a
| feature on your Tesla called Autopilot you can click one
|
| I know if you are in the weeds you know the capabilities - but
| I think most people get the impression it can drive itself and
| its safe. And that impression is a direct result from marketing
| materials. Given the severity of car accidents it seems
| reasonable to be strict on these marketing claims, even if they
| call it a "beta" in the fine-print.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlThdr3O5Qo
| klyrs wrote:
| It's the claims he makes about the present that are a problem.
| Also, when he's selling "beta" access with the expectation that
| "release" access will be more expensive and a neverending
| promise of "this year" and "next year", that sounds like
| reasonably clear-cut fraud to me.
| wilg wrote:
| I am not sure there are any actual claims about the present
| that would lead a reasonable person to conclude their car
| currently has features that it does not.
|
| I don't think it's anywhere near clear-cut fraud to say "you
| can pre-order this for a cheaper price" and to be wrong about
| your deadline estimates. Yes, if it never comes out or there
| is evidence they never even tried to make good on the offer,
| then you would be open to some kind of legal action. But
| clearly they are trying. If a bunch of owners want to try to
| argue that the timeline was promised and missed and do a
| class action to get their money back, that seems reasonable
| enough. But none of this seems to relate to actual safety
| issues or anything.
| mike_d wrote:
| See my comment upthread. If you accept a preorder you must
| offer a firm delivery date. If you cannot make that date,
| your only option under the law is a refund. You can't push
| the date back.
| filoleg wrote:
| How do Kickstarter and early access games sold on Steam
| function in that magic universe where "if you accept a
| preorder, you must offer a firm delivery date"?
|
| As far as I can tell, there aren't droves of Kickstarter
| campaigns that keep getting sued or prosecuted on regular
| just for perpetually delaying their delivery dates (often
| for years).
| wilg wrote:
| > Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms are framed
| as donations.
|
| I don't see any evidence of this on the Kickstarter
| website.
|
| > Steam Early Access allows you to request a full refund
| at any point up until the actual launch of the game
|
| This is not true. They are considered normal purchases.
| mike_d wrote:
| Look closer, you'll see it says "Pledge" instead of "Buy
| Now" or similar language. You also receive a "Reward" if
| the project is successful.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/ You may
| need to go back and forth with support to get a refund,
| but Early Access is ultimately covered under the pre-
| purchase terms.
| klyrs wrote:
| Are these non-released steam games killing people?
| filoleg wrote:
| They don't, just like the non-released FSD doesn't,
| because it isn't available yet.
|
| The original claim I replied to was talking about the
| possibility of Tesla getting sued for delaying multiple
| times the release of a product that's in active
| development (and thus being unavailable). I don't see how
| the discussion about a product that the public has no
| access to "killing people" is relevant at all.
| wilg wrote:
| > Are these non-released steam games killing people?
|
| This isn't relevant to the law! But also by the same
| argument how is a non-released self-driving product
| killing people?
| mike_d wrote:
| Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms are framed
| as donations.
|
| Steam Early Access allows you to request a full refund at
| any point up until the actual launch of the game (and
| then 14 days after based on the standard refund policy),
| even if you have played it extensively.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > why Elon claiming [...] could be considered any kind of
| crime?
|
| Among many other reasons, if he knows it to be false but states
| it as is true, this is market manipulation
| phire wrote:
| The probe isn't about the future "full self driving" product.
|
| It's about the current "autopilot" product, or more
| importantly, the marketing around it. They are investigating if
| Tesla deliberately oversold the capabilities of autopilot,
| implying that can do far more than it actually can.
|
| Basically: are Tesla criminally responsible for customers who
| misunderstood what autopilot was, and then didn't correctly
| supervise the autopilot and ended up in accidents?
|
| Though the fact that Tesla/Musk were continually talking about
| the FSD features will play into the probe, but only because
| customers might have confused things said about the future FSD
| feature, for the capabilities of the current system. But only
| if Tesla deliberately encouraged or knew about this confusion
| (or should have known)
| tptacek wrote:
| If Tesla knowingly makes material false claims about what their
| cars can do, especially if they have internal evidence that
| people are using the feature dangerously in ways Tesla could
| have prevented, they're perpetrating fraud.
|
| Most frauds are prosecuted in state court. There are several
| federal fraud statutes. For instance, wire fraud, which is any
| interstate fraud that uses telecommunications, has the
| following (paraphrased) predicates in the model jury
| instructions:
|
| (1) You knowingly took part in a scheme to deceive people.
|
| (2) The lies you told were material and caused people to spend
| money or give up property.
|
| (3) You had an intent to cheat people out of money.
|
| (4) You used some form of interstate telecommunications as part
| of the scheme.
|
| Prosecutors don't have to prove that Tesla says "the car is
| fully autonomous today". They just have to prove that Tesla
| made statements that it knew weren't true, in order to get
| people to buy cars or Tesla stock. Those statements can be much
| narrower than "we have achieved full FSD", so long as they are
| material: that is, so long as they're significant enough to
| influence people's purchasing decisions.
| wilg wrote:
| Sure, I just wonder if there actually are any such
| statements. Seems like usually people point to statements
| that are Elon tweeting "I think it might be ready next year".
| tptacek wrote:
| The article quotes Elon Musk as having said "Like we're not
| saying that that's quite ready to have no one behind the
| wheel". That statement is presented as _exculpatory_ for
| Tesla, despite the fact that there 's miles of safety
| margin between "nobody needs to be behind the wheel" and
| "autopilot is safe to rely on as advertised in all
| circumstances". If that's what's getting Tesla off the
| hook, chances are, they've got substantially worse things
| in their files.
|
| The other thing is, the messages Tesla sends to the market
| can be contradictory; prosecutors will home in on the least
| responsible things they say, and it'll be up to the defense
| to establish "no, what we really meant, and what every
| reasonable person took away from what we said, was this
| banal statement we made in the manual for the car". That'll
| be tricky, because people have obviously been killed by
| Tesla's "autopilot" feature, which they were dumb enough to
| name "autopilot".
|
| Who knows if there's a real case here, though? There may
| not be!
| wilg wrote:
| What I'm saying is that I don't actually think Tesla or
| Elon has suggested you use Autopilot (or Full-Self
| Driving Beta) in any way other than the approved way.
|
| Plus, when enabling either feature (which are opt-in) a
| very clear warning is displayed which you must agree to.
|
| So I just don't know who is like, "well, I bought the
| thing and read the warning and agreed to it but just
| assumed it was fully autonomous because it's called
| Autopilot and therefore it is reasonable for me not to
| pay attention".
| tptacek wrote:
| "Very clear warnings" in manuals and in car displays
| aren't a get-out-of-jail-free card. If Tesla never made
| any communications that contradicted those displays,
| they'll probably be fine, at least with respect to FSD
| safety.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I don't know what the standards are in the automotive
| field, but in medical devices labeling (including product
| manuals) is considered the absolute last resort when
| attempting to mitigate a hazard. The odds of the FDA or
| any other regulatory body letting you off the hook after
| your device caused an Injury to Patient or loss of life
| because "we said in the manual to not do that" is
| effectively zero.
| klyrs wrote:
| He's not just a random speculator tweeting on the internet.
| He acts as a spokesperson for the company using his
| personal twitter account. He can't* merely escape liability
| by posting shitmemes in between PR statements & baiting
| investors.
|
| * I mean... if you or I were to operate a company like
| that, we'd get destroyed, anyway. Whether or not Musk is
| too rich to face any real consequences for, say, shooting
| somebody on 5th ave, is an open question.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Moreover, when I was promoted to Staff Engineer at a
| certain company, I had to go through training to drive
| home the point that if I spoke in public, about company
| business, I was considered a representative of the
| company and my statements could lead to legal action
| against the company because my position was considered a
| Management-level role.
|
| Whether or not he faces any real consequences (unlikely),
| it will be interesting to see what impact it has on the
| corporation.
| wilg wrote:
| I'm not saying he would escape liability for shitposting.
| I'm saying that these statements are all relatively
| clearly "forward-looking statements".
| woeirua wrote:
| I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Tesla the electric
| car company is doing great. Tesla the FSD tech unicorn, is going
| to end in tears. I will not be surprised at all when some of the
| engineers on the AI team go to jail over this. Why the engineers?
| Because the executives almost always are able to afford high
| powered lawyers to avoid any serious consequences.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This happened with that whole GM ignition switch thing
|
| Edited to add this link
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/busi...
| dheera wrote:
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| And _upvote_ it? Wtf are you talking about
| dheera wrote:
| Shareholders upvote and downvote stocks with their bid/ask
| prices.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| That's a real weird way of putting it.
| woeirua wrote:
| You can't be serious. The shareholders demand returns, but
| the EV side of the company already has been successful enough
| to keep them placated. No one forced Musk to go out there and
| repeatedly claim that Telsa's would be able to be used as
| robotaxis, or that you'd be able to drive across country with
| no hands. He's still out there making these outlandish
| claims! At some point, the music is going to stop.
| dheera wrote:
| > The shareholders demand returns
|
| This _is_ the problem. Shareholders demand short term
| returns, not a long term safe /sustainable future and long
| term returns.
|
| > successful enough to keep them placated
|
| No, not really. A good chunk of the market value of TSLA is
| hinged upon FSD becoming a reality at some point in the
| future.
| AlmostAnyone wrote:
| > This is the problem. Shareholders demand short term
| returns, not a long term safe/sustainable future and long
| term returns.
|
| So what? There's nothing wrong about that. Shareholders
| demand both long term stability and short term returns
| btw - if the market thought there are no long term
| returns to be had, the stock price would've crashed.
|
| Shareholders don't have much say about how Tesla does it,
| and they're actually the ones defrauded.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| The shareholders can demand whatever they want including
| shiny unicorns. Musk and Tesla are entitled to say "No".
|
| When Tim Cook was asked pointed questions on why Apple
| gave a crap about environmental concerns, rather than
| focussing on pure profit uber-alles, he smacked down the
| questioner [1]
|
| "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you
| should get out of this stock."
|
| A company's decisions can be guided by shareholders, but
| it's on the company to forge their own path. If the
| shareholders don't like it, they'll vote with their feet.
| Promising unicorns to keep the feet planted where they
| are is not a good strategy.
|
| [1]: https://9to5mac.com/2014/02/28/tim-cook-rejects-
| ncppr-propos...
| Aunche wrote:
| I don't see how you expect the shareholders to know any
| better than the consumers. It's not like they have
| special insider knowledge.
| woeirua wrote:
| Yes, and in a sane world the SEC and FTC would have
| slapped Musk down.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| whateveracct wrote:
| haha so you think the Elon Musk is being persecuted by the
| DoJ for political reasons? In broad daylight for made-up
| reasons?
|
| The Trump administration really obliterated the DoJ's
| reputation and people's expectations and norms.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| How many January 6th rioters are still in jail? How many
| tea party members were unfairly audited by the IRS. It's a
| lot more than you think.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's almost like trying to invade the capital is a crime
| or something.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I agree, but they have a constitutional right to a quick
| and speedy trial.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Is a year-and-a-half that long for such a high-profile
| case (potentially with co-conspirators and other related
| cases going on?) Also, sentences have been doled out.
| They aren't being Gitmo'd.
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| > is being persecuted by the DoJ for political reasons? In
| broad daylight for made-up reasons?
|
| I mean, sure why not? It wouldn't be anything new. The US
| has been disappearing people for a long time now. The
| president can extra-judicially kill American citizens since
| Obama. Whats one measly politically-motivated
| investigation?
|
| Just recently we had a major journalist/editor get
| disappeared by the FBI for investigating the regime.
|
| https://nypost.com/2022/10/19/journalist-james-gordon-
| meek-m...
|
| Of course, when you turn on state media they'll largely
| report that everything's fine.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Everyone loved Musk, Trump, Oz, etc before they became
| politicians.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Everyone loved Musk, Trump, Oz, etc before they became
| politicians.
|
| Musk has been controversial since the hyperloop, and
| certainly plenty of people hated him for many years for a
| variety of reasons. I could recap, but that's been out for
| years so you can probably fill them all in. Which is my
| point.
|
| I have no idea who you thought loved Oz or Trump. Oz
| peddled scam cures. Trump was a failed real estate
| baron/casino operator/etc who played less of a failure on
| TV.
|
| And Oz and Trump had failing TV shows. Oz was down 17% YoY
| right before he announced, putting him in 10th in the
| timeslot and Trump was also down like 17% YoY for a few
| years in a ro) before they hopped into politics. But even
| the people impressed by "can get on TV" faded on them.
|
| I do feel that the Republican voting population and the
| audience for those shows had a significant overlap. Leading
| people likely to vote for them to think there was a sudden
| shift.
| kube-system wrote:
| This investigation is about statements made about the car's
| capabilities, not an issue with the capability itself. This is
| squarely on their marketing and executive teams.
|
| In fact, some of their other departments are notable for
| contradicting the lofty claims of their marketing.
| woeirua wrote:
| When the shit starts flying, the execs and marketing team are
| absolutely going to throw the engineers under the bus. "We
| were just repeating what we were told by the engineers." "We
| didn't know any better."
|
| It happens every time. The best defense for the engineers is
| to have thoroughly documented the limitations of the system.
| csours wrote:
| It's not a crime to have poor safety culture, but poor
| safety culture causes crimes to happen.
|
| That is, you may induce your employees to commit crimes,
| while not personally violating any laws.
|
| Or your employees may commit crimes because middle
| management thought it was more important to hit their
| targets.
|
| There is an obvious moral conflict here; the laws have not
| caught up to the complexity of corporate culture.
| tinalumfoil wrote:
| Do you have an example where an engineer was wrongly held
| to account for the actions of execs?
| [deleted]
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Not exactly the same thing, but Boeing certainly tried to
| throw Mark Forkner under the bus.
| andsoitis wrote:
| But in this particular case, the guy at the helm (CEO and
| marketing), i.e. Musk, is also an engineer...
| kube-system wrote:
| All of those limitations are documented and are even
| published in the owners manual, among other things. "Nobody
| told us" doesn't hold water in this scenario. Musk knows
| exactly what his car can and can't do, but he sells it with
| misleading marketing anyway.
| [deleted]
| munk-a wrote:
| There is a character that is a wonderful example in this
| category in "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett - I'd suggest
| reading the whole book because it's fantastic but in
| particular Mr. Pony is the epitome of the pressed on
| engineer
|
| > Pony looked around, a hunted man. He'd got his pink
| carbon copies, and they would show everyone that he was
| nothing more than a man who'd tried to make things work,
| but right now all he could find on his side was the truth.
| He took refuge in it.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > It happens every time.
|
| Citation needed please
| aeternum wrote:
| This is an outlandish claim and needless fearmongering. Why
| stop at Tesla, should Meta/Twitter engineers also go to jail
| for their role in building platforms that can be used to incite
| violence? Boeing engineers for the 737 Max? Toyota engineers
| for the stuck accelerator issues?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| I don't think OP ever said they _should_ face charges, only
| that they probably will.
| woeirua wrote:
| You might have missed when the DOJ indicted the Chief
| Technical Pilot for the 737 Max as a result of the crashes
| [1].
|
| BTW, he was later acquitted by a jury.
|
| [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-boeing-737-max-
| chief-t...
| lokar wrote:
| He personally made false statements to the government
| nomel wrote:
| I think the last two could easily be a "yes" if failing
| safety tests were signed off by those engineers.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| In absolute seriousness: yes they should.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| Classic government wasteful spending and appeasement to whom may
| line their pockets. Everything Tesla/SpaceX has done has been:
| 1)Light years above the competition 2)Done with less employees
| and less money 3)Completed in a timespan that makes companies
| like: Boeing, Blue Origin, Lockheed, and other government money
| sifting leeches look like the trash that they are. They are an
| inefficient cancer and the government most forbade another
| company making the big boy has-beens look as bad as they actually
| are.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _Everything Tesla /SpaceX has done has been: 1)Light years
| above the competition_
|
| Here are some EVs trying to park themselves:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA
|
| The Teslas perform the worst. Tesla is yet to achieve full
| self-parking, never mind full self-driving.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Are you aware of how many government grants and tax benefits
| Tesla/SpaceX have collected[1]? They're as much "government
| money sifting leeches" as the rest.
|
| [1] https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
| subsidies-201...
| mlindner wrote:
| That article is from 2015, firstly, and second if you
| actually look into what the subsidies are for, they're almost
| all for things that any manufacturer can access and are not
| Tesla specific. Are you against any subsidizing of green
| technologies?
|
| Here's a break down for you:
|
| https://electrek.co/2015/06/02/complete-breakdown-of-
| the-4-9...
|
| N.B.: Only $20M went to SpaceX and it was local government
| doing it.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| First, SpaceX isn't getting (measurable) "grants". They are
| winning bids.
|
| Second, SpaceX takes far less money on comparable bids than
| legacy launchers. They simply charge less. That's why they
| win.
|
| Last, they actually deliver, unlike Boeing. Look at Starliner
| vs Crew Dragon. They are delivering incredible value for your
| tax dollars.
| [deleted]
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Everything Tesla/SpaceX has done has been: 1)Light years
| above the competition 2)Done with less employees and less money
| 3)Completed in a timespan that makes companies like
|
| We're discussing Tesla's self driving system. It's certainly
| not light years above the competition, as it doesn't even use
| state of the art sensors for safety like LiDAR, which has
| predictably resulted in multiple Teslas killing their drivers.
| Maybe they've built what they have with fewer employees and
| less money, but I don't think that's a win given the deaths.
| They probably should have used more money and employees to
| prevent that kind of thing. As for completing it in a timespan,
| I mean... they're nowhere near done and have been saying for
| years it'll be ready any day now, yet are still happily
| accepting money for their promises. That's pretty much the
| point of all this.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Obama paid for the Model S. They are only profitable because of
| California taxes on gas vehicles.
| hellomyguys wrote:
| Honestly surprised any of this made it past the legal department
| at Tesla. Any company I've worked at has always been super
| careful and conservative with the language you use to describe
| anything.
| klyrs wrote:
| Musk _wants_ to run a conservative Tesla. Only, the meaning of
| "conservative" has drifted a long way from how you're using it
| here.
| izzydata wrote:
| You can't sell lies if you only tell the truth.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Sadly a misperception.
|
| Modern masters deceive you with the truth - carefully
| selected facts, but true. Or close enough for legal purposes.
| loeg wrote:
| Musk doesn't listen to legal.
| beeboop wrote:
| Do you work in the legal department at Tesla?
| tptacek wrote:
| This is Tesla, a company that managed to randomly announce that
| it intended to take itself private, on Twitter.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| And probably included a pot joke.
| tenpies wrote:
| "managed to randomly announce" is a very odd way of saying
| "the CEO committed securities fraud because bankruptcy was
| imminent and his entire net worth was sunk into the company".
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| Because the legal departments don't have veto power on
| anything. In-house counsel is just that - _counsel,_ but in-
| house instead of some outside firm. Managers are free to ignore
| anything their lawyers say, just as you can ignore anything
| your lawyers say.
|
| The lawyers will cover themselves by writing memos about how
| they "informed the client to not do thing X, but they indicated
| that they don't care," but because those are work product,
| they're confidential. They're only for future malpractice
| suits, should they come.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I'd phrase that as legal departments don't have veto power on
| anything _unless management gives it to them_.
|
| If I -- Minion #64752 in BigCorp -- run my ad copy by legal
| and they strike it all as a legal hazard, but I run the ad
| anyway, my boss -- Low-Level Manager #11235 -- is going to
| fire me the next day, and hope that keeps his boss -- Mid-
| Level Manager #3142 -- from doing the same to him.
|
| If legal doesn't have veto power on ad copy, it's because the
| management hasn't given it to them, or because management is
| making the decision to disregard legal's advice.
| StillBored wrote:
| So, much of this sounds like a question of just how much you can
| lie in your marketing material if you then take it all back in
| the click-through.
|
| I'm curious how many times people have been refunded for the
| enhanced autopilot claiming a bait and switch. They believed the
| marketing materials purchased the car, and then discovered when
| they get it "hey not really".
|
| But, I'm guessing what will hang them, is the question over
| whether people actually believed the warnings were real or just
| CYA, and then promptly treated it like a full "better than human"
| AI.
| [deleted]
| outlace wrote:
| A bit tangential but I just got a Tesla Model 3 and paid $6,000
| extra for "enhanced autopilot" buying into all the marketing
| about it, and its one of the biggest regrets of my life and makes
| me unable to appreciate an otherwise great car. I just feel sick
| about it. The enhanced autopilot is buggy and doesn't save me any
| effort. The summon and auto park don't really work. I think it's
| a scam. Other than that it's a great car.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Write to your state's Attorney's General office, they usually
| have consumer affairs divisions. The FTC also has a Bureau of
| Consumer Protection.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| In my experience (Model 3 and Y), Basic Autopilot works very
| well on highways and is easier to use than the competition.
| However, enhanced autopilot and full self-driving do not
| provide benefits and are still unsafe outside freeways. They
| are used by Tesla to increase margins and hype their brand as
| innovative.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Your life is pretty damn good then, all things considered.
| kyleyeats wrote:
| This is why I never have a good life. I can't give up my
| right to complain..
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, total humble brag
| tristanb wrote:
| Interesting - we have it on our first car, love it, and just
| paid for it a second time on our second car. We regularly make
| 3-5hr trips with it driving. Maybe something is wrong with
| yours?
| CloudRecondite wrote:
| They should probably get a head start on the Tesla Bot
| investigation as well
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" The Justice Department's Autopilot probe is far from
| recommending any action partly because it is competing with two
| other DOJ investigations involving Tesla, one of the sources
| said. Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on
| charges is imminent, this source said."_
|
| - _" The Justice Department may also face challenges in building
| its case, said the sources, because of Tesla's warnings about
| overreliance on Autopilot."_
|
| How often do criminal defendants get to read the internal
| deliberations of their prosecuting office, and before they're
| even charged?
|
| What a dysfunctional mess. This leak was unethical, unlawful, and
| unworthy of the gravitas of an office whose work puts people in
| prison.
| tptacek wrote:
| If I search the NYT from 1990 to 2010 for "DOJ" "charges
| imminent", I get >2000 results. There's nothing happening with
| respect to Tesla here that doesn't happen all the time. DOJ is
| a big organization; it has 100,000 employees. We just notice
| this stuff when it intersects people and companies we have a
| rooting interest (one way or the other) in.
| maxbond wrote:
| It's entirely possible DOJ decided this was a good time to leak
| this information. For instance, just spitballing, they might be
| saying, "hey, we're going to bring charges, but not for a
| while, and we want to tell investors ahead of time so that the
| news causes less volatility, and the volatility will be better
| isolated to just Tesla."
|
| No real way to know from the outside, unless they bring charges
| against a leaker.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > How often do criminal defendants get to read the internal
| deliberations of their prosecuting office, and before they're
| even charged?
|
| There's really no reason this info should be secret. If you can
| provide extra info to persuade them not to charge you, then all
| the better - time saved for both parties.
| [deleted]
| postmeta wrote:
| how about some criminal charges for politicians who make claims
| in their ads
| treis wrote:
| I always thought the Autopilot name and the claims about having
| all the equipment for FSD were basically fraudulent and Tesla
| would be liable for false advertisement. Never made the
| connection of Fraud => Someone driving negligent as a result =>
| Negligent Homicide/Manslaughter but it seems solid and somewhat
| obvious once stated.
| WWLink wrote:
| > I always thought the Autopilot name and the claims about
| having all the equipment for FSD were basically fraudulent and
| Tesla would be liable for false advertisement
|
| Same. I thought they'd get slapped hard and forced to stop
| doing that YEARS AGO.
|
| Instead they doubled down and started selling "full self
| driving"
|
| lmao.
| tenpies wrote:
| The whole Musk saga is basically a cautionary tale for
| regulators, and a classic American story of regulatory
| capture.
|
| The second something that's not autopilot was marketed as
| autopilot should have been an instant barrage from the FTC.
|
| The second Musk committed securities fraud for "funding
| secured" he should have been banned from ever being an
| officer or director in a publicly listed company.
|
| The second it became clear that Tesla was ignoring the
| requirement to have a Twitter Nanny on Musk's Twitter, the
| SEC should have obliterated the Tesla board.
|
| But this is the post-Obama US, where insider trading is fine
| as long as it's the Right People doing it. Where bankers and
| investors can take obscene and reckless risk knowing the tax
| payer will cover their loses. Where a President's son can
| openly try to sell influence - who knows with what degree of
| success - and the intelligence agencies won't move a finger.
| So the Musk saga makes perfect sense.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I agree, but I think this predates Obama. More like post
| Reagan US? Maybe post Clinton?
| concinds wrote:
| This comment is highly misleading; the DoJ probe centers on
| fraud and "misleading consumers, investors and regulators". It
| has nothing whatsoever to do with manslaughter, and Reuters
| never even hinted at this.
| sedatk wrote:
| That's what I thought too, but interestingly, autopilot is mere
| cruise control for airplanes. It can't take off or land the
| plane, it doesn't change course. It's definitely not "self-
| flying". But somehow, the term "autopilot" for cars made me
| think that the car would drive itself. That's an interesting
| twist of perception.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I'm pretty sure autopilot in planes _can_ land them. They don
| 't do this because they need pilots to be trained in how to
| land them in the event of autopilot failure. I know for a
| fact there are non-commercial planes, for example, that will
| detect pilot incapacitation, find the nearest airport,
| account for local weather, talk to ATC, and land the
| aircraft.
| sedatk wrote:
| That's ILS, AFAIK, not autopilot per se.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Tesla apparently also uses the phrase "Full Self-Driving"?
|
| I don't think the claims are solely about the name
| "autopilot", but additional names and marketing.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I've generally always considered level 2 or 3 autonomy to be a
| recipe for disaster, humans can't be expected to remain alert
| and respond quickly when they aren't doing anything. But at the
| same time the way Tesla autopilot woks is congruent to
| autopilots on boats or airplanes. Those won't avoid other
| vehicles and are usually perfectly happy to let you crash into
| shoals or mountains.
| ht85 wrote:
| Taking human nature into account has driven so much progress
| in terms of road safety.
|
| Cue corporation selling you "Full Self Driving" for 5
| figures, allowing your vehicle to become autonomous. Except
| you have to be alert and behave as if it wasn't. At all
| times. Of course.
| kylecordes wrote:
| The usual FSD complaint is that Tesla has been offering it
| for years, at ascending prices, without any date-certain of
| delivering it (just tweets predicting it), without
| refunding it when not delivered after X years. I can easily
| imagine an eventual class-action suit requiring some % of
| refund all the way back to the first car purchased with
| someday-FSD (!).
|
| If they deliver it, then (at that time, and depending on
| how well it works), the complaints of not-good-enough or
| dangerous-killing-people could come into play.
|
| The second thing sounds even more dangerous to Tesla -
| smart to keep delaying (and building up that first risk
| higher and higher!)
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| So like Star Citizen bit for cars.
| treis wrote:
| If anything this just cements why they shouldn't have called
| it autopilot in the first place.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being serious, but the way "autopilot"
| works in a private yacht is the captain turns it on and goes
| below deck and gets drunk with the rest of the crew. It just
| maintains a heading towards a destination at that point.
|
| You learn very quickly on the water to get out of the way of
| large private yachts when in open waters. There is literally
| no one at the helm. Even if they did notice you, they aren't
| in a position to halt the boats travel.
| gabesullice wrote:
| Autopilot in planes is not remotely as you described. It is
| used to reduce cognitive load precisely so pilots can pay
| _more_ attention to higher cognitive demand tasks than
| maintaining straight and level flight. Such as collision
| avoidance, radio communication, navigation, briefing, etc.
|
| Your point only alleges that amateur yacht drivers act
| irresponsibly, not that naval autopilot systems are
| inherently unsafe.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Garmin released a product that does the radio comms,
| navigation, and landing in an emergency.
| https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
| tjohns wrote:
| If by "radio comms", you mean playing a pre-recorded
| emergency message on a loop telling everyone to get out
| of the way.
|
| It can't visually identify non-ADS-B traffic (and I'm not
| even sure yet if it will avoid ADS-B equipped traffic?),
| it can't comply with ATC clearances, it can't coordinate
| with other pilots in the pattern, and it will happily fly
| your aircraft right into potentially-fatal icing
| conditions. It certainly can't be used during routine
| flight.
|
| Garmin Autoland is a wonderful piece of engineering, but
| even at best it's not a replacement for what a pilot
| would normally be doing to safely navigate. It's strictly
| there as a last-resort measure if the pilot is
| incapacitated.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Luckily the seas are very big, so there's much less of a
| chance of a collision. Not zero though.
| mike_d wrote:
| You left out the part that if there is a collision or loss
| of life the captain goes to prison.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Same with cars
| mrtksn wrote:
| We have a small and cheap Japanese car that features adaptive
| cruise control and line assist that works pretty alright. So
| it's essentially like line following robot that can adjust
| its speed to keep a safe following distance and do hard
| breaking if needed.
|
| It's feels almost like full self driving when you drive on
| the highway.
|
| It makes the ride significantly less tiresome but I would say
| it definitely reduces my attention.
|
| I can totally see how people with more capable systems may
| treat the car as intelligent enough to drive %100 by itself
| and became negligent.
| cyrux004 wrote:
| See. This is the problem. Where do you draw the line ? I
| can see somebody who can come and say, adaptive cruise
| control and lane departure assist which applies slight
| tourque when the car sees your drift out of lane very
| helpful to them. next up, adaptive cruise control and lane
| centering which applies torque most of the time on straight
| roads but cant do curves. THis is now available most if not
| all car systems today , in the most basic version without
| any additional packages.
|
| Then comes some smarter ones like Tesla AP or comma.ai
| which are pretty good at centering on straight roads, curve
| roads, wide lanes, lane splitting etc.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Are there cars shipping now with lane centering that can
| only handle perfectly straight roads? In my experience
| most manufacturers currently offer at least one model &
| trim that has lane centering & adaptive cruise that is
| functionally equivalent to basic AP. In some cases, e.g.
| SuperCruise, it's significantly better.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| Where I live and with the kind of driving I do it actually
| feels safer because I get less tired on longer drives. This
| is long straight semi rural driving though. I don't use it
| on tight roads or in traffic. Be interesting to see the
| statistics on safety of lane assist and adaptive cruise
| control.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Mine has radar cruise control and "lane assist", which
| gives you a nudge back if the car drifts, but won't try to
| follow the lane by itself. Instead, it just beeps at you
| angrily and stops you killing yourself.
|
| I think that's a good balance, because it's giving you
| alerts but you're still the one driving.
| ummonk wrote:
| Yes I have the same thing and it's great. The radar
| cruise control allows me to stop being focused on
| maintaining speed and following the car ahead of me and
| let's me put more attention towards noticing traffic
| developments ahead, scanning the state of cars around me,
| and keeping an eye out for various hazards. I wouldn't
| want lane centering (as opposed to lane keep assist,
| which I have), because it would be too easy to shutoff
| and not pay attention to what's going on, and the window
| between realizing the lane centering is doing something
| wrong and needing to take over from it is too small for
| comfort given human reaction times.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| One significant difference between Autopilot in Teslas and
| autopilots in airplanes is that in an airplane you typically
| have to prove that you can use the autopilot correctly in
| order to be allowed to fly that plane.
|
| Another difference is that piloting a boat or a plane is
| usually much less dependent on quick reactions than when you
| are driving a car. The skies and seas are much more open,
| with much less traffic than on the road. On a well trimmed
| plane, I could probably sleep for 10 minutes and there is a
| good chance nothing will happen. Obviously, it is excessively
| dangerous, but I am not almost guaranteed to crash as I would
| be on a car. Flying or sailing is more about precision and
| planning than it is about reacting.
| nneonneo wrote:
| Plus, if something bad does happen in an airplane, the
| flight crew typically has on the order of minutes to solve
| or mitigate the problem, vs. mere seconds in a car.
| medion wrote:
| Having crossed oceans on autopilot, I've had three very,
| very near misses - so even in an environment which is
| virtually an uninhabited desert in comparison to a road,
| the risk in not maintaining appropriate and proactive watch
| is real.
| throw827474737 wrote:
| Curious, what near missed?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| "Near miss?! It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss!
| 'Oh what a shame, they nearly missed'" - George Carlin
| nixass wrote:
| Will they finally be forced to name it adaptive cruise control,
| as it should've been from beginning?
| VagueMag wrote:
| > _The Justice Department's Autopilot probe is far from
| recommending any action partly because it is competing with two
| other DOJ investigations involving Tesla one of the sources said.
| Investigators still have much work to do and no decision on
| charges is imminent this source said._
|
| This is definitely a thing that happens. If you are ever doing
| crimes, just be sure to commit a whole bunch of them so the DOJ
| has to move more slowly. It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen
| kind of thing.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| And do it openly and in public.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >And do it openly and in public.
|
| And make sure the figures involved are not below 9 digits.
| That way, when you get your two year (6 months with good
| behavior) white collar slap on the wrist, your French Chateau
| will still be waiting, and you can laugh at the guy who's
| doing a decade for bouncing a $200 check on the way out.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of thing.
|
| It's actually a 5th Amendment (double-jeopardy) thing;
| prosecuting a subset of crimes from a single course of conduct
| may preclude prosecuting others depending on their
| relationship, so it becomes important to fully investigate
| before prosecution.
| lazide wrote:
| In this case I suspect it's also a 'Elon musk has too many
| lawyers and is acquiring a company that "buys ink by the
| barrel"' problem too.
|
| Everyone involved is going to be very careful to not end up
| personally targeted or liable, and that nothing done could be
| twisted to make themselves or the administration look like
| idiots.
|
| It's a big part of why 'the rich don't have consequences', as
| is the current fashion to say - they can defend themselves
| against all but the most careful prosecutions, and can afford
| to hire people to make sure their asses are covered (if they
| think to do so).
|
| As to if Elon actually did cover his ass here is yet to be
| determined. I think he probably didn't sufficiently, but can
| muddy the waters enough to not go to prison, and would just
| have to shell out some money in a decade or so to fines or
| civil suits.
|
| Only time will tell!
| nverno wrote:
| They're investigating a company not an individual. The
| article really gives no information about which individuals
| might be liable.
| lazide wrote:
| Of course! We all know who 'runs' those companies, who is
| the prominent face of those companies, who has repeatedly
| made very public (and often dubiously factual)
| pronouncements about the exact technologies and products
| at the center of the investigation, who has all their net
| worth tied up in these companies, who has been an
| outspoken critic of various government agencies (and
| relatively politically active), and also happens to be
| very publicly buying a hot button social media platform
| right now.
|
| Completely unrelated to Mr. Musk, I'm sure.
| leroman wrote:
| I propose to call this kind of attack LAPA ("Legal Analysis
| Paralysis Attack")
| VagueMag wrote:
| I think it's "No One Wants To Be the Pin That Pricks the
| Overinflated Tesla Stock Bubble" paralysis.
| klyrs wrote:
| Watching Trump do the same, I've taken to calling it the
| Montgomery Burns Defense (canonically known as Three Stooges
| Syndrome in the Simpsons episode, apparently)
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >the people familiar with the inquiry said >the sources said
| >they said. >one of the sources said >this source said
|
| These articles with no named sources are so tiring. This one
| didn't even bother to tell us why the sources are anonymous. Hard
| news and serious journalism is dead and buried. Did this reporter
| even have to leave their figurative basement to write this story?
| rsynnott wrote:
| If reporters name their sources on stories like this, then
| suddenly they don't have sources anymore, and the media
| becomes, well, pretty much a system to regurgitate press
| releases. Like, this is how it has always worked.
| mlindner wrote:
| This is after last week Reuters claimed that Elon Musk was under
| a federal investigation, which the White House later denied.
| (Almost no one reported the denial.) I'd wait for more
| information before jumping to conclusions.
|
| Between the regular pro-Russian reporting and this and other
| issues I've found Reuters to be a highly unreliable source
| recently. They're very hit and miss.
|
| Important also to look at the stock market. There's zero blip on
| the stock ticker from this news, which means that basically no
| one who owns decent amounts of TSLA stock care about this. Which
| generally means that they know something that's not in this
| article.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > which the White House later denied
|
| I don't think the White House denied that Elon Musk was under
| investigation. It would be...completely inappropriate for the
| White House to comment on specific investigations from the FBI
| or DOJ.
|
| Rather, the White House denied that there was a national
| security review of Elon Musk's projects. That's important, but
| very distinct from a denial that there are no investigations of
| Elon Musk. It's also a subject matter that is much more
| appropriate for the White House to comment on.
| mlindner wrote:
| > I don't think the White House denied that Elon Musk was
| under investigation.
|
| https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1584648258130829317
|
| I'll let the White House press secretary speak.
| pvg wrote:
| That statement is about a national security review. What
| Reuters report do you think this disputes? Reuters reported
| on an investigation claim made by others in court:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/elon-musk-under-
| federa...
| gpm wrote:
| "There's a lot of interest in this. We heard those
| reportings, those reportings are not true, so we'll leave
| that there. The national security review, that is not true
| and I really don't have more to say on that piece, on Elon
| Musk and what he's choosing to do and not to do, I'm not
| going to say more from here".
|
| Which... sounds exactly like what the person you are
| replying to was saying.
| therouwboat wrote:
| "WILMINGTON, Del., Oct 13 (Reuters) - Elon Musk is being
| investigated by federal authorities over his conduct in his $44
| billion takeover deal for Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), the social
| media company said in a court filing released on Thursday.
|
| While the filing said he was under investigations, it did not
| say what the exact focus of the probes was and which federal
| authorities are conducting them."
|
| They are reporting what the court filing said, what are they
| supposed to do?
| mlindner wrote:
| > They are reporting what the court filing said, what are
| they supposed to do?
|
| Maybe put a modicum of effort into verifying comments put
| forward by an antagonist in a court case? Lawyers regularly
| lie or twist the truth in an attempt to push their case
| forward.
| pvg wrote:
| They source is clearly identified - they're reporting on a
| court case which involves, you know, reporting what the
| parties say in court.
| cbeach wrote:
| What is the government's minimum standard for a car autopilot to
| be sold as an "autopilot"?
|
| Air autopilots rely on a pilot being present, observant, and able
| to take over if necessary. Air autopilots are not infallible.
|
| How could the government come up with benchmark standards for car
| autopilots when Tesla (and others) are actively inventing the
| technology?
|
| How could Tesla realistically train its ML models if not for the
| billions of miles of data it collects from Tesla owners?
|
| How much damage will this litigation do to American autonomy R&D?
|
| How much of the recent Musk hatred (by institutions such as the
| media, and large elements of the public) is due to Musk re-
| aligning himself politically against the Democrats and Big Tech?
| coding123 wrote:
| I've said this in the past but instead of the government just
| allowing auto-updates and what not, the AI needs to pass a
| driving test. Each version must be certified by some test. No,
| not the same test a human driver goes through. Something super
| rigourous that involves semis tipping over, bridges falling from
| above, babies crawling in the road, dogs, deer, rain, smoke,
| hail, snow, elephants, downed power lines. Maybe even a 10 year
| old kid running in front.
|
| Something that all of the companies would go through,
| administered by the government (not waymo).
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Meanwhile, 30,000 people a year will continue to die in car
| crashes while you strangle the entire industry in red tape.
| But, hey, at least you're "doing something."
| nixass wrote:
| Will they finally be forced to name it adaptive cruise control,
| as it should've been from beginning?
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| While I understand the motivations for the investigation, and
| fully agree its an investigation worth conducting.
|
| I dont think it actually has merit, at least not in the terms
| framed by the article.
|
| In most circumstances it "probably is better than a human
| driver", not all circumstances, and not proven (hence probably).
|
| But if LM can push the F35 as the best jet ever while it racks up
| a wreckage count to make the 737 Max jealous, claims made by
| Tesla arent even in the same ballpark....
|
| It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self
| driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not
| perfected yet"
| ModernMech wrote:
| > It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self
| driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not
| perfected yet"
|
| We can still have self driving cars, but they should be
| developed within a culture that values safety. Tesla is not
| such a culture. We know this because after the first accident
| that resulted in decapitation, Tesla collectively shrugged and
| made the problem worse by removing sensors, which predictably
| resulted in a second decapitation. They collectively shrugged
| after that one as well, and again made the problem worse by
| removing more sensors.
|
| Tesla does not value safety, and their YOLO attitude toward
| driverless cars, in which the general public is forced to
| participate in their beta test whether we like it or not, is
| holding the driverless car industry _back_. They are not
| friends of the cause, and the sooner they are prevented from
| running beta tests on the general public (which have caused
| deaths), the sooner the industry as a whole can move forward.
| Reckless engineering by Tesla will not result in a net gain in
| safety for everyone. Safety is hard even when done
| intentionally, it won 't be achieved as a second order effect
| of Tesla's "move fast and break things" ethos.
| ckw wrote:
| If Tesla doesn't have a culture that values safety, why are
| their vehicles safer in crashes than all other comparable
| vehicles?
| ajross wrote:
| > Tesla does not value safety
|
| This is a weird framing. Are Teslas unsafe? Either they are
| or they aren't, right? Are other cultures that "value" safety
| producing safer cars? If they're not, does that say anything
| about the value of "values"? What's the goal here, values or
| safety?
| klyrs wrote:
| > Either they are or they aren't, right?
|
| No, that's not a binary, and never was.
| ajross wrote:
| It was an expression. Certainly you agree it's
| _quantifiable_ , right? (Unlike "values"). Questions of
| the form "are accidents, as defined this way, blah blah
| blah blah, more or less likely likely to occur in a Tesla
| than in a member of this other suitably defined vehicle
| cohort, blah blah blah" ... are answerable in a binary
| fashion. Right?
| cbeach wrote:
| What they're doing by removing different types of sensor is
| -simplifying- the Tesla system design and bringing it closer
| to human senses (ie eyesight alone).
|
| Apparently Hacker News thinks humans are safer than
| Autopilot. So why wouldn't we advocate a highly advanced
| vision-based model in cars, rather than a complex, awkwardly
| synchronised fusion of different classes of sensor?
|
| Take LiDAR, for example. Some claim it's superior to Tesla's
| vision sensors. But LiDAR can't detect colour, so how will it
| read traffic lights? Its model of the world will have to be
| synced up to a camera vision-based model of the world.
| Syncing two 3D (4D in fact) models precisely is a pretty
| tough problem to solve. Complexity becomes a risk in its own
| right.
| ajross wrote:
| > In most circumstances it "probably is better than a human
| driver", not all circumstances, and not proven (hence
| probably).
|
| That's the core issue here, really. Is autopilot more or less
| safe than a human driver? If it is, then it's hard to see how
| there's any criminal liability here. (And "fraud" judgements
| over "the car doesn't really drive itself" would be limited to
| a refunded purchase price on vehicles that sell used higher
| than their sticker price).
|
| And... is it less safe? Tesla publishes their own data saying
| not only is it safe, it's _MUCH_ safer. Every time the subject
| comes up, people show up to whatabout and explain how that 's
| not a good data set. But does anyone have a better one? Does
| the DoJ?
|
| I was making this point last year when there were half as many
| Teslas on the roads: there are _millions_ of these cars now,
| and every one has autopilot[1]. Any notable safety data would
| be glowing like hot plutonium if it existed. It probably doesn
| 't exist. Teslas seem to be safe; they're almost certainly
| safer than the median vehicle.
|
| [1] The headline obscures it, but the text makes clear the
| investigation is about the Autopilot product, not anything
| branded FSD.
| klyrs wrote:
| > It would be a real shame if we lose any chance of full self
| driving over a misunderstanding about the system being "not
| perfected yet"
|
| It would be. But there's no misunderstanding here. Tesla
| continues to misrepresent their self driving capabilities in
| marketing materials, after years of feedback that tech hasn't
| caught up to the promises. If Tesla's profit-seeking dishonesty
| were to undermine the entire industry, that would be a shame.
|
| "It would be a real shame if this snake oil were banned before
| we had a chance to figure out what it can cure" might be a
| better framing.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I know it's on top of mind when I'm commuting in my F35. /s
|
| Comparing a military jet which operation requires thousands of
| hours of training just to get off the ground compared to a mass
| produced vehicle is not a valid comparison, at least in my
| mind. Plus what LM pushes to its stockholders is definitely not
| as comprehensive as the Pentagon gets.
| club_tropical wrote:
| Twitter deal.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Autopilot is a fantastic, world leading technology. But the
| marketing of it was (and continues to be) nothing short of
| criminally negligent. There are over a dozen confirmed deaths at
| this point, _directly_ attributable to the outright lies spewed
| by Elon and co. regarding its ' capabilities.
|
| We were able to ban _lawn darts_ in the 80s because of a few
| isolated incidents. But the state of affairs we are in now is
| only possible due to the absurd level of regulatory capture we
| 've reached in this country. I don't expect anything to change at
| this point.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| I wouldn't even call it regulatory capture. More of a conflict
| of interest by lawmakers holding specific company stock.
|
| No lobbying needed
| alfor wrote:
| What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?
|
| What if they actually saved lives?
|
| There is plenty of video evidence of that:
| https://youtu.be/hF96jQ0SY8w
|
| Would we try to stop it? A lot of companies would like to stop
| it, that's for sure.
|
| There no doubt that a computer will match a human, than exceed
| its capability, 24x7, never tired, never distracted.
|
| For the moment, every drive has to acknowledge that they are
| responsible, need to keep the control and have to stay vigilant
| every time they use self-driving. It seems to me that take
| precedence to the product brochure or random comment in a tweet a
| few years ago.
|
| Of course this comment is going to be heavily downvote like
| everything positive about Tesla here. I wonder why?
| shadowpho wrote:
| >What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?
|
| And what if they are not?
|
| Furthermore to me the issue is not safety vs not-safety, but
| the advertisement is clearly misleading at least
|
| >For the moment, every drive has to acknowledge that they are
| responsible, need to keep the control and have to stay vigilant
| every time they use self-driving. It seems to me that take
| precedence to the product brochure...
|
| Maybe we should hold the company to make sure the product
| brochure is truthful. Because if people trust the brochure they
| might die over it.
| mikestew wrote:
| _What if Tesla are safer than a regular driver?_
|
| And what if a frog had wings? Why, it wouldn't bump its ass
| when it hops!
|
| _I wonder why?_
|
| Probably not what you're thinking, but I'd guess a lot of "what
| if..." with a single, carefully-selected video to back the
| hypotheticals.
| wnevets wrote:
| I was told FSD cars was only 5 years away roughly 12 years ago.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Any day now, everyone will be playing Half-Life 3 on their
| Linux desktop during their commute in self-driving cars. /s
| sidibe wrote:
| I'll know when Tesla is actually taking these probes seriously
| when they finally take off the laughably deceptive video from
| https://www.tesla.com/autopilot.
|
| Tldw it is a video that says the driver is only there for legal
| reasons, and it took them many takes to make the video.
|
| That's been there for many many years and any time this topic
| comes up I check it and yup, still there.
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