this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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A representative for Tesla sent Ars the following statement: "Today's verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeopardize Tesla's and the entire industry's efforts to develop and implement life-saving technology. We plan to appeal given the substantial errors of law and irregularities at trial. Even though this jury found that the driver was overwhelmingly responsible for this tragic accident in 2019, the evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator—which overrode Autopilot—as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road. To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. This was never about Autopilot; it was a fiction concocted by plaintiffs’ lawyers blaming the car when the driver—from day one—admitted and accepted responsibility."

So, you admit that the company’s marketing has continued to lie for the past six years?

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[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 101 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

Yes. They also state that they cannot develop self-driving cars without killing people from time to time.

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 74 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

"Some of you will die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take."

[–] db2@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Brannigan is way smarter than Mush.

[–] Pringles@sopuli.xyz 9 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Farquaad said this, not Brannigan iirc

[–] db2@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I'm pretty sure it was both.

[–] WillFord27@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

When I'm command, son, every mission is a suicide mission.

[–] jrs100000@lemmy.world 7 points 16 hours ago

Some of you will be forced through a fine mesh screen for your country. They will be the luckiest of all.

[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 45 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

I mean, that's probably strictly true.

[–] OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

There will always be accidents with tech or anything. No matter how much planning, foresight, etc could go into a product or service. Humans cannot account for every scenario. Death is inevitable to some degree. That being said.

Tesla point blank launched a half ass product / project that just did not fully operate as specified. I'm all for self driving vehicles, even through the bad stuff even if it happened to me I'd still be for it. Given the early stage though, they should have focused so much more on their "rolling release updates" than they have.

Of course things will need updated, of course accidents will happen. But it's how they respond to them that makes them look evil vs good. Their response has been lack luster. The market seems to think it's a not a major issue though. There's more teslas now than ever on the roads.

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 43 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

I don't know, most experimental technologies aren't allowed to be tested in public till they are good and well ready. This whole move fast break often thing seems like a REALLY bad idea for something like cars on public roads.

[–] BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 28 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

Well, the Obama administration had published initial guidance on testing and safety for automated vehicles in September 2016, which was pre-regulatory but a prelude to potential regulation. Trump trashed it as one of the first things he did taking office for his first term. I was working in the AV industry at the time.

That turned everything into the wild west for a couple of years, up until an automated Uber killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. After that, most AV companies scaled public testing way back, and deployed extremely conservative versions of their software. If you look at news articles from that time, there's a lot of criticism of how, e.g., Waymos would just grind to a halt in the middle of intersections, as companies would rather take flak for blocking traffic than running over people.

But not Tesla. While other companies dialed back their ambitions, Tesla was ripping Lidar sensors off its vehicles and sending them back out on public roads in droves. They also continued to market the technology - first as "Autopilot" and later as "Full Self Driving" - in ways that vastly overstated its capabilities. To be clear, Full Self Driving, or Level 5 Automation in the SAE framework, is science fiction at this point, the idea of a computer system functionally indistinguishable from a capable human driver. Other AV companies are still striving for Level 4 automation, which may include geographic restrictions or limitations to functioning on certain types of road infrastructure.

Part of the blame probably also lies with Biden, whose DOT had the opportunity to address this and didn't during his term. But it was Trump who initially trashed the safety framework, and Telsa that concealed and mismarketed the limitations of its technology.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 9 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

You got me interested, so I searched around and found this:

So, if I understand this correctly, the only fundamental difference between level 4 and 5 is that 4 works on specific known road types with reliable quality (highways, city roads), while level 5 works literally everywhere, including rural dirt paths?

I'm trying to imagine what other type of geographic difference there might be between 4 and 5 and I'm drawing a blank.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I think this chart overcomplicates it a bit. Almost a decade ago, I worked on a very short project that touched on this topic. One expert explained to me that the difference between level 4 and 5 is that you don’t need a steering wheel or pedals anymore. L5 can drive anywhere, anytime in all situations.

[–] BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world 9 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Yes, that's it. A lot of AV systems are dependent on high resolution 3d maps of an area so they can precisely locate themselves in space. So they may perform relatively well in that defined space but would not be able to do so outside it.

Level 5 is functionally a human driver. You as a human could be driving off road, in an environment you've never been in before. Maybe it's raining and muddy. Maybe there are unknown hazards within this novel geography, flooding, fallen trees, etc.

A Level 5 AV system would be able to perform equivalently to a human in those conditions. Again, it's science fiction at this point, but essentially the end goal of vehicle automation is a system that can respond to novel and unpredictable circumstances in the same way (or better than) a human driver would in that scenario. It's really not defined much better than that end goal - because it's not possible with current technology, it doesn't correspond to a specific set of sensors or software system. It's a performance-based, long-term goal.

This is why it's so irresponsible for Tesla to continue to market their system as "Full self driving." It is nowhere near as adaptable or capable as a human driver. They pretend or insinuate that they have a system equivalent to SAE Level 5 when the entire industry is a decade minimum away from such a system.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I was working in the AV industry at the time.

How is you working in the audio/video industry relevant? ...or maybe you mean adult videos?

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 7 hours ago

Thank you. I seriously didn't understand what the field was.

[–] BangCrash@lemmy.world -4 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure millions of people have been killed by cars over the last 100 years.

[–] naeap@sopuli.xyz 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

And we're having less and less deadly injured people on developed countries (excluding the USA, if the statistics are correct I've read).

Tesla's autopilot seems to be a step backwards with a future promise of being better than human drivers.

But they slimmed down their sensors to fucking simple 2D cams.
That's just cheaping out on the cost of Tesla owners - but also of completely uninvolved people around a self driving Tesla, that didn't take the choice to trust this tech, that's living more on PR, than actual results

[–] BangCrash@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago

Can't comment specifically about Tesla's but self driving is going to have to go through the same decades of iterative improvement that car safety went through. Thats just expected

However its not appropriate for this to be done at the risk to lives.

But somehow it needs the time and money to run through a decade of improvement

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 1 points 18 hours ago

Cars, yes, driven by humans. But not by AI bullshit.

[–] GorGor@startrek.website 6 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

its really not, we just have cowards who are afraid of the word regulation running the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178C

https://www.seleon.com/en/regulatory-affairs/fda-guidance-for-software-lifecycle/

[–] NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world 6 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

All they really need to do is make self-driving cars safer than your average human driver.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

Which they have not and won't do. You have to do this in every condition. I wonder why they always test this shit out in Texas and California?

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 1 points 18 hours ago

That is a low bar. However I have yet to see independant data. I know such exists but the only ones who talk have reason to lie with stastics so I can't trust them.

[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

Listen, if we make it safe it could take an entire extra fiscal year! I have payments to make on my 3 vacation homes NOW!

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 20 hours ago

"Ya gotta break some eggs," or some shit. /s