Re:Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving
by tgsovlerkhgsel on Sunday April 18, 2021 @05:28PM
(#26856559)
You need to look at the whole system. The end result (of autopilot + human) is no accident.
If the human prevents 99% of autopilot could-have-been accidents, and as a result, 10 people die per X miles driven whereas through purely human driving 20 people die, then driving with autopilot is safer.
Unless you're trying to answer "is autopilot ready for L5", this is the right metric to look at.
Re:Two people killed in fiery Tesla crash with no one driving
by FartyMcFarter on Sunday April 18, 2021 @09:08PM
(#26858209)
> If the human prevents 99% of autopilot could-have-been accidents, and as a result, 10 people die per X miles driven whereas through purely human driving 20 people die, then driving with autopilot is safer.
No, because correlation isn't causation.
In particular, it's plausible that autopilot only gets used in situations where it's easy to drive and accidents are less likely. This would erase any hope of assessing autopilot safety by looking at simple statistics like the ones you mention.
1. The driver senses an impending accident or dangerous situation, so they disengage autopilot.
2. The driver personally maneuvers the car so as to avoid any accident or crash.
3. The driver re-engages autopilot afterwards.
In this scenario, there is no accident, so there's nothing for Tesla to count either way. The idea is that there could have been an accident if not for human intervention. Unless Tesla counts every disengagement as a potential accident, I don't really see how they could account for this.