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Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by Symmetry on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @04:14PM (#33348761)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by sidewndr46 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @04:32PM (#33349011)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by mike_d on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @04:53PM (#33349283)
You left out the part that if there is a collision or loss of life the captain goes to prison.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by s1artibartfast on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:57PM (#33350743)
Same with cars
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by AlotOfReading on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:17PM (#33350923)
Drivers get so much leeway that it's not even funny. Commercial air pilots get their licenses temporarily suspended if they're simply accused of being intoxicated.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by vkou on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:02PM (#33350785)
Short of being drunk, it's pretty difficult to go to prison for killing someone in a car, even if you were driving like a moron.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by s1artibartfast on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:32PM (#33351046)
Not my experience. I knew a kid who went to prison for years after hitting a biker in black with no reflector at night.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by vkou on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:37PM (#33351090)
Was the biker the police chief's son-in-law, or some rot like that?

Most hit-and-runs don't even result in jail time[1]. But sure, I can believe that hitting and killing the wrong person sometimes results in the law coming down on you like a ton of bricks.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-t...

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by s1artibartfast on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @08:07PM (#33351345)
I read the whole article twice but didn't see anything saying that "Most hit-and-runs don't even result in jail time“.

It basically says that statistics on conviction are unknown, and sometimes people don't see jail time.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by gabesullice on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:01PM (#33349381)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by ceejayoz on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:24PM (#33349701)
Garmin released a product that does the radio comms, navigation, and landing in an emergency. https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/autonomi/
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by tjohns on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:01PM (#33350176)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by lsh123 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @11:27PM (#33352721)
… and it will happily fly you into a construction crane that was notam’d a couple weeks back ;)
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by sidewndr46 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @11:07PM (#33352600)
You're 100% correct, but my point is still valid: "autopilot" on a yacht and what tells calls "autopilot" are totally unrelated.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by jonny_eh on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:02PM (#33349392)
Luckily the seas are very big, so there's much less of a chance of a collision. Not zero though.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by awhitby on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @08:02PM (#33351310)
The extra dimensionality of roads < seas < skies help a lot. Though I suppose various standard corridors and channels collapse those dimensions somewhat.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by ht85 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @04:25PM (#33348918)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by kylecordes on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @04:54PM (#33349303)
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!)

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by CoastalCoder on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:16PM (#33350338)
So like Star Citizen bit for cars.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by FireBeyond on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @10:57PM (#33352533)
And just one of the disingenuous responses from Tesla is that you could have it all now, or could have, if it wasn't for pesky regulators.

There might be an awkward silence when you ask why as recently as six months ago, it was still happily hopping the curb of roundabouts, or why even to this very day, there's no AEB capability in FSD (if your foot is on the accelerator, the car will consider that a higher priority input than an imminent collision).

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by wnkrshm on Thursday October 27, 2022 @12:31AM (#33353133)
Probably because of false positives and removing radar, because "it's not needed".
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by treis on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:11PM (#33349511)
If anything this just cements why they shouldn't have called it autopilot in the first place.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by mrtksn on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:13PM (#33349544)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by cyrux004 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:32PM (#33349793)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by rootusrootus on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:48PM (#33350655)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by widdakay on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @08:35PM (#33351504)
Yes there are some. Eg: Acura MDX. It uses the mobileye chipset and can barely make a highway turn. The car is good otherwise, but it in no way compares to the Tesla ADAS (I have daily driven both). The Tesla has done several trips to LA and back with >1hr between touches on California i5. my commute on bay area 280 feels far more natural on Autopilot when cars cut me off etc. I think performance depends significantly on what roads people drive.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by dham on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @09:15PM (#33351785)
I have a Toyota Rav 4 2021 with adaptive cruise control and lane assist, it worked ok on highways, especially not having it before. You have to keep nudging the wheel every 30 seconds or so which made it annoying.

I upgraded to a Comma 3 and it's basically is night and day. The car never hunts from side to side and it uses eye tracking so I don't have to touch the wheel. Again if you have to touch a wheel on a ACC system, just drive the car haha.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by rootusrootus on Thursday October 27, 2022 @01:29AM (#33353507)
So you run Comma AI on a RAV4? I assume the Toyota has to have the requisite packages already optioned from the factory so the hardware is there? I'm just curious, because I'm leaning towards picking up a RAV4 Prime for my wife to use as a daily driver. I'm not 100% sure I care too much about the technology as a practical matter (I had a Tesla, I usually just drove it myself; but I like driving). But it might be fun to dork around with and see what they've built.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by dham on Thursday October 27, 2022 @04:54PM (#33363901)
Yea Rav4 Hybrid 2021. afaik it doesn't work on the Prime, although you can check the car chart on the comma.ai site to be sure. I like playing with the forks every now and then too.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by SkyPuncher on Thursday October 27, 2022 @02:20AM (#33353865)
> Again if you have to touch a wheel on a ACC system, just drive the car haha.

I disagree with this. I use to get RSI type pain from long drives. The constant, small tweaks really took a toll on my hands/wrists/forearms.

When my car's lane centering isn't perfect, it still takes 90% of the force off. It's even more noticeable in windy conditions. Lane centering fights all of the gusts automatically.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by dham on Thursday October 27, 2022 @04:56PM (#33363921)
Fair enough. I just find the steering wheel nag really really annoying. The future is eye tracking or a combination of eye and wheel nag (maybe every 5 minutes or something)
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by salty_biscuits on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:52PM (#33350061)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by jiggawatts on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:58PM (#33350143)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by ummonk on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:29PM (#33350468)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by zaroth on Thursday October 27, 2022 @08:03AM (#33356289)
Turns out, at least in my own personal experience, that’s not how it works. I don’t think this has been well studied, especially in the context of driving in a vehicle with gaze / attention tracking features.

While my Tesla is working to keep the car perfectly centered in the highway lane, it frees me to focus on higher-level situational awareness during the drive.

In particular, I find I can more quickly and consistently identify and avoid other distracted drivers, because I can look more closely at those features without drifting a few inches out of the middle of the lane.

Just because you are not steering does not mean you have to disengage from driving. The focus on steering as a proxy for engagement is over-simplistic. Manual steering just to lane center can lead to “blind stare” which causes many accidents, so it’s a lossy proxy for attention / focus.

As a new technology is adopted and people become less scared of the change, it eventually comes to a point where a new generation laughs at how things used to be done.

What HN consistently likes to frame as a fundamental human limitation (“driving without actively steering can never be safe”) is in fact just a faulty assumption and purely conjecture in the context of a modern car cockpit with advanced lane keeping, adaptive cruise, object detection, and driver gaze & blink tracking.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by GuB-42 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @05:15PM (#33349578)
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.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by medion on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:12PM (#33350284)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by throw827474737 on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:18PM (#33350365)
Curious, what near missed?
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by nsxwolf on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:59PM (#33350759)
"Near miss?! It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss! 'Oh what a shame, they nearly missed'" - George Carlin
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by FpUser on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @07:38PM (#33351098)
>"George Carlin" -

never get tired listening to the guy. He is just amazing.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by medion on Thursday October 27, 2022 @04:15AM (#33354673)
Tanker bound for Panama from Hong Kong, not keeping watch. Woke up to engines and lights.

Sailing boat off American Samoa maintaining watch, but watch crew unable to change course (we did).

Near miss with unidentified floating object.

Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by nneonneo on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @06:58PM (#33350750)
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.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by LeanderK on Thursday October 27, 2022 @03:56AM (#33354539)
This is a big difference I think. Humans will get distracted but that's not such a problem if you have a reasonable amount of time to get back into control of the situation, but that's not possible in a car.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by judge2020 on Thursday October 27, 2022 @12:09AM (#33352965)
Obviously the issue with this argument is that people equate "autopilot" to "magically flies the plane for the pilots" thanks to hollywood movies.
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by tgsovlerkhgsel on Thursday October 27, 2022 @03:11AM (#33354226)
Does it nowadays not mostly do that, including following waypoints and being able to execute most or all of the landing?
Re:Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims by davewritescode on Wednesday October 26, 2022 @08:29PM (#33351474)
Just want to chime in and say that I completely agree. From a technology perspective it’s interesting, from a human factors perspective it’s a complete disaster.

Automating the easiest parts of driving and just expecting a human to jump in and figure out the tricky stuff in an instant is just such a horrible design that it’s hard to see how it’s gone this far.