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Your claim relies entirely on the veracity of Tesla's safety report. Unfortunately I am inclined to mistrust any such vehicle safety claims directly from Tesla'

by benzor 7y ago

Your claim relies entirely on the veracity of Tesla's safety report. Unfortunately I am inclined to mistrust any such vehicle safety claims directly from Tesla's own website. There is a conflict of interest in that they are incentivized to publish the most favorable numbers. We should be rightly cynical and rely only on numbers from an independent third party, as we would normally do for other companies with a less favorable reputation. Until we have such independently verified stats, we can't take those claims at face value. I agree that anyone who feels uncomfortable with Tesla's ADAS should simply turn it off. But don't you think it's unfair for the company to place an unfinished product in the hands of a consumer and pass off the risk-management responsibility to them? Tesla's cavalier attitude towards autonomous vehicle safety is concerning to me. They seem to adopt the "move fast and break things" approach, whereas teams like Waymo and Cruise are releasing things in a slower and more controlled manner. And not coincidentally, they've have far less accidents that way.

skolsuper 7y ago
If they truly believe that the autopilot driving is safer than unassisted, they might reasonably consider it an immoral act not to ship it. Given the number of lives lost in auto accidents every day, the issue is not as clear-cut as you're suggesting. It's a real-world trolley problem.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  > If they truly believe that the autopilot driving is safer than unassisted, they might reasonably consider it an immoral act not to ship it. Then Tesla should be given it away, not charging extra for it. To do otherwise would be immoral.
  - dmode 7y ago
    That’s an absurd suggestion. Every car company charges more for advanced safety features
    - reallydontask 7y ago
      that's exactly my point, morality has nothing to do with it
  - Klathmon 7y ago
    They do. Autopilot is standard in every single car Tesla sells now, for exactly this reason. Here is the blog post on their website where they talk about making it standard: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup
    - reallydontask 7y ago
      As well as bundling it prices have been bumped up, to me that is not giving it away for free.
      - Klathmon 7y ago
        Sorry I misunderstood your previous comment. I assumed you meant that they should include safety features for no extra cost, which they do, not that they shouldn't charge anything at all for safety features, which is such a weird and extreme take that I'm not sure what to even say...
        reallydontask 7y ago
        my original comment was around the point of mixing morality and business. > I assumed you meant that they should include safety features for no extra cost, which they do I could buy a car without it for 37500 and now I can't but I can now buy a car with it for 39500 and you would still consider this is no extra cost? I must be misunderstanding what you are saying
        throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
        There’s no moral problem with increasing the price when it becomes a better product. There arguably is a moral problem selling a product with optional safety features that cost extra. If tesla invented immortality fields within their vehicles, I have no doubt they would jack up the price, and that would be fine, because it’s now a much better car. To think otherwise would be silly.
- ThePhysicist 7y ago
  No. If they know that it’s safer in some respects but unsafe in others they should make sure it’s only used as an assistance system and make sure the driver is still watching the road when it’s turned on. What’s immoral is that they allow people to turn this thing on and then play Candy Crush on their phone while the car does the driving, fully aware that this might lead to fatal accidents in some cases. Their marketing is misleading because they suggest that the system is safe and they don’t inform customers about the freak accidents that can happen when the system glitches (bad for sales). That’s not very ethical if you ask me.
  - jungturk 7y ago
    They require pressure on the steering wheel and make it quite clear that you're responsible for taking control at any time when you activate autopilot. You and I probably agree that this might be wishful thinking to expect some portion of the driving public to do so faithfully. Perhaps additional technology can help better guarantee attention and participation on the part of the driver.

by benzor 7y ago

skolsuper 7y ago

If they truly believe that the autopilot driving is safer than unassisted, they might reasonably consider it an immoral act not to ship it. Given the number of lives lost in auto accidents every day, the issue is not as clear-cut as you're suggesting. It's a real-world trolley problem.

reallydontask 7y ago
> If they truly believe that the autopilot driving is safer than unassisted, they might reasonably consider it an immoral act not to ship it. Then Tesla should be given it away, not charging extra for it. To do otherwise would be immoral.
- dmode 7y ago
  That’s an absurd suggestion. Every car company charges more for advanced safety features
  - reallydontask 7y ago
    that's exactly my point, morality has nothing to do with it
- Klathmon 7y ago
  They do. Autopilot is standard in every single car Tesla sells now, for exactly this reason. Here is the blog post on their website where they talk about making it standard: https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-our-vehicle-lineup
  - reallydontask 7y ago
    As well as bundling it prices have been bumped up, to me that is not giving it away for free.
    - Klathmon 7y ago
      Sorry I misunderstood your previous comment. I assumed you meant that they should include safety features for no extra cost, which they do, not that they shouldn't charge anything at all for safety features, which is such a weird and extreme take that I'm not sure what to even say...
      - reallydontask 7y ago
        my original comment was around the point of mixing morality and business. > I assumed you meant that they should include safety features for no extra cost, which they do I could buy a car without it for 37500 and now I can't but I can now buy a car with it for 39500 and you would still consider this is no extra cost? I must be misunderstanding what you are saying
        throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
        There’s no moral problem with increasing the price when it becomes a better product. There arguably is a moral problem selling a product with optional safety features that cost extra. If tesla invented immortality fields within their vehicles, I have no doubt they would jack up the price, and that would be fine, because it’s now a much better car. To think otherwise would be silly.
ThePhysicist 7y ago
No. If they know that it’s safer in some respects but unsafe in others they should make sure it’s only used as an assistance system and make sure the driver is still watching the road when it’s turned on. What’s immoral is that they allow people to turn this thing on and then play Candy Crush on their phone while the car does the driving, fully aware that this might lead to fatal accidents in some cases. Their marketing is misleading because they suggest that the system is safe and they don’t inform customers about the freak accidents that can happen when the system glitches (bad for sales). That’s not very ethical if you ask me.
- jungturk 7y ago
  They require pressure on the steering wheel and make it quite clear that you're responsible for taking control at any time when you activate autopilot. You and I probably agree that this might be wishful thinking to expect some portion of the driving public to do so faithfully. Perhaps additional technology can help better guarantee attention and participation on the part of the driver.