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Is it correct Comma.AI sees this as the following statement below appears to say, or am I missing something? If so, why would anyone be using this product outsi

Is it correct Comma.AI sees this as the following statement below appears to say, or am I missing something? If so, why would anyone be using this product outside of a test environment that’s fully controlled? — “Any user of this software shall indemnify and hold harmless comma.ai, Inc. and its directors, officers, employees, agents, stockholders, affiliates, subcontractors and customers from and against all allegations, claims, actions, suits, demands, damages, liabilities, obligations, losses, settlements, judgments, costs and expenses (including without limitation attorneys’ fees and costs) which arise out of, relate to or result from any use of this software by user. THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH LOCAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.” SOURCE: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/README.md#supported-cars https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/README.md#su... — EDIT: Here is the terms of use too, which appears to align to the prior legal clause above: https://my.comma.ai/terms https://my.comma.ai/terms

cbracketdash 6y ago
It is still very early in its development stage so they do not want much liability.
- ta8645 6y ago
  Nobody ever wants any liability if they can help it. But they shouldn't be marketing a product if they can't stand behind it.
  - Justsignedup 6y ago
    This. I could understand an early access game "it can shut down any time" but this is kind of my/family/friends lives on the line.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  did they ever ?
- 23iofj 6y ago
  Most software developers have mostly operated in largely unregulated domains, so there's a MISunderstanding of how manufacturer responsibility works in industries like automotive. Saying "I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING" in the automotive software space is the product liability equivalent of Michael Scott screaming "I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY" in The Office.
  - Closi 6y ago
    Well, their legal technique is a little more nuanced. They are selling a product which is a legal and legitimate driver assistance tool which does not have autopilot. You, as a user, can then modify the device by flashing unregulated code onto it to give it autopilot code, which is not advised by comma.ai *wink wink*
    - 23iofj 6y ago
      I expect this to end about as well as it did last time. 35 million miles is statistically meaningless.
      - Closi 6y ago
        35 million miles is more than google cars did from 2017-2020 so it’s still significant.
        23iofj 6y ago
        On public roads. We don't know how many they've done if you include closed track testing, but I'm willing to bet it's at least as many as they've done on public roads. The real point is that Google isn't selling their system to consumers.
  - database_lost 6y ago
    2021 best comment so far :))
- 3327 6y ago
  I remember the founder interviewed me to be CEO, when he hit the investment and publicly insulted Papa Elon for kudos and bad assness. The guy was a jerk on the phone and 10 mins in I told Him to piss off and thought to myself “wow - who would work with this guy” he’s been at it since 2016 so glad it didn’t flop, but looks like he ate his words to Papa Musk. Nothin’ like some good old humble startup pie.
  - commaai 6y ago
    I suspect you are thinking of a different startup. We have never interviewed anyone to be CEO.
slg 6y ago
>THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. It is weird that one of the only things I see above the fold on the company's home page is a "Buy Now" button considering they don't actually sell "a product".
- fossuser 6y ago
  Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. Either you're selling something and taking some responsibility for certain failures, or it's research that you don't want people to use on the road. This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. Basically, "don't use this on the road" wink wink, but we have millions of miles driven on it and obviously expect you to do so. I'd think they'd be better off with some sort of honest policy around this that they could actually defend, but I am not a lawyer.
  - Closi 6y ago
    It’s because the standard product doesn’t have autopilot, they sell a driver assistance tool. The tool they sell does not have autopilot. The device is open, and you can flash with their open source code from GitHub to give you hacky autopilot. This is how they get around the legal issue. It’s like a “we sell you a legal product. We advise you don’t flash this code on it which we are hosting on GitHub wink wink”
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      Curious to see if a court would buy that argument.
    - Pasorrijer 6y ago
      Reminds me of university. "No officer, we weren't selling tickets to the keg, we'd need a license to sell booze. We're only selling cups for $5, the beer is free!"
      - 6y ago
madamelic 6y ago
98% of that is boilerplate language for any product you use. The uppercase is legalese to wiggle out of responsibility.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  I don't want to wiggle into a car crash.
  - perryizgr8 6y ago
    Then don't buy the product. Easy.
    - rhodozelia 6y ago
      If someone else using the product causes you injury? Putting unsafe cars on the road is terrible.
derision 6y ago
it's pretty cleared being sold as a devkit. would you buy a PS5 devkit and expect it to be exactly the same as the retail PS5? I don't understand the issue here
- grenoire 6y ago
  No, I would expect the devkit to be superior to the retail product. That's not the word you're looking for.
- slg 6y ago
  "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." ~ Ian Malcolm
  - db374837 6y ago
    Comma’s driver monitoring is the best in the industry. It is not at all unsafe.
  - serf 6y ago
    it's interesting to read Jeff Goldblum's characteristic staccato translated to text. I hadn't thought about how I would have written it out.
- mikeryan 6y ago
  I have a PS5 devkit and develop apps for it. Yes I expect it to be exactly like the retail PS5 - or what's the point?
whatyesaid 6y ago
The whole point is they're selling you some hardware only (a modified Android), and it's legal if you yourself modify your own car or something. You have to manually install the software and mount it physically after buying this. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... It seems well-tested and safe though, not something sizzling out the lab, they're just using a legal loophole.
mrtksn 6y ago
So it's like Tesla?
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Like 20% of the features only for certain cars. Pretty bold claim ;P
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    It's for 1/10th of the price, so twice better then? Just kidding, my point is that Tesla is selling it in about the same terms. Beta software for extra money, no guarantees.
    - brianwawok 6y ago
      Not sure that is true, you are comparing apples to oranges. Beta on Tesla is for FSD. Autopilot = lane keep on the highway, it's as mature as lane keep is on Toyota or Honda. It's also included for no additional cost in all tesla, so it's actually 100% cheaper.
stunt 6y ago
They are selling this product as a dashcam for obvious reasons. The autopilot feature is an experimental feature that you have to enable yourself on your own risk.
coddle-hark 6y ago
The latest commit in the repo [0] right now is "should work" (34ff295). Filtering by "bug" in the issue tracker gives: Comma two freeze and reboot while engaged. I recently had an incident on the interstate where my comma two froze completely (while engaged) and rebooted. The video froze, Comma's steering torque turned off, then after about five seconds in this state, the device rebooted. Zygote restarting while OP active. So for the past couple months, after a couple days of uptime, the comma two offroad UI will glitch out. The buttons respond with highlighting upon touch, but everything else stops working. ... This time, I left the comma two to bask in its glitched state and this ended up happening; the comma two had the spinning logo, while ALSO still driving my car. In the video below, I nudge the wheel to cause on purpose ping pong to prove it was still steering. Spontaneous disengagement/reboot. Cruising on expressway and OP spontaneously disengaged and the comma2 rebooted Hard braking while following the lead car. Was following the lead car on a highway traffic jam, that car was going without lights so might be a reason. Braking was really hard when he stopped, almost hit him ) I had a feeling that C2 don't see it at all. What's more worrying is that Comma's response is often either a) declare it a hardware failure or b) basically a WONTFIX: Comma support's response is to return/exchange the unit due to presumed hardware failure. It would be nice to know what exactly happened but I get you can't thoroughly investigate every anomaly. Folks at @commma feel free to close this issue. @Torq_boi said that it is not a model bug, but old known problem with no time to brake as lead car accelerated and braked fast. (So could INDI tuning fix that problem?) Closing this issue since it probably was hardware failure. If it happens a lot it's usually a hardware failure. But try running openpilot release instead of dragonpilot before drawing any conclusions. [0] https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Edit: Formatting.
- bko 6y ago
  Cool. Now do Volvo Pilot Assist. Comma.ai is trying to do big things and I hope they succeed. No reason self-driving technology should be bundled with a car and I have little faith in auto manufacturers to deliver. Lane assist technology exists. Look at consumer reports for a comprehensive review [0] (comma.ai was #1 in lane assist, above even tesla). They are open about their mistakes, issues and tradeoffs, much more so than other companies. I don't think its right for engineers use this as a cudgel to beat them over the head. https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-this-aftermarket-driver-assistance-kit-above-tesla-autopilot-cadillac-super-cruise https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-t...
mike_d 6y ago
> why would anyone be using this product outside of a test environment that’s fully controlled? Comma.ai is WallStreetBets for self-driving cars.

cbracketdash 6y ago

It is still very early in its development stage so they do not want much liability.

ta8645 6y ago
Nobody ever wants any liability if they can help it. But they shouldn't be marketing a product if they can't stand behind it.
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  This. I could understand an early access game "it can shut down any time" but this is kind of my/family/friends lives on the line.
agumonkey 6y ago
did they ever ?
23iofj 6y ago
Most software developers have mostly operated in largely unregulated domains, so there's a MISunderstanding of how manufacturer responsibility works in industries like automotive. Saying "I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING" in the automotive software space is the product liability equivalent of Michael Scott screaming "I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY" in The Office.
- Closi 6y ago
  Well, their legal technique is a little more nuanced. They are selling a product which is a legal and legitimate driver assistance tool which does not have autopilot. You, as a user, can then modify the device by flashing unregulated code onto it to give it autopilot code, which is not advised by comma.ai *wink wink*
  - 23iofj 6y ago
    I expect this to end about as well as it did last time. 35 million miles is statistically meaningless.
    - Closi 6y ago
      35 million miles is more than google cars did from 2017-2020 so it’s still significant.
      - 23iofj 6y ago
        On public roads. We don't know how many they've done if you include closed track testing, but I'm willing to bet it's at least as many as they've done on public roads. The real point is that Google isn't selling their system to consumers.
- database_lost 6y ago
  2021 best comment so far :))
3327 6y ago
I remember the founder interviewed me to be CEO, when he hit the investment and publicly insulted Papa Elon for kudos and bad assness. The guy was a jerk on the phone and 10 mins in I told Him to piss off and thought to myself “wow - who would work with this guy” he’s been at it since 2016 so glad it didn’t flop, but looks like he ate his words to Papa Musk. Nothin’ like some good old humble startup pie.
- commaai 6y ago
  I suspect you are thinking of a different startup. We have never interviewed anyone to be CEO.

slg 6y ago

>THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. It is weird that one of the only things I see above the fold on the company's home page is a "Buy Now" button considering they don't actually sell "a product".

fossuser 6y ago
Yeah - I don't think this would hold up, you can't really have it both ways. Either you're selling something and taking some responsibility for certain failures, or it's research that you don't want people to use on the road. This comes across as them selling a product they know could fail in dangerous ways, but they don't want to be responsible for any of it. Basically, "don't use this on the road" wink wink, but we have millions of miles driven on it and obviously expect you to do so. I'd think they'd be better off with some sort of honest policy around this that they could actually defend, but I am not a lawyer.
- Closi 6y ago
  It’s because the standard product doesn’t have autopilot, they sell a driver assistance tool. The tool they sell does not have autopilot. The device is open, and you can flash with their open source code from GitHub to give you hacky autopilot. This is how they get around the legal issue. It’s like a “we sell you a legal product. We advise you don’t flash this code on it which we are hosting on GitHub wink wink”
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Curious to see if a court would buy that argument.
  - Pasorrijer 6y ago
    Reminds me of university. "No officer, we weren't selling tickets to the keg, we'd need a license to sell booze. We're only selling cups for $5, the beer is free!"
    - 6y ago

madamelic 6y ago

98% of that is boilerplate language for any product you use. The uppercase is legalese to wiggle out of responsibility.

alisonkisk 6y ago
I don't want to wiggle into a car crash.
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  Then don't buy the product. Easy.
  - rhodozelia 6y ago
    If someone else using the product causes you injury? Putting unsafe cars on the road is terrible.

derision 6y ago

it's pretty cleared being sold as a devkit. would you buy a PS5 devkit and expect it to be exactly the same as the retail PS5? I don't understand the issue here

grenoire 6y ago
No, I would expect the devkit to be superior to the retail product. That's not the word you're looking for.
slg 6y ago
"Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." ~ Ian Malcolm
- db374837 6y ago
  Comma’s driver monitoring is the best in the industry. It is not at all unsafe.
- serf 6y ago
  it's interesting to read Jeff Goldblum's characteristic staccato translated to text. I hadn't thought about how I would have written it out.
mikeryan 6y ago
I have a PS5 devkit and develop apps for it. Yes I expect it to be exactly like the retail PS5 - or what's the point?

whatyesaid 6y ago

The whole point is they're selling you some hardware only (a modified Android), and it's legal if you yourself modify your own car or something. You have to manually install the software and mount it physically after buying this. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-following-nhtsa-letter/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma... It seems well-tested and safe though, not something sizzling out the lab, they're just using a legal loophole.

mrtksn 6y ago

So it's like Tesla?

brianwawok 6y ago
Like 20% of the features only for certain cars. Pretty bold claim ;P
- mrtksn 6y ago
  It's for 1/10th of the price, so twice better then? Just kidding, my point is that Tesla is selling it in about the same terms. Beta software for extra money, no guarantees.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Not sure that is true, you are comparing apples to oranges. Beta on Tesla is for FSD. Autopilot = lane keep on the highway, it's as mature as lane keep is on Toyota or Honda. It's also included for no additional cost in all tesla, so it's actually 100% cheaper.

stunt 6y ago

They are selling this product as a dashcam for obvious reasons. The autopilot feature is an experimental feature that you have to enable yourself on your own risk.

coddle-hark 6y ago

The latest commit in the repo [0] right now is "should work" (34ff295). Filtering by "bug" in the issue tracker gives: Comma two freeze and reboot while engaged. I recently had an incident on the interstate where my comma two froze completely (while engaged) and rebooted. The video froze, Comma's steering torque turned off, then after about five seconds in this state, the device rebooted. Zygote restarting while OP active. So for the past couple months, after a couple days of uptime, the comma two offroad UI will glitch out. The buttons respond with highlighting upon touch, but everything else stops working. ... This time, I left the comma two to bask in its glitched state and this ended up happening; the comma two had the spinning logo, while ALSO still driving my car. In the video below, I nudge the wheel to cause on purpose ping pong to prove it was still steering. Spontaneous disengagement/reboot. Cruising on expressway and OP spontaneously disengaged and the comma2 rebooted Hard braking while following the lead car. Was following the lead car on a highway traffic jam, that car was going without lights so might be a reason. Braking was really hard when he stopped, almost hit him ) I had a feeling that C2 don't see it at all. What's more worrying is that Comma's response is often either a) declare it a hardware failure or b) basically a WONTFIX: Comma support's response is to return/exchange the unit due to presumed hardware failure. It would be nice to know what exactly happened but I get you can't thoroughly investigate every anomaly. Folks at @commma feel free to close this issue. @Torq_boi said that it is not a model bug, but old known problem with no time to brake as lead car accelerated and braked fast. (So could INDI tuning fix that problem?) Closing this issue since it probably was hardware failure. If it happens a lot it's usually a hardware failure. But try running openpilot release instead of dragonpilot before drawing any conclusions. [0] https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Edit: Formatting.

bko 6y ago
Cool. Now do Volvo Pilot Assist. Comma.ai is trying to do big things and I hope they succeed. No reason self-driving technology should be bundled with a car and I have little faith in auto manufacturers to deliver. Lane assist technology exists. Look at consumer reports for a comprehensive review [0] (comma.ai was #1 in lane assist, above even tesla). They are open about their mistakes, issues and tradeoffs, much more so than other companies. I don't think its right for engineers use this as a cudgel to beat them over the head. https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-this-aftermarket-driver-assistance-kit-above-tesla-autopilot-cadillac-super-cruise https://www.thedrive.com/news/37833/consumer-reports-ranks-t...

mike_d 6y ago

> why would anyone be using this product outside of a test environment that’s fully controlled? Comma.ai is WallStreetBets for self-driving cars.