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Tesla autopilot fatal crash


tazzieman
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Cant wait for a fully self driving car. Then I can go out and night and get totally mashed and still go home in my car and the cops can do nothing about it.

They are so safety conscious you can bet your life they will install an alcohol sensor to deactivate the car and send a msg to the cops...who will find you via the central GPS signal.

Big brother is already here and the more technology is embraced for the sake of technology , the worse it's going to get.

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Sadly Taz is right.

I think the race between the self drive car and the total alcohol ban will he won by the wowsers banning booze.

think it cant happen?

if ten years ago I told you going to a greyhound track would be illegal would you have believed me?

if ten years ago i told you posting jokes on he internet could get you arrested would you have believed me?

if ten years ago I told you cigarettes would be $30 a packet and sold from locked cabinets in brown paper bags would you have believed me?

i have seen the 'alcohol dispensaries' in Norway with my own eyes.   State owned stores with no advertsising and strict purchase limits.  Don't think it isn't a dream of the nanny set to get the same thing here.

Never doubt the persistence of wowsers, busybodies and activists.  We all believe our purpose in life is to enjoy it and get as much as we can out of it.  They believe their purpose is to prevent us from making those choices 'for our own good'. They are the new missionaries, busy setting up camp in our villages and teaching the 'correct'  positions.

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Mmmmm over the weekend I was nearly cleaned up by a girl on her phone - texting head down - we passed with her on my side of the road. I braked and used the shoulder. And I was in my wife's Merc so quite visible.

My auto pilot in the plane can be over ridden I'm not sure why the test driver didn't override. Or was he focused on data entry in the cabin.

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Oct 16th

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-germany-idUSKBN12G0KS

German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has asked Tesla (TSLA.O) to stop advertising its electric vehicles as having an Autopilot function as this might suggest drivers' attention is not needed, his ministry said on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the ministry, confirming a report in the daily Bild am Sonntag (BamS), said the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) had written to Tesla to make the request.

"It can be confirmed that a letter to Tesla exists with the request to no longer use the misleading term Autopilot for the driver assistance system of the car," she said in a written response to a Reuters' query.

A Tesla spokeswoman said the Autopilot term, describing a system operating in conjunction with a human driver, had been used in aerospace for decades, and that the company had always made it clear to customers that the assistance system required drivers to pay attention at all times.

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About time someone put an end to the over the top hype. Flying with no obstacles is not comparable to driving on a road. How many planes have flown into the side of a truck killing the pilot?

Seems driver and passenger safety is a secondary consideration for Tesla with selling more cars the main objective and how dare anyone criticize their technology. 

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Who dares wins , we dare , we shall win ;) victory for the commonsensicals

Or drowns under a mountain of law suites. What do they say about fooling people?

I will believe when thay can identify a cow or sheep or lama and tell which side of a fence it is on and assess the risk or can identify a kangaroo and realise that fences do not matter unless they are 2m high. Add reliably detecting and avoiding water over a road which is becomming more common lately along with deep potholes with or without water in them. 

Currently they are no smarter than an L plater. Yes they can stay in their lane and can usually stop if something is in their way. What they lack is a situational awareness and the ability to assess and reconise potential situations and hazards. 

 

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What happens when bad stuff happens in "smart" aeroplanes? The pilot takes over. But as been pointed out , the skies are generally empty, and split second decisions are rarely made.

Computers just compound human error. As for robots , don't get me started on what they have in store for humankind. But they don't like it when you put duct tape over their probic vents, so keep some in the glovebox.

 

Everyone's layin' the boots in now!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-17/driverless-car-technology-unsafe-road-safety-experts-warn/7939868

Professor Ann Williamson from the University of New South Wales said the testing was proceeding too quickly.

"At the moment we're asking drivers to just sit passively and wait until something happens and then it asks them to just take over really quickly and that's something human beings don't do very well." 

Once adopted, the use of driverless cars will have huge implications for traffic management, city planning, home design. It could even threaten private car ownership. 

Oh noes , angry people - & cyclists everywhere!
Time to get out and drive our toys into the ground before the scary future arrives.

Edited by tazzieman
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I see a future where the roads will be littered with stranded Teslas when they encounter a situation they can not handle and come to a stop with only passengers (no one will be able to drive) on board. Who will get it out of trouble? Then when not hooked back up to the supply in a timely fashion  its battery will go flat and brick the car. 

When Elon accepts full responsibility as if he was the driver of the car it may have some merrit otherwise it is all just a PR stunt. Full autonomous to me means detecting and identifying a cow and which side of the fence it is on. they would need to show they can detect and identify everything around them and evaluate the risk that the object/animal/child represents to the car. I invite them to drive on single lane bitumen road with no centre line where you need to move over onto dirt to pass an oncomming car. Would it be smart enough to locate the best spot to move right off to the side to let a truck stay on the bitumen. Now lets try corrugated dirt roads.  In the world of computers 40x computing improvement is tiny. He needs far more than he can imagine to be able to process images as well as a human. 

 

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When it comes to tranport science fiction has often opted the removal of anything that can interfere with orderly progress. Tubes are a good way of keeping everything out. Perhaps the best way forward for urban transport is a dedicated system.

We were sold humanoid robots many many years ago but they are still far from reality. I am sure we would all buy one to do the chores around the house. Perhaps they could even chauffeur us around making all cars (human) Driverless. This would be a much better use of resources as the humanoid has many more uses than a car has. Instead we have many millions of robots designed for a specific job working tirelessly for our benefit while waiting waiting waiting.......

So should future urban personal transport use its own infrastructure or adapt into the existing infrastructure which is most likely only a stepping stone anyway. 

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Nothing to do with them trying to outbid each other for the rights to the pastel colored unicorn. With no downnside even if they fail why wouldn't they. Just insert one of a million excuses and conclude that maybe sometime in the future it will happen. 

And what do we gain apart from lazy drivers. Any real gain requires a lot of infrastructure and the removal of human drivers. Then we can go everywhere at warp speed interleaving at intersections that have no traffic lights. 

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The whole issue is murky, different forces at work and conspiring.

1. Transfer of fossil fuels to renewable resources. In Australia , there is still a lot of coal being burnt...and energy sent to hydro powered Tassy , lol

2. Urban crowding , loss of productivity , wastage of fuel , general angst/stress

3. A perception that accidents just happen , and robots are better than humans. To which I would counter , there are very few "accidents" , they are largely incidents with a defineable cause (speed , carelessness , poor judgement , inattention , alcohol , unroadworthiness, random acts (kids on bikes , animals , trees , storms).
Many are preventable , but methods to reduce innate and rapidly increasing human idiocy are failing. Where are the $3000 fines for texting and driving???

4. The need for entrepreneurs like Musk , and other corporates to continually build aspirational products to ever increase profits (notwithstanding costs to the environment of building new stuff and all the energy and resources that it entails). It will be tolerated by the majority of pollies who live off the fat of jobs and growth , more jobs and more growth. Of course , driverless cars allow more productivity , though working on the way to and from work is sort of weird for the majority.

If we sit back and take a good look , we just need a bit more smart thinking and less sheep-like behaviour amongst consumers. Rethink expectations , slow down a bit and realise exponential growth in all sectors of our lives is truly unsustainable and comes at a huge cost to society. 

I have a 12 minute commute and I live in the bush. But if I leave at rush hour it's up to 45 minutes , given congestion and accidents. Efficient public transport & staggered hours is the answer, but good luck with that push as everyone seems to wants to pick up little Johnny from school at the same time , and pile into the burbs for a bit of shopping, cramming the boot and belly with more short lasting consumer goods .

 

It's all rather illogical and like old Dr Spock , I don't support illogical policy or thought. We are living in messed up times , and expensive driverless cars are not going to contribute much to societal contentment. And now , Mr Musk over to you and your bug eyed space cadets & oddities ;)

Oh and well done to some of the mfrs for a Spock like approach to cars of the future. 

I'm off to Motorclassica today,  to remember the good old days , when veteran cars were the future, though slightly before my time.

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Ps. Only Mazda and Porsche are.not planning automated cars. All other major manufacturing are

I remember Porsche trialling active cruise control a few years back.  Slowed down, braked, changed gears etc when traveling on winding country roads.   Sounds like the beginnings of auto pilot to me. 

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I remember Porsche trialling active cruise control a few years back.  Slowed down, braked, changed gears etc when traveling on winding country roads.   Sounds like the beginnings of auto pilot to me. 

Active cruise has a lot of issues.

I have had the emergency brake feature slam the brakes on and bring me to an emergency stop in the middle of an intersection from 60kph with no cars at all in front. Seems a tram line looked like an obstacle. Lucky no one was behind me. Also had it slam the brakes on going around a gentile left curve when it saw a car with a trailer turning right in its own right turn lane. Lucky again no one was behind me. 

And in cruise it is rubbish on winding roads when following someone as it looses contact with the car in front and accelerates only to reaquire it again and slam the brakes on to increase the gap. You have to set the same speed as the car in front which defeats its active purpose.  Also when in cruise mode it acts like a nervous nelly in relation to pushbikes and turning cars making it unusabe in any situation but freeway and open non windy roads.

They really need to up their game.

 

 

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Not to worry , cars of the future can provide a soothing audiobook on your 93 minute commute whilst the kids play with their devices and develop their neural connections to Globalsoft and the Killer Queen

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-i-transformed-my-hellish-commute/news-story/5b1f3050511f46f16594417ad7ec7608

"Is this the real life , or is this fantasy?"

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-21/the-only-thing-on-autopilot-at-tesla-is-the-hype-machine

The simplest explanation is that in the race toward true autonomous-drive capability, Tesla boosts its brand prestige by suggesting that its current cars are already there. But it's also worth noting that over the last quarter the company slashed prices on its cars to meet its full-year delivery expectations. What better way to boost sales than to make every car Tesla has already sold instantly obsolete in the eyes of consumers chomping at the bit for full autonomy?

We should celebrate that Tesla has taken another important step toward eventual autonomy. But until the company's public statements and sales strategy are dialed back to reflect only what each update is actually capable of, Tesla -- not press critics or regulators -- represents the greatest threat to the lifesaving promise of self-driving technology.

I rest my case 

Edited by tazzieman
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Good find tassieman

At last a journalist nails it.

The entie article is worth reading.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-21/the-only-thing-on-autopilot-at-tesla-is-the-hype-machine

But to me this sums it up

"By pointing out this gap between perception and reality, the media reaction to Brown's death may have saved lives that Tesla's overhyping of its autopilot's capabilities had endangered. Unfortunately, by casting healthy skepticism as potentially lethal Luddism, Musk is extending his pattern of making bad-faith arguments about autopilot's safety."

 

Problem is the real world has no reset button. Which makes video game programmers entirely unsuited to develop for it. 

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