
Elon Musk says Tesla’s autopilot is already “probably” better than human drivers - ChrisCinelli
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/01/11/elon-musk-says-teslas-autopilot-is-already-probably-better-than-human-drivers/
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BuckRogers
Elon Musk is wrong.

As someone who has had family cars run into 3 times in 1 year at stop lights,
by folks looking down at their cell phones. I'm sure that Tesla's autopilot is
already better than human drivers.

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creshal
Looking out of my office window onto a busy intersection with bad visibility,
that's easy to believe. It's insane how many accidents happen solely because
drivers are unwilling to slow down for a second.

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BinaryIdiot
Hmm is he referring to the ability released to the public to date or their
capability in general that isn't yet accessible by the general public? If it's
the former that doesn't make sense so I'm going to assume the latter.

Considering in 2014 there were 32,675 motor vehicle deaths, 2,300,000 motor
vehicle related injuries and 6,100,000 reported accidents in general (which
means a likely higher number of accidents though not sure by how much) [1] it
would not surprise me that even buggy software could do a better job than
humans who tend to become distracted with almost anything. Though I'm not sure
about extreme conditions like snow, heavy fog and rain, etc.

As much as I love driving (and I really do) I can't wait for autonomous
vehicles. Considering it's a, if I remember correctly, a 1.7% chance in your
lifetime that you'll be killed in an auto accident in the United States (and
higher of a chance that you'll known someone killed) that's just way to high
of a number for me (especially being a Dad).

[1] [http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf](http://www-
nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812219.pdf)

~~~
Someone1234
It is worth keeping in mind that even without automatic vehicles, vehicle
deaths have and will continue to fall massively.

From the worst in 1937 (29.357 per 100K pop) to today (10.345 per 100K pop),
and falling by on average 2%/year since 1996 (was 15.8599 in 1996).

Without trying to sound melodramatic, cars built in the 1990s are "death
traps" by 2015 standards (and the same is true of 19980s cars by 1990s
standards). The reason we're seeing it fall slowly is as the late 1990s
vehicles gradually disappear.

I suspect we'll see a massive drop again in the next ten years even without
fully automatic cars as systems like Eyesight auto-break to slow collision
speeds.

One thing which will get interesting when we do have completely automatic
vehicles is: current drink driving laws (in particular in the US) aren't
compatible with them. In many US states falling asleep in a parked vehicle
with the keys is enough to get someone for "drink driving" (even without the
driving part), so falling asleep in an automatic car could still get someone a
DUI.

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chubot
Really, what has changed about cars, besides automatic breaking? I agree that
that feature saves lives. But I wonder about other stuff. I have a '99 Accord
:) (which I barely drive)

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Someone1234
> Really, what has changed about cars, besides automatic breaking?

Great question.

\- Electronic stability control (ESC) (required from 2009).

\- Anti-lock braking system (ABS) (in most cars from 2004 due to EU regs,
although not required in the US until 2011).

\- From 2003 the IIHS started rating vehicles for: rollover risk, side impact,
and frontal offset impact. So car manufacturers started improving their
designs to score better in these tests. The whole "top safety pick" thing is
an IIHS rating.

\- From 2009 the NHTSA required a greater roof-crush load (3x the vehicle's
weight, from 1.5x).

\- Safety Cell improvements: Crumple zones are less likely to trap in the
driver or front passenger's legs/feet during impact.

\- Anti-intrusion bars: Are more standard. The IIHS tests kind of pushed them
into mainstream.

\- Additional air bags (side impact).

\- Whiplash reduction seats and headrests.

Overall regulations aren't why cars are safer in 2016, consumer demand is.
People decided they didn't want to compromise on safety, so as a safer and
safer vehicles became available consumers flocked to them. Manufacturers had a
financial interest in not only be safe but the absolute safest in the road,
and that competition pushed vehicle safety forward.

~~~
atwebb
IIHS also started the Small Overlap testing a few years ago which was pretty
nasty and lots of existing cars didn't qualify. It was a major factor in us
purchasing new instead of used and the particular cars we went with.

~~~
Someone1234
Indeed. It is scary how badly cars were performing in their small overlap
tests.

Just for clarity, they did "frontal offset impact" tests a long time ago,
small overlap however was a recent addition, you can see the difference
between the two here[0].

So even in the early 2000s vehicles did improve for frontal offset impacts,
they just improved further in the last couple of years with the small overlap
tests.

[0] [http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/frontal-
crash-...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/ratings-info/frontal-crash-tests)

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Someone1234
I definitely think that systems like auto pilot will be better than human
drivers, but that being said, I don't believe he has enough data to make the
case for it being better TODAY.

Musk has a habit of going off half cocked, and I think this is one of those
cases. Auto pilot is great, but you cannot say much difinitively about it
because it hasn't got enough miles or road conditions under its belt.

That all being said, I myself have invested in this type of technology
(Subaru's Eyesight) but auto pilot claims to be able to do much more than the
more stabilised technology found on mass market vehicles.

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Slippery_John
While this isn't Tesla's implementation specifically, there is indeed data
that says self-driving cars are better than than human drivers.

[http://www.vtti.vt.edu/featured/?p=422](http://www.vtti.vt.edu/featured/?p=422)

~~~
Someone1234
That data is unfair. You're comparing taking automatic vehicles out in good
weather conditions to drivers who need to drive in all weather conditions.

Call me when automatic vehicles get tested in a blizzard, sandstorm, or
anything else that isn't an idealised Californian test track.

PS - And this is someone who owns an auto-braking system vehicle, and I know
first hand that it turns off when weather goes too bad.

~~~
JibberMeTimbers
Well, if that's the case, then why are humans crashing into others in prefect
conditions? It's data that is fair but for certain conditions, as you said. I
am interested in how they handle in extreme conditions but the reality is that
it is FAR safer in mild conditions BECAUSE they aren't distracted by their
cell phones or the sights or being tired/drunk, etc.

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stevesearer
When they talk about "Tesla tweaks the software running its vehicles by
analyzing data from the hundreds of millions of miles driven by current
owners."...

Does that mean that they analyze the miles driven using autopilot or the miles
driven by the human driver or both?

It would seem that using data from human driven miles would give them good
insight into how human drivers would react in weird and non-standard
situations.

Also, with as many cars as Tesla has out on the road, I wonder if the amount
of data they have to feed into their self-driving systems is more than Google
or other players in the space.

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melling
This feature alone could change the way we build cities and our suburbs:

"With the “summon” feature, a driver can tell her Tesla to park itself or pull
out from a parking spot or garage."

A car that can drop you off and pick you up from work means parking can be
moved away from the office, or even out of a city.

~~~
loganu
I was just imagining an autopilot lane with cars flying into the city to pick
up their owners.

You could also have parking garages with a much higher capacity per sq. foot
if all the cars were smart and could work together. (Or even sections designed
for this) Instead of single or double car rows, you could have them 4 or five
cars deep, and self-rearranging to let each other out.

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sandworm101
Better perhaps a very specific tasks. I'd still like to see them respond to
someone controlling traffic with hand gestures (a routine thing) or judge how
best to get out of the way of an ambulance, which occasionally means breaking
laws/rules.

~~~
pbreit
Yeah, I think there's more to driving than just proceeding on the correct
route and obeying laws,signals & signs. So I can see autopilot coming pretty
soon but I think fully autonomous is much further out.

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stevenalowe
Hey Elon, prove it: enter an autopiloted Tesla in a major car race.

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supergirl
better in normal circumstances maybe. probably terrible in corner cases, which
as he said, is where the real difficulties are and there are millions of
corner cases.

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ceejayoz
It'd be interesting to know how many road accidents are those corner cases and
how many are simple inattention. I've been in a couple accidents and each has
been something I'm sure even a basic autopilot would've easily prevented.

~~~
supergirl
1\. You're right but you are thinking of human corner cases. AI also has
corner cases which might be trivial for humans. I'm saying these corner cases
for AI are too many currently.

2\. And anyway, from my point of view 'better than humans' doesn't necessarily
mean 'causes fewer accidents'. If that was the goal then an auto-pilot that
kept the car still (or drove very very slowly) would win.

