
Elon Musk: human drivers are 'too dangerous' - riaface
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-03/18/elon-musk-ai-make-better-drivers
======
matthewmacleod
I'm a little bit confused about why there's such a negative reaction to this
on HN - it seems like a pretty reasonable statement to make, no? Sure, I don't
think there's any firm idea of when 'robotic' drivers will overtake humans in
terms of safety. But it does seem pretty clear that it will eventually happen.

Self-driving cars have a few massive potential advantages relative to humans,
such as faster reaction times, no distractions, the ability to directly
communicate car-to-car, and so on. It certainly seems likely that those
advantages will far outweigh the adaptability of humans – after all, aren't
most accidents caused by distraction, driving too fast for the conditions and
the like?

~~~
closetnerd
I think the reason you're confused is because you're under the impression that
people are arguing against the very obvious practical benefits of having only
self driving cars: congestion, safety, etc. This is obvious to everyone.

However, there are other human concerns. I personally enjoy driving. I often
go on drives where I'm simply exploring, not knowing which turn I might take
next. It's my personal belief that driving is not just my privilege, but my
right. If you want a self driving car, you're well within your rights to do as
I am to drive my self.

Moreover, there's a huge scope of privacy issues and increased amount of
control being put in the government. I am one of those individuals who is
inherently distrusting of government policies that can restrict us under the
guise of safety, etc.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_However, there are other human concerns. I personally enjoy driving. I often
go on drives where I 'm simply exploring, not knowing which turn I might take
next. It's my personal belief that driving is not just my privilege, but my
right. If you want a self driving car, you're well within your rights to do as
I am to drive my self._

That's an interesting concern – I suppose we end up, like with most issues of
public policy, trying to draw a balance. I imagine it's much like gun control:
while most gun owners are going to be responsible, that damage that can be
caused by those who aren't means that many jurisdictions prefer to restrict
firearm ownership.

 _Moreover, there 's a huge scope of privacy issues and increased amount of
control being put in the government. I am one of those individuals who is
inherently distrusting of government policies that can restrict us under the
guise of safety, etc._

Sure, and there's good reason for that. The privacy issue is orthogonal and
must be set to one side (though it's legitimate).

How would you feel about a move to regulate non-autonomous vehicle ownership
more closely? Driver licensing could become much more rigorous, for example.
Combined with the essential outlawing of non-autonomous vehicles in urban
centres (almost inevitable in the long run), that would ideally assuage most
safety concerns while still allowing people the freedom to drive.

~~~
closetnerd
> How would you feel about a move to regulate non-autonomous vehicle ownership
> more closely? Driver licensing could become much more rigorous, for example.

I'm very much in favor of a far more thorough _practical_ driver training
programs before being licensed. The issue is less with people not knowing
their theory as apposed to not being capable drivers. I think we should model
our own driving training programs closer to Finland's for example.

In California, at least, the training, the theory, the test itself is a
complete joke. It's the definitive example of bureaucratic incompetence.

However, I'm not in favor of a rigorous licensing program which simply aims to
dissuade one from obtaining a license because of various background checks,
fingerprinting, paper work, and encyclopedic knowledge of vague and obscure
laws.

> Combined with the essential outlawing of non-autonomous vehicles in urban
> centres (almost inevitable in the long run), that would ideally assuage most
> safety concerns while still allowing people the freedom to drive.

I'm extremely skeptical and, on the whole, against this. This is exactly where
lawmakers would find gray enough lines to outlaw humans drivers from the
majority of road networks from laws that give the impression that only a
handful of metropolitan cities would initially be effected.

------
astazangasta
The thing I keep emphasizing in this conversation is how terribly good human
drivers are, on average. In the US, there are three fatalities for every 10
billion passenger miles traveled. That's tremendous. A machine that is
currently incapable of driving in rain and unable to see a child in the street
has a long way to go to hit this mark.

Musk is here to sell his car. He'll say all sorts of bullshit to make it look
sexier.

~~~
FranOntanaya
Miles per passenger depend on too many factors. I'd stick with 1 death per
6,200 driver's licenses (US, 2009)

~~~
jeffdavis
Deaths per mile is more useful because it compares the cost (deaths) with the
benefit (miles traveled per passenger). Additionally, we can compare directly
against alternatives, such as buses, air travel, and self-driving cars.

Deaths per driver's license doesn't tell us the benefit we are getting, and
doesn't give us a way to make comparisons with alternatives.

~~~
Retric
Self-driving cars seem to be ~1:1 with driver licenses. A licenced driver
drives at most one car at a time.

~~~
jeffdavis
There's obviously a connection between driver's licenses and miles traveled,
but if you have the latter number, why use the former? It makes the benefit
more obscure and reduces the accuracy (for instance, if passengers of self-
driving cars drive more or less than passengers of human-driven cars).

Also, it doesn't offer a good way to compare against things like air travel.

------
clarle
FWIW, Elon Musk did say the following on Twitter:

> _To be clear, Tesla is strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive
> their cars and always will be. Hopefully, that is obvious._

> _However, when self-driving cars become safer than human-driven cars, the
> public may outlaw the latter. Hopefully not._

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/577946893646364673](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/577946893646364673)

So his goal isn't to shore up support for legislation against non-autonomous
cars anytime soon.

~~~
closetnerd
He made that clarification because he was met with unexpectedly large audience
which was critical of his statements.

He was quite obviously supporting future legislation against humans driving
cars:

> In fact, in the distant future, I think it's probably going to be... people
> may outlaw driving cars, because it's too dangerous.

> You can't have a person driving a two-ton death machine.

------
gaius
Heh, I have a friend who is all rah-rah for self-driving cars. He also likes
to go camping. So I asked him, when you show up at the site and the farmer
says, top field, past the sheep, turn left at the tractor, what's your self-
driving car going to do? Hmm, he said, well it would need some sort of touch
screen interface for that. Or I said, some sort of "steering wheel"...

~~~
dragonwriter
> Heh, I have a friend who is all rah-rah for self-driving cars. He also likes
> to go camping. So I asked him, when you show up at the site and the farmer
> says, top field, past the sheep, turn left at the tractor, what's your self-
> driving car going to do?

I don't see any problem with that, even with no direct controls. That's
probably a situation that requires more detailed _navigational_ input from a
driver than providing a destination for road driving and letting the system
handle the routing, but doesn't necessarily require actually manual driving.
And, even if it did, even fully automated cars that are designed for personal
ownership and (especially) for off-road use are likely to have full-control
overrides available for some time.

Of course, camp sites and other destinations that people are expected to drive
to will probably also have navigation information or guides available that
self-driving cars can follow when self-driving cars are common, rendering the
whole hypothetical largely moot.

~~~
gaius
I can imagine the look on the average farmer's face when some city folk in
their self driving car ask him to lead them up to the field himself. He'd
probably just leave them there and drive off in his tractor, chuckling to
himself.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I can imagine the look on the average farmer's face when some city folk in
> their self driving car ask him to lead them up to the field himself.

I think you've badly misunderstood what "nagivational information or guides"
means.

~~~
gaius
And I think you've badly misunderstood what driving in the British countryside
means :-p

~~~
dragonwriter
And I think you've badly misunderstood what "when self-driving cars are
common" means.

Its not a change that leaves the rest of the world the same as it is today.

------
lordnacho
Humans are not going to stop needing sleep, get distracted, or react slowly.
All we can really do (and have done) is mitigate. Seat belts, driver training,
etc.

Whatever problems a machine has, we can improve on them gradually. We can
spend loads of time looking at test cases, and improvements are ratcheting.

I can't wait for self-driving cars. It will be a massive change to be able to
go to sleep in your own comfy bed and wake up in time for a meeting in another
town.

I also imagine traffic will be smoother, as tolerances don't have to be so
wide.

------
Methusalah
Sensationalist bs. It'd take some pretty impressive programming to deal with
issues like road construction, missing or faded road markings, unmarked dirt
roads, and potentially outdated or incorrect maps.

~~~
lukasm
They're gonna cover 98% of cases. The rest can be picked up be remote
operators.

~~~
Mithaldu
Remote operators work for flying drones, since those don't have to evade
children running onto the road with sub-second reaction times.

For cars there is no way electron-based signal transmission technology can
control them with an even marginally acceptable latency.

~~~
jsprogrammer
What do you mean by electron-based signal transmission technology? If you're
talking remote control, those signals will be photon based. If you're talking
internal control, electrons on wires move pretty fast and many cars already
utilize them. Is there much latency difference between mechanically closing
the throttle with your foot and signaling a servo to close the throttle?
Presumably some situations can be analyzed by a processor and trigger the
servo before the human controller has even been able to consciously perceive a
scene.

~~~
Mithaldu
One question:

How do you plan to remote control a moving car with photons?

Edit: Huh, ok. I didn't know radio signals are also photons. Still, the speed
of light is significant with sub-second decisions. So even for photon
transmission remote control of a moving car in live traffic is not feasible.

------
throwaway43
I remain extremely skeptical that 95 % will be good enough and its the edge
cases that really matter. It doesn't matter that they're better most of the
time because the failure modes are different.

However since Elon is a really smart guy who has mastered multiple disciplines
, I'll take his word. I'm waiting for my self driving car.

------
ecobiker
The way I see it - it's hard to "transfer" all the learnings we get from our
everyday driving experiences to other fellow drivers but a machine can do
that. It's going to be a sum total of all of its learnings and its neighbours
(all over the world). I like the idea of it.

------
rplst8
He's right. Driving a car is something like 1000 times riskier than commercial
aviation. We still have about 30,000 vehicle fatalities per year.

~~~
refurb
1000 times more risky as measure by what? People drive a car far more often
than fly in a plane. I'm sure flying is still safer, but the comparison should
take into account the differences.

~~~
rplst8
The comparisons I've seen are usually on a person-mile basis. Commercial
aviation can move more people a further distance with fewer fatalities.

------
drzaiusapelord
Musk is pretty self-serving here. He writes about how advanced AI will
"destroy humanity" to keep interest in manned space and to discredit robot and
science missions. Now he's cheerleading automotive AI because Tesla wants to
sell it.

I really am starting to see him as an empty suit. He just does PR for his
companies' current projects. That's fine, but he's not a visionary. He's
salesman. I can't wait for his celebrity to wind down. Its more than a bit
over the top now. Tesla seems like a failure to launch an affordable electric
or an electric with realistic range at a sane pricepoint. SpaceX is doing
well, but LEO theatrics are boring considering the SLS is geared to take us
way past that.

I wish he'd buy into causes that don't personally enrich him once in a while.
I'd love to see someone of his caliber stump for a radio telescope on the far
side of the moon or on replacing cars with more efficient tram systems powered
by electric wires instead of the unsolved and perhaps unsolvable problem of
batteries that can compete with the convienance of gasoline.

~~~
matthewmacleod
This just seems needlessly picky, and I can't help but feel that you're
expecting a little much.

Of course Elon Musk is self-serving, in the sense that he's talking about and
promoting the benefits of projects that he's working on.

They're more impressive than you seem to be implying; Tesla's approach to
tackling the existing automotive industry and introducing affordable vehicles
is a long-term project, and considering we're about 11 or 12 years in, they
seem to be making good progress. It's not something that many other companies
have had the vision and drive to execute.

Likewise with SpaceX. There's a long-term plan to colonise Mars – that does
seem pretty visionary, no?

And in terms of other projects, look at something like Hyperloop. You seem to
imply that "efficient tram systems powered by electric wires" (a technology
used everywhere throughout the world) would be more 'visionary' or something?
That seems like an odd claim to make.

People treat Musk like a bit of a celebrity because he talks unashamedly of
large-scale, long-term visions for things he wants his projects to achieve.
That's amazingly attractive in a world where there is so much focus on the
short term, and what _can 't_ be achieved. I'm not sure why you react so badly
to that.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
The problem is that you're not a visionary if you're selling yesterdays
solutions just sexed up a bit. An electric car is like selling a robotic
horse. Urban areas need public trans solutions, not more cars.

SpaceX's offerings are underwhelming unless your goal is to stick to LEO
forever.

The problem is, people just keep thinking of yesterdays problems (better cars,
more LEO theatrics) and think better versions of that is "visionary." Its not.
Its practically archaic. His flip-flopping on AI just cements his reputation
as marketing entity who only exists to provide PR for his companies, some of
which are just trying to solve yeterday's problems instead of todays.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I'll repeat - SpaceX literally has a goal of colonising Mars. The technology
to get there requires small steps, and I have to think of that goal as pretty
visionary.

You seem to be defining 'visionary' in a way I don't quite understand. What's
'visionary' about better public transport solutions? There are comprehensive
public transport networks across the world, for example. We could definitely
improve them, but it would hardly be visionary to do so.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>I'll repeat - SpaceX literally has a goal of colonising Mars.

This is like saying that Facebook's goal is to give the 3rd world free
internet. Its lofty PR speak. SpaceX only exist as a COTS beneficiary from
NASA welfare to build rockets to LEO. It is literally incapable of doing
anything else as it doesnt have the customers (who is paying $200 billion for
that on way ticket to Mars exactly)?

Again, this is the marketing sci-fi smokescream Musk is good at. He
fanservices what manboys wants to hear and they delightfully repeat his
marketing for him as he sells luxury electric cars with poor range to the 1%
and does the occasional LEO lift.

Years from now there will be a lot research into Muskmania. Why people bought
into such a self-promoter and how well marketing works, especially on people
who think they're immune to it is going to spill a lot of ink. It won't
matter, we'll just move onto the next guy who promises things we refuse to
cast a critical eye towards.

~~~
matthewmacleod
You are really overstating the degree to which 'Muskmania' exists.

It's pretty much just that people are excited about someone who appears to be
genuinely interested in putting his money into some long-term, pie-in-the-sky
projects. In a rather short-term-focused world, that's a refreshing thing.
It's totally understandable that people want to hear about that, and certainly
it looks pretty encouraging to me (free nationwide network of car chargers?
re-usable rockets? Hyperloop? All pretty cool. Maybe not the salvation of
humanity, but a nice change.)

However, I can see you clearly have an intense dislike of Musk for some
reason, and won't be convinced by that. Probably better to leave it at that.

------
tokenadult
Here are some facts and figures about driving versus flying for travel safety
per passenger mile over a time period carefully measured by official
statistics. "In absolute numbers, driving is more dangerous, with more than 5
million accidents compared to 20 accidents in flying. A more direct comparison
per 100 million miles pits driving's 1.27 fatalities and 80 injuries against
flying's lack of deaths and almost no injuries, which again shows air travel
to be safer."[1] I thought everybody knew that airline travel is by far the
safest form of travel.[2]

The basic issue about self-driving cars is that setting the standard of
performance at "better than most human drivers most of the time" is a
moderately low technical bar to clear, but would still result in a HUGE
reduction of deaths, injuries, and damage to vehicles and roadside property.
But I'm still not sure how soon self-driving cars will be good enough to drive
on snowy roads (Google's self-driving cars have never been tested in snowy
conditions, as of the last time I checked) or even in rain.[3] The story
posted today is more nuanced than a story posted yesterday about Elon Musk's
predictions, and reports, "He said he believed that we're still 20 years out
from the roads being full of autonomous cars."

[1] [http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-
travel-1...](http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-
travel-1581.html)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/flying-is-still-the-safest-
wa...](http://www.businessinsider.com/flying-is-still-the-safest-way-to-
travel-2013-7)

[3] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/adva...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/advanced-cars/japan-competition-shows-weather-still-a-
challenge-for-autonomous-cars)

~~~
Alupis
We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I
say that word relatively) 32,000 people died in any sort of automobile related
accident last year.

To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable,
preventable, and treatable illness) killed more than 52,000 people in the US
last year alone.

In reality, automobiles in the US are the safest they have ever been since
1949, and automobile related deaths have dropped more than 26% since 2005
alone. According to the CDC, automobile related deaths are not even in the top
10 leading causes of death in the US.

Last year, heart disease was responsible for 596,577 US deaths last year
alone. Stroke claimed 128,932 US lives. Diabetes took 73,831 american lives.
Suicide robbed 39,518 people their life last year -- in excess of 7,000 more
than died by automobile related accidents.

In 2009, approximately a grand total of 2,436,652 died in the US of all causes
(including natural causes). Of that number, automobile related deaths only
accounts for 1%. Of the entire US population, we're talking about 0.0096%...

According to the CDC, in 2012, 10,322 people (or 31%) of all automobile
related deaths were alcohol-related deaths. Another 18% of automobile related
deaths are attributed to drugs other than alcohol in the same year. That
accounts for just about 50% of all vehicle related deaths, leaving the true
automobile related deaths due to accident at a shockingly low number
(relatively) of about 15,000 people per year.

All of this is to say, relatively speaking, automobile related deaths are not
a significant concern. It does not make sense to spend significant effort in
this sector while ignoring or not increasing efforts in these other much more
problematic areas.

Sources:

[1] [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-
death.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm)

[2] [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-
tr...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-
deaths-rates/1784595/)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)

[4] [http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-
st...](http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-
states-2011-11)

[5] [http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-
statistics/fatalit...](http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-
statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview)

[6]
[http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...](http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-
drv_factsheet.html)

~~~
apendleton
Automobile-related deaths are the number one killer of healthy adults in the
US, and the number one killer, period, of Americans between the ages of 5 and
34. (sources:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city](http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the_walkable_city)
and
[http://www.cdc.gov/injury/overview/data.html](http://www.cdc.gov/injury/overview/data.html)
respectively). They're not insignificant, especially when you look at their
value in terms of dollars per life saved for prevention, or (even moreso)
years of life lost per death, as automobile deaths disproportionately affect
young people, as compared to, e.g., stroke.

Also, I have no idea why you exclude alcohol- and drug-related deaths from
"true" automobile deaths. Humans are fallible. They get tired, get distracted,
see poorly at night, misjudge speed, and make stupid decisions like texting
while driving, and, yes, drinking and driving. Mitigating that fallibility is
the entire value proposition of the self-driving car. Deaths due to drunk
driving are absolutely among those that self-driving car advocates aim to
prevent.

~~~
Alupis
> Deaths due to drunk driving are absolutely among those that self-driving car
> advocates aim to prevent.

Instead of proposing legislation that everyone must own a self-driving vehicle
(the path self-driving vehicle advocates seem to be heading towards), wouldn't
a more reasonable, less expensive, and less obtrusive solution be to mandate
breathalyzers in every vehicle? (I don't support this either, but it's less
expensive and less of a burden).

Self-driving cars won't last as long due to the sheer amount of technology
required to be in the vehicle. So instead of getting 5-20 years of out of your
"dumb car" you'll get closer to 2-5 years before the electronics inside
degrade to an unsafe state.

Can the electronics be upgraded/replaced when they become unsafe? Sure, but
this is a significant cost burden on the consumer... The precision and
reliability the electronics must provide has to be absolute. To achieve this
level, they'll have to be better than military-grade sensors -- heck, military
helicopters with some of the best sensors, ai, and electronics crash
routinely... and they get regular maintenance before and after every flight.
How long do we really expect the average consumer's self-driving vehicle to
last when most drivers don't even change their oil once every year?

> Automobile-related deaths are the number one killer of healthy adults in the
> US, and the number one killer, period,

That's a disingenuous statement. People were healthy until they contracted the
flu. They were healthy until they suffered a sudden heart attack. Those are
the true leading killers of all Americans... healthy and not.

~~~
apendleton
> Instead of proposing legislation that everyone must own a self-driving
> vehicle (the path self-driving vehicle advocates seem to be heading towards)

I think the path many advocates are headed towards is actually more radical:
largely eliminating personal vehicle ownership entirely, with rides available
as a service, Uber-like, as part of most people's multimodal transportation
mix that might also include transit, more walking, etc. I don't expect either
direction to occur via a mandate, though, but the economics of the more
aggressive plan are interesting. Most cars sit unused for 22 hours a day, and
there are enormous economies to be gained from improved utilization if cars
are a shareable asset, especially with the labor taken out of the equation (as
compared to current Uber), and I think the shift may well happen on its own,
at least in part and in some places. And to be clear, it's not an all-or-
nothing proposition; replacing some drivers still potentially improves
everyone's safety.

As for the second bit: if you think my first stat is disingenuous, pay
attention to my second, which you cut off halfway through. In that age
bracket, automobiles are the top killer overall, including health-related
causes. The flu disproportionately kills infants and the elderly (and for what
it's worth, you vastly overstated the efficacy of the flu vaccine in your
original post; it's totally worth getting, but still only decreased
recipients' chances of contracting the flu by a bit more than half; "totally
vaccinatable [and] preventable" it is not).

------
lasermike026
What about public transportation? We can make improvements to public
transportation today.

------
mudil
Actually, human pilots are too dangerous as well. Analysis of airplane
disasters consistently shows that human errors are responsible for majority of
crashes.

I would feel much more comfortable flying in a completely automated airplane.

------
mixmastamyk
I'm glad they are working on this in general, however unfortunately the Model
S is not able to slow or stop when encountering a car stopped in front of it.

I was quite disappointed when I found out they don't have this important
technology, in a car packed to the hilt with it.
[http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/collision-
avoidance](http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/collision-avoidance)

------
panglott
No question, if robot cars will obey speed limits and not blow through red
lights. The biggest safety improvements will come from convincing
motorists/passengers that it's OK to travel just a bit slower.

