Anyone who drives a car is technically, legally, and ethically responsible for being capable of operating the machine and to do so in a responsible manner.
Tens of thousands of people a year fail to do exactly that. Tens of thousands of fatalities every year, not to mention maimings and injuries, countless billions of dollars in property damages and lost wages, because humans generally fail in their legal, and ethical responsibility to operate their motor vehicles responsibly and in conditions they could handle.
There have been a few cases where Tesla drivers have made the same failing. Sometimes the AutoPilot feature was engaged at the time. Sometimes they were just pushing the vehicle too hard and ended up on the wrong side of physics. The Tesla is stupidly fun to drive and sometimes I drive more spiritedly than I should. Being too fun to drive could get people hurt or killed too (and it has)
I strongly believe a responsible driver is more safe with than without an AutoPilot feature, mostly from my own personal experience, as the data point I used to cite is somewhat controversial.
Just like the amazing cornering and torque of the Tesla can be abused and even lead to fatalities when pushed too far, so can the AutoPilot.
I personally think it’s a mistake to make the feature significantly less useful to a responsible driver to try to possibly prevent these edge cases. If it were possible to make the attentiveness features entirely non-intrusive than absolutely they should be added. But in reality the attentiveness features are already intrusive to a responsible driver and detract from the experience.
Interestingly Volvo seems to be going in a different direction. They believe as the manufacturer it’s their responsibility to create a product that even a human attempting to operating irresponsibly or illegally should be kept safe. They’re adding hard speed limits well below the functional limit of the hardware, and contemplating even systems like breathalyzers and fatigue detection which would entirely disable the vehicle.
I personally don’t want to live in a world where every product I use is sizing me up and deciding how I should use it, whether it’s a chef’s knife, jet ski, automobile, or semi-automatic.
In the meantime what I love most about AutoPilot is how it can only possibly get better over time, and every single car in the fleet is benefiting from that. That’s as long as the regulators don’t fuck it up.
Tens of thousands of people a year fail to do exactly that. Tens of thousands of fatalities every year, not to mention maimings and injuries, countless billions of dollars in property damages and lost wages, because humans generally fail in their legal, and ethical responsibility to operate their motor vehicles responsibly and in conditions they could handle.
There have been a few cases where Tesla drivers have made the same failing. Sometimes the AutoPilot feature was engaged at the time. Sometimes they were just pushing the vehicle too hard and ended up on the wrong side of physics. The Tesla is stupidly fun to drive and sometimes I drive more spiritedly than I should. Being too fun to drive could get people hurt or killed too (and it has)
I strongly believe a responsible driver is more safe with than without an AutoPilot feature, mostly from my own personal experience, as the data point I used to cite is somewhat controversial.
Just like the amazing cornering and torque of the Tesla can be abused and even lead to fatalities when pushed too far, so can the AutoPilot.
I personally think it’s a mistake to make the feature significantly less useful to a responsible driver to try to possibly prevent these edge cases. If it were possible to make the attentiveness features entirely non-intrusive than absolutely they should be added. But in reality the attentiveness features are already intrusive to a responsible driver and detract from the experience.
Interestingly Volvo seems to be going in a different direction. They believe as the manufacturer it’s their responsibility to create a product that even a human attempting to operating irresponsibly or illegally should be kept safe. They’re adding hard speed limits well below the functional limit of the hardware, and contemplating even systems like breathalyzers and fatigue detection which would entirely disable the vehicle.
I personally don’t want to live in a world where every product I use is sizing me up and deciding how I should use it, whether it’s a chef’s knife, jet ski, automobile, or semi-automatic.
In the meantime what I love most about AutoPilot is how it can only possibly get better over time, and every single car in the fleet is benefiting from that. That’s as long as the regulators don’t fuck it up.