this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Yeah, this article is ridiculous. Self-driving cars are FAR safer than human drivers. The number of accidents is minuscule compared to what would be expected if the automated features were absent.
We run the real risk of screwing this up if people insist on an automated car never causing a crash, or never hurting anyone. Even if they hurt someone, the point is that it harmed maybe 0.1% of the people that would have been hurt in traditional vehicles.
”Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”
i feel like you're illustrating the issue here but from the other direction. are they? is the number of accidents miniscule? self-driving technology is frequently hyped up in exactly this manner--particularly by Elon and Tesla apologetics, who have a vested interest in it being correct--but i've seen nothing to suggest that the technology is either widespread enough or reliable enough to draw a meaningful conclusion in either direction.[^1] i also don't think it's reasonable to conclude, if there's an absence of numbers, that these kinds of technologies are just inherently more safe than humans. we've already seen plenty of technological snafus that have potential to be way more harmful at scale than anything the human brain can muster.
[^1]: as far as reliability: Tesla self-driving technology struggles in a lot of cases, and even defenders of the cars will admit it has problems in many circumstances interpreting basic rules of the road and pedestrians in its path. this is obviously a problem now, and would be a much bigger one at scale.
I think this is a little dangerous way of arguing. Now suddenly everyone that argues in favor of Tesla is an apologetic with a vested interest in being correct?
Everyone making a forum post have a vested interest in being correct, and you can make arguments for a case without being an “apologetic” / apostle / evangelist / fanboy etc.
In short, I don’t like this way of making arguments and trying to group all your argument opponents into some non thinking hive mind.
i mean, to be very blunt, if the Tesla apologetics want to not be grouped in that way they could start by not acting like a non-thinking hivemind. the issues with Elon and his products are well-stated, well-founded, well-established, and indisputable. Elon himself is a categorically awful person who wants to make the world a worse place and frequently undermines actually useful projects with techno-fetishistic, autofellating "solutions" that demonstrably don't work. he has maybe one project you can actually credit to him on any meaningful level (SpaceX) and on a good day his impulsiveness and reprehensible politics still get in the way of the good work people at that company do. literally anyone else would be a better leader for the company purely on the grounds that they would not be a distraction from that work. he was born rich and has parlayed a series of failures into being the richest, dumbest man alive--by any objective standard he is the classic person who has failed up.
but none of these critiques mean anything to his core fanbase, because they don't care and are fully bought into his mostly-manufactured cult of personality. there is no point in trying to argue this with that group; you can cite any number of the things i just listed at them and it rolls off them like water. frankly a lot of the time in my experience they'll do the cryptocurrency guy thing of accusing you of sowing FUD, or being jealous of Elon, or just being a woke lib because you want public transportation and not the masturbatory self-indulgence that is the "Hyperloop".
Okay but none of that is relevant to the question of "Are computers in their current condition better drivers than humans?". No one here thinks that Elon is cool or good, I haven't seen a single fanboy comment so far. But that doesn't change the hard facts about the things that a couple of his companies (who have hired a lot of very good engineers) have accomplished. Pretending that Tesla and SpaceX have zero accomplishments or benefits does not enhance your arguments against their boss, it detracts from them by discrediting you. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to make, many of them absolutely damning, there's no need to falsify anything to condemn them.
Let me just keep it civil and say that we absolutely never will see eye to eye, and I have no interest in trying to change your mind. I’ve said my peace on your argument technique and definitely stand by it after your reply, and I’m happy to leave it there.
@freshhotbiscuits
Where have you got this number from?
This is exactly what I meant in my comment before. Anyone throws out a number and claims it is true. I don't think we should let perfect be the enemy of good, but here are people's lives on the line. We need independent and reliable data.
Oh, I wasn’t stating that as fact, or ever intending to. The fact of the matter though is that more than 90% of car accidents are caused by human error. If we can eliminate the human error, then we’ll have far fewer people hurt on the roads, even though that means that self-driving cars are going to hurt people. This is merely my point, that we can’t expect self-driving cars to have 0 accidents, but once the tech is good enough (and I acknowledge that it’s not even close yet), we need to be ok with that hard truth.
What makes you think that the tech is already good enough for being tested in the public? The fact is that the incidents revealed by the investigation is much higher than what Tesla has published, Tesla is holding back a lot of relevant data, no one (except Tesla) can say how safe this tech is and whether or not it should be allowed to be tested on the streets.
The fact that many or most car accidents are caused by human error and a lot of other critical points here simply don't matter here as they have nothing to do with the issue. This is not some application on your smartphone that you can test at your own risk while it is still in beta. This is a car. It kills people, and Tesla is obviously unwilling to disclose the data even to the authorities. As long as this is the case, this tech should not be allowed to be tested in the public space.