> What do you say to people like me, who, if you took the feature away, would be forced to reduce their safety?
I would say we should go by the numbers. How many accidents and deaths are there per mile, on similar roads (divided), from vehicles of similar class (new, luxury), in similar weather conditions (fair)? Compare that to miles where autopilot is enabled and we have something.
As yet, I don't believe Tesla is required to report this, and they probably won't voluntarily do it. At best, we would get results from certain states. We would never get national or world level data.
So, we'll have to wait for the NTSB and NHTSA reports and look to their recommendations.
I agree that the data will be helpful, but it's also important to remember that "Autopilot" itself is a moving target. Tesla has already made changes that are designed to increase the degree to which drivers are forced to pay attention when the system is engaged.
In my view, the ultimate goal should be to ensure that Autopilot is used in the way I described, and is disabled for drivers who are unable to use it that way. That, in theory, would provide the most benefit for the most people. Perhaps that is a fool's errand, either because its technically impossible, very few people use it that way, or literally nobody is able to and anyone who thinks they are is being fooled by their own bias (as I'm sure many readers of this thread assume I am.)
But it seems a goal worth pursuing before giving up and throwing it out because the net result of say, reducing accident fatality likelihood by 50% 5 years ahead of full autonomy results in something like 75k saved lives (in the US.)
Moving target, sure, but Tesla has been making statements claiming using AP is safer than not since AP's inception. You can't have it both ways. Even Tesla couldn't be certain whether certain changes lowered the accident rate or raised it. We should look at total accidents, not miles driven since the latest version.
Perhaps the best comparison is right within Tesla's data. Compare miles driven in the same model with AP activated and with it turned off on the same roads.
> In my view, the ultimate goal should be to ensure that Autopilot is used in the way I described, and is disabled for drivers who are unable to use it that way
Actually there has been some work in determining when drivers are distracted [1]. This seems to be what you suggest, something that can be used to disable AP under certain conditions. Would you support Tesla installing such a system?
I would say we should go by the numbers. How many accidents and deaths are there per mile, on similar roads (divided), from vehicles of similar class (new, luxury), in similar weather conditions (fair)? Compare that to miles where autopilot is enabled and we have something.
As yet, I don't believe Tesla is required to report this, and they probably won't voluntarily do it. At best, we would get results from certain states. We would never get national or world level data.
So, we'll have to wait for the NTSB and NHTSA reports and look to their recommendations.