The driver of a Tesla electric car had the vehicle’s semi-autonomous Autopilot mode engaged when she slammed into the back of a Utah fire truck over the weekend, in the latest crash involving a car with self-driving features. […]
South Jordan police said the Tesla Model S was going 60 mph (97 kph) when it slammed into the back of a fire truck stopped at a red light. The car appeared not to brake before impact,
An honest question for Tesla owners … are you HONESTLY willing to trade your own life … for a little extra phone time? While moving at 60mph … down a boulevard with stoplights!!?
It’s super messed up that anyone would be concerned about this. It’s only your tax dollars at work. Isn’t that always messed up?
Driving a Tesla..
Snowmobiling on thin ice…
Self solving problems.
So this “artificial Intelligence” so lauded that it will replace human reaction, does it actually exist?
Has any existing machine,learnt from the failure of earlier models or from the demise of it’s peers?
Human learning is pretty basic, hurts=don’t do that again.
Kills your buddy= not that way.
So where is the intelligence of these self driving machines?
After all the science fiction machine intelligence would learn from the experience of all.
What did model 100 self driving toy,learn from the sudden impact and fire of models 25,40 and 99?
Just as our society shows no evidence of intelligence life on earth,so far I see no evidence of artificial intelligence,in our creations.
Visions of autonomous lemmings.
If I had a chance to get car which crashes at 60 mph and I am escaping with a broken foot – I take it any time!! Even if it is a Tesla!! Actually especially when it is a Tesla!
Tom B.
Hope the kids in the backseat of the car your robot hit are ok
sixth degree burns go well with a broken foot.
as long as you don’t get locked in and burn to death.
My wife just received her new company car…Subaru outback. Has the lane departure and active cruise control. Very cool safety features. AS AN AID TO ME THE PILOT!!!
But self driving? OMG who in their pavement splattered brains would trust everything to the car?
So far only deaths reported(admit few) are the car owners. I sure hope(not holding breath) that when these cars kill innocents there “might” be some media pushback.
(I’m sorry don’t pile on… I know…media….)
…except for that pedestrian that was walking her bike…
“…Tesla’s Elon Musk said it was “super messed up” that an incident involving his company was receiving significant attention, while thousands of auto accidents a year are regularly ignored. …”
Meanwhile, some guy on the interweb says it is “super messed up” that so much money, especially government subsidy, has been and is being spent on developing “self-driving” cars that have inexplicably stupid accidents when we already have thousands of auto accidents a year with existing technology.
There’s the question for which we won’t likely receive an answer.
Considering the microscopic market share Tesla enjoys and the fact they spend so much down time drawing electricity what is their accident rate/mile driven?
Maybe they should try letting Google Duplex do the driving.
My brother in law was at that conference and tells me that the conversations held between computer and people were stunning.
In one case, a person speaking broken English was easily fooled into believing they were speaking with another human. That on it’s own doesn’t sound impressive but the computer kept the conversation alive with ease and eventually got the reservation it was the after. Apparently, the logic worked around the horrible speech patterns of the human.
Tesla’s executives are jumping from the company like rats from a sinking ship. The only question is, how long will the climate true believers be able to hold up the stock price before the whole enterprise comes down like a load of bricks?
Not the first time a Tesla has run into a stationary fire truck. There was one in Carver City in January. The problem is that Autopilot is designed not to run into moving objects. It’s working the way it was designed.
Why Tesla’s Autopilot Can’t See a Stopped Firetruck
Traffic-Aware Cruise Control cannot detect all objects and may not brake/decelerate for stationary vehicles, especially in situations when you are driving over 50 mph (80 km/h) and a vehicle you are following moves out of your driving path and a stationary vehicle or object is in front of you instead.”
…
The same is true for any car currently equipped with adaptive cruise control, or automated emergency braking. It sounds like a glaring flaw, the kind of horrible mistake engineers race to eliminate. Nope. These systems are designed to ignore static obstacles because otherwise, they couldn’t work at all.
Reminds me of that Red Dwarf episode where they cross the speed of light and can’t see what is in front of them because they’re going to fast.
I am an automated internet forum browser and have read this and would like to say Chinese captured manganese interface semi-relevant omg omg 2483213 beta jargon Pirate earfest jaggowaggo in your face honkies that’s my boy nice to see Hillary in jail where she belongs now go after the evergreen marijuana aliens in control aliens in control aliens in control fire truck what fire truck.
The ‘driver’ is so lucky it didn’t turn into a car-b-q
1.”the driver said…..”
2. The 28 year old driver said…..
3. the 28 yo female driver was looking at her phone while driving 60 mph on a road with stop lights……..
4. The 28 yo female driver of the $100,000 dollar Tesla said ….
I’ll wait for the official determination.
I do have my stereo types to consider.
People reading this in 50 years (or more like 10 years), will be laughing at the comments here. A Tesla on autopilot crashing is only a story if Tesla vehicles on autopilot have been in more accidents per mile driven than an equivalent number of human driven miles. The accidents of the latter are way higher, even today. It just happens to make international news when a self driven car crashes because we’re not used to it.
@Tim:
Good point. Let’s go back 127 years when the first accident happened involving a car. (Nobody killed)
The same things may have been said but slightly differently. “We can’t trust humans driving motorized vehicles”
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/World%27s_First_Automobile_Accident?rec=2596
@Tim:
For the record, the first fatal car accident
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/first-person-killed-by-a-car
This blog is full of Luddites who don’t understand computers. Personally, I’m bullish on machine learning, autopilots, and Turing Test capable AI, but I also think AI-driven cars have not been tested enough to be on public roads just yet.
Look at the bright side.
If the Tesla had not smashed into the back of the fire truck, it would have blown through the red light into an intersection at 60 mph. That fire truck probably saved one or more people from being killed in a broadside collision.
If it doesn’t stop for a stationary fire truck, will it stop for a red light?