Tesla Autopilot Safety Defeat Device Gets a Cease-and-Desist From NHTSA (autoblog.com) 138
schwit1 writes: The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) is cracking down on a device that was designed to trick Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot feature into thinking a driver is paying attention, in order to extend the amount of time that it will operate without anyone touching the steering wheel. NHTSA announced on Tuesday that it has sent a cease and desist letter to the makers of Autopilot Buddy, and has given the company until June 29 to end sales and distribution of the $199 product.
The device is a two-piece weighted hoop with magnets that wraps around a steering wheel spoke and registers with the car's sensors as a hand on the wheel. Autopilot is programmed to disengage after a short period of time if the driver is not touching the wheel and ignores a series of alerts to take control.unity.
The device is a two-piece weighted hoop with magnets that wraps around a steering wheel spoke and registers with the car's sensors as a hand on the wheel. Autopilot is programmed to disengage after a short period of time if the driver is not touching the wheel and ignores a series of alerts to take control.unity.
A weighted hoop for $199? For $199, I'd rather buy (Score:1)
...companion cube.
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Not that much, but a skinny one with big tits and a pretty face will cost you. Double if it has a nice dick, too.
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This sounds like the Companion Cube's misdirection.
There's no talk about that device being involved the current high profile investigation. It probably was not present but they are doing that now to divert attention.
Liability... (Score:2)
Re:Liability... (Score:4, Insightful)
They should be able to sell it, as long as they're willing to pay for the damages in any accident associated with its use.
The people this device is involved in killing might disagree with you.
Re:Liability... (Score:4, Interesting)
This product didn't kill anyone. It can only do one of two things:
Neither of these has any meaningful effect on driver or vehicle safety. The odds against a device like this causing a fatal accident are astronomical, because for the car's autosteer to shut down, the driver has to be so completely oblivious that he/she fails to respond to three nags WITH SOUND within a one-hour period. This is a relatively rare occurrence, short of someone dying behind the wheel....
More importantly, any claim of reduced safety relies on the assumption that the nags somehow make the car safer, when in my experience, the precise opposite is true. The nag system takes an insane amount of time to detect when the driver doesn't have his/her hands on the wheel, most of the time, but constantly nags at highly inappropriate times (such as during acceleration) when the driver *does* have both hands on the wheel.
As best I can tell, the main purpose of the nags seems to be to make the autosteer feature more annoying than driving by hand so that folks will spend more money for the self-driving package when it finally comes out. The nags have gotten so annoying that I'm finding myself using autosteer less and less frequently as the nag rate increases. In other words, assuming autosteer really is improving safety, then statistically speaking, the nags are making the car LESS safe, not more.
Worse, because of the way Tesla detects hands on the wheel — by measuring the torque provided by your hands against the autosteer, the nags are actually more frequent when gripping the wheel tightly with two hands than when loosely hanging one hand on one side of the wheel. So the nags actively encourage drivers to do the exact opposite of what it claims to be doing. Again, the nags make the car LESS safe.
So I don't know what NHTSA is smoking, but I'd like some of that. Obviously nobody involved in that C&D has ever actually driven a Tesla, or else they would not have sent it. The nags should die in a fire. They make the vehicle less safe, and any technology that can be used to render them harmless makes Tesla vehicles safer to drive, not less safe.
Re:Liability... (Score:5, Insightful)
Been there.
Texaco refinery, Port Arthur, Texas.
The operators stuffed red rags into the alarm horns and, sure enough, 8 people died on a unit where instruments showed there was sufficient time to get out of harm's way had the sound not been muffled.
I remember my dad pulling the wire of the "ding, ding," of the lap belt warning.
People take batteries out of smoke detectors.
I think the answer is for the goddam artificial intelligence to be fucking intelligent.
Until then, don't beta test the goddam thing in production.
Re:Liability... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the answer is for the goddam artificial intelligence to be fucking intelligent.
Until then, don't beta test the goddam thing in production.
Get some perspective. 3000 people a day die in human caused traffic accidents worldwide. If by rolling out Autopilot and collecting real world data, they bring forward the transition to SDCs by even a single day, they will have saved a thousand lives for every one lost in beta testing.
This is the same as The Trolley Problem [wikipedia.org], except instead of throwing the switch to save five by sacrificing one, we save thousands, or perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands.
The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few.
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I'll giver that one 2/10. Please try harder next time.
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Indeed. the Star Trek quote is totally plucked from thin air and isn't a paraphrase of anything written by a famous philosopher, especially not Bentham or Mill.
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No.
I was an instrumntman there.
In most cases, the operators were aware that the unit was upset and made adjustments.
In several cases, the alarm was for very serious conditions.
Safety measures/guards/alarms exist because of human learning.
We didn't have false positives.
We had operators who were inconvenienced, much like the persons who will not practice due diligence by keeping their goddam hands on the steering wheel, even when warned to do so.
We did have
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They would still kill someone without being able to bypass the "safety" mechanisms, because as I said, the nags do NOT serve ANY safety function. Either someone is paying attention to the road or he/she isn't, and the nags don't change that behavior. They just annoy users.
If anything, the nags have nearly caused a couple of accidents for me when I deliberately torqu
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If you want to kill or maim yourself you are right. But you have no right throwing a dice risking other peoples well-being which is what you are supporting here.
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"If you want to kill or maim yourself you are right. But you have no right throwing a dice risking other peoples well-being which is what you are supporting here."
People accidentally kill other people in road accidents every day. What you are proposing is that no one be allowed to do anything, ever, because humans are fragile and there is always a risk they might die.
Driving equals risking the well-being of others, whether you do it correctly or not.
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Which is exactly why auto manufacturers should have to work on making their vehicles safer for those NOT inside the car.
Well, you're in luck. Auto manufacturers DO have to work on making their vehicles safer for those people. For example, there is a required hood crumple specification to improve pedestrian safety if you hit them. All passenger vehicles sold in the USA will have to have automatic emergency braking by 2022 [nbcnews.com], and the EU will probably follow suit. And they took non-folding hood ornaments off of cars to protect pedestrians, as well.
People drive cars like maniacs because airbags, crumple zones, seatbelts make them feel sufficiently safe to do stupid things.
Stupid as riding a bicycle on a public road, where a a slight mistake by you or by
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"Auto manufacturers DO have to work on making their vehicles safer for those people. For example, there is a required hood crumple specification to improve pedestrian safety if you hit them.
All passenger vehicles sold in the USA will have to have automatic emergency braking by 2022 [nbcnews.com], and the EU will probably follow suit. And they took non-folding hood ornaments off of cars to protect pedestrians, as well"
Nice to hear something's finally being done for decades-old problems
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In other words, assuming autosteer really is improving safety, then statistically speaking, the nags are making the car LESS safe, not more.
Or you can just leave your hands on the wheel and pay attention while the car does the heavy lifting.
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And when you do that, the nags still happen about once every minute or two, and they still distract me from my driving. Did you even read my post before you replied?
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Having a warning message flash on your dashboard does not keep you alert. It distracts you from the road.
Re:Liability... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, we need a "Cease-and-Desist" order for drivers who refuse to pay attention to the road, despite the explicit instructions from Tesla.
Once again, the most dangerous part of an automobile is "The Loose Nut Behind the Wheel".
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So let's fire all airplane pilots. 'cause planes have autopilot, y'know...
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Exactly! So, what are we arguing about here? We're all on the same side!
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Didn't they used say this about Winnebagos and "cruise control"?
Old people putting it on "cruise" at 70mph then going in the back to make a sandwich?
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Wonder no more - https://wisemanbray.com/outrag... [wisemanbray.com]
Yup, it was bullshit.
Re: Liability... (Score:1)
They can. Many new planes can now fly autonomous. Qantas has done at least one complete flight.
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Airplanes have air traffic control to make sure no one is in the way. Why do you always leave that part out?
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exclusively for taking off and landing. you don't even have to log a flight plan for most (non-commercial) cases.
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Tesla calls it an "autopilot". "Auto=automatic". So its all automatic.
That changes nothing because all cars are "auto"mobiles. And in Germany, the "auto"mobiles drive on the "Auto"bahn.
So everyone already believes cars don't need to be driven ... or perhaps people aren't as stupid as you think they are.
Number of Tesla drivers who have claimed an accident wasn't their fault because they thought they didn't need to drive the car: 0.
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"Auto" = "self". "Automobile" means "self-propelled", not "self-guided".
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Autopilot is a grossly overloaded term because people confuse pilot and navigator. There's already at least two types of autopilot in aviation and I'm guessing at least two types of nautical autopilots.
The most basic autopilots maintain a heading and speed. That's it. Tesla's autopilot is right in line with this type of autopilot except slightly more advanced in that it capable of steering to follow pavement.
After that you have the navigational autopilots which you can set waypoints and the autopilot will m
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Actually, we need a "Cease-and-Desist" order for drivers who refuse to pay attention to the road, despite the explicit instructions from Tesla.
This, because it will be hard to C&D oranges [youtube.com]. Actually police should just mail this guy a speeding ticket for fun, since not only was he driving recklessly, he was also clearly speeding by 6mph.
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This is a human factors design problem, and Tesla made a bad design decision. People have a lot of trouble focusing attention on a task where they all they do is pay attention and not do anything. What the correct decision is may be arguable, but it will involve people acting whenever they're supposed to be paying attention.
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Seems easier and more effective to ban it instead of waiting for it to kill people and the following protracted law suits
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Re:Liability... (Score:5, Insightful)
You can also knit a rope and hang yourself, but being on sale as a ready-made product will give it legitimacy in the eyes of some that it shouldn't have
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No, he's arguing that marketing rope specifically as a handy means of committing suicide might tend to make people think of using it specifically for that purpose. Your dislike of human suggestibility does not stop it from being a real thing.
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Thank you.
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Unless they're judgment-proof, in which case, it might take a while to get the device pulled.
Natural Selection (Score:4, Insightful)
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I would rather not be on the same road as this device, thanks.
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You are, however, in the same Universe.
Good luck.
Re:Natural Selection (Score:5, Funny)
Try to make something fool proof and the universe will make a better fool.
Damn, am I reminded of that on a daily basis ... Can you tell I'm a programmer?
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The really worrying thing is that there are lots of people on the various Tesla forums complaining that the new Autopilot update makes it "unusable" for them. It now checks much more often for hands on the wheel, about every 30 seconds or so. It used to let you go 15 minutes or more without hands on.
Seems like quite a lot of people were really using it in an unsafe way before, and are now angry at Tesla even though it's still a lot worse than every other manufacturer.
Scary stuff.
Should be allowed (Score:5, Funny)
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I wouldn't even trust them to drive in Grand Theft Auto.
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Just hope that they don't demonstrate their stupidity by careening into you / anyone.
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You can actually just wedge a bit of fruit in the wheel, something like an orange. The weight is enough to make it think you are applying torque to the wheel.
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Does your car have a spoiler?
I've seen people pay WAY more than that to fit a "after-market spoiler" to a car that's not even capable of generating any kind of air-flow which would produce such an effect, nor any kind of aerodynamic effect to utilise them.
Don't even get me started on twin-exhausts and all kinds of other shite.
I agree, those people shouldn't be allowed to drive themselves, just through sheer stupidity and misunderstanding of how their car works, but I would posit that "owning a Tesla" is a m
Makes sense to me. (Score:1)
Punishing the wrong device. (Score:2)
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I'm sure someone could come up with some other use for it. But its primary purpose is specifically to defeat a device intended to protect the lives of people, many of which are not the user. (If it only endangered the user of the device, I'd be OK with it.)
Ironic (Score:3)
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The real problem is that instead of warning people to pay attention to the road around them, Tesla felt it necessary to treat their customers like children with a useless nag that is annoying as heck even when users are using the product precisely as intended. As a result, folks have come up with creative ways to work around the lack of a "Stop nagging me already" switch in the settings. If they ban this, folks will come up with something else. It won't stop until Tesla cars either have true FSD capabil
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
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Being willing to acknowledge it is one thing.
Believing that they should take responsibility for it, and take responsibility away from adults who have been licensed by the freaking state to drive, is another thing.
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[OFFTOPIC] (Score:2)
What happened to SongCue?
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I got too busy with my actual job. I wouldn't want to touch it with a ten meter pole now, since it's all fairly close to the metal Xlib from almost two decades back.
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That's too bad. Looked interesting, thought it might be fun to play with sometime. (I used to work in the industry.) Cheers.
More asinine regulations (Score:1)
If you watch the Youtube video [youtube.com] its just a weight held by magnets. I can wrap rubber bands around the steering wheel and it would accomplish the same thing. Might as well send a cease and desist to Youtube for showing how to circumvent the system. And if I tell my friends how to do it, will I get a cease and desist letter too?
Re:Drive around dead (Score:1)
Re: Drive around dead (Score:1)
There's an urban legend in the making. Self driving car pulls in at its destination, no-one gets out.
"Why isn't grandpa getting of the car, Mommy?"
Turns out grandpa died 6 hours ago, just after he set out.
Re: 6.5 hours ago (Score:1)
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As a safety measure it seems somewhat inadequate, but at least there is the possibility of the vehicle being slowed by regenerative braking in the case where autopilot is simply disabled. To make a fair comparison, you should contrast it with what happens when a driver becomes incapacitated while using other systems. If they are using cruise control, their vehicle becomes an unguided land missile, doing its best to maintain speed and that's it. With radar-guided cruise control, the vehicle will slow down an
Better idea. (Score:2)
What if it just pulls over to the side of the road and stops instead. The driver might be asleep or dead. Just disengaging could cause an accident.
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Tesla's autopilot isn't capable of doing that, and a fully self-driving car is capable of taking its passenger someplace cleverer than the side of the road.
Re: So if Autopilot thinks I'm not paying attentio (Score:2)
That's because autopilot isn't paying attention to the road either.
Have you noticed how Elon Musk had stopped tweeting about how safe autopilot is? That's because more people die in a Tesla when it's turned on then when it's turned off.
Just why? (Score:2)
Let Darwin sort it out (Score:2)
The sooner the people who think it's safe to not pay attention while driving are taken off the road the better.
If that happens because their Tesla autopilot drives out the lane, speeds up and crashes into a safety barrier while still accelerating, so be it.
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Will you say the same when crashing into you is their mode of exit?
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I don't live in a country full of Tesla's
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So as long as the innocent person who dies isn't you you're in favor?
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Tesla's prefer to target crash barriers, fire engines and semi truck tailors, not light passenger vehicles.