2020 Election Results

[bilby]

You failed to note the utterly obvious fact that there are no autonomous Teslas in private ownership. As I mentioned above.
A Tesla isn't an autonomous vehicle.

A Tesla is not an autonomous vehicle. They have driver assistance features, and some idiots in them who think "autopilot" means they don't have to pay attention, but they're not self-driving.

"A Tesla" is pretty much an autonomous vehicle. Presently, it will drive the speed limit on the highway, and on major roads. It will follow a vehicle in the lane in front of you at a set distance, up to a set speed. It will stay in your lane. It will avoid obstacles. It is not fully autonomous, and it does not work on every road.
The "Autopilot" feature has lifetime upgrade support and the intention is to provide full autonomous functionality through software update.
Tesla has priced the Autopilot feature such that it costs significantly more to purchase every year. It goes up thousands of dollars in price annually. This means that it makes just as much sense to buy a new Tesla than a used one, if you want autopilot, due to the offset in residual value of the used vehicle (their $8,000 autopilot now costs $20,000, keeping the total value of the car at par with new). Either one gets the latest and greatest version of autopilot.

Which is great if you love marketing, and/or have more money than sense. It's a recipe for giving an undeserved bad name to future truly autonomous vehicles, and an extremely dangerous thing to dangle in the faces of morons who are happy to assume that legal disclaimers and instructions to remain alert and ready to take control are just a 'nudge and a wink'.

A Tesla STILL isn't an autonomous vehicle, as you yourself admit, despite regurgitating the hype (ie lies).

"Autopilot" might, one day, possibly, maybe, be an autonomous driving system. Until then, it's not. It's just cruise control with delusions of grandeur and a misleading name.

 

[Ford]

You failed to note the utterly obvious fact that there are no autonomous Teslas in private ownership. As I mentioned above.
A Tesla isn't an autonomous vehicle.

A Tesla is not an autonomous vehicle. They have driver assistance features, and some idiots in them who think "autopilot" means they don't have to pay attention, but they're not self-driving.

"A Tesla" is pretty much an autonomous vehicle. Presently, it will drive the speed limit on the highway, and on major roads. It will follow a vehicle in the lane in front of you at a set distance, up to a set speed. It will stay in your lane. It will avoid obstacles. It is not fully autonomous, and it does not work on every road.

Have I mentioned that my job title is "Autonomous Vehicle Test Operator?"


There's no "pretty much" about a Tesla. It is not an autonomous vehicle. It can do those things you mentioned, but those are driver assistance features. You can (though I would not recommend it) take your hands off the wheel in a Tesla and it will stay in a lane, avoid obstacles to a certain extent, and not crash into the vehicle in front of you. Those are parlor tricks. The difference is that a Tesla on "autopilot" does not know where it is going. You can't type in an address on Google Maps, press the "autopilot" button and have it take you there. At least, I'm pretty sure it can't.

The car I "drive" for work? It can do that. If we're in a mapped area and there's no road beyond the speed limit of the vehicle, it can drive itself around quite well. It knows where to turn, when to yield to oncoming vehicles, sees pedestrians, bikes, some small animals, and will take the most efficient route to the next destination. Would I take my hands off the wheel? No. I would be fired.


Bringing it back around to the topic at hand, the "Cyber Ninjas" doing the Arizona audit are the equivalent of those idiots sitting in the back of their Tesla while it is on "autopilot" and putting videos of themselves on You Tube. I imagine that real, professional election auditors are looking at them much in the same way I look at the Tesla "autopilot" jockeys. Dude...stop what you're doing. You're going to hurt someone.

 

[scombrid]

Bringing it back around to the topic at hand, the "Cyber Ninjas" doing the Arizona audit are the equivalent of those idiots sitting in the back of their Tesla while it is on "autopilot" and putting videos of themselves on You Tube. I imagine that real, professional election auditors are looking at them much in the same way I look at the Tesla "autopilot" jockeys. Dude...stop what you're doing. You're going to hurt someone.

Nailed it.

 

[scombrid]

On second thought. There is one added layer to your analogy. The "Cyber Ninjas" are doing what they are doing with the intent to break the car.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bringing it back around to the topic at hand, the "Cyber Ninjas" doing the Arizona audit are the equivalent of those idiots sitting in the back of their Tesla while it is on "autopilot" and putting videos of themselves on You Tube. I imagine that real, professional election auditors are looking at them much in the same way I look at the Tesla "autopilot" jockeys. Dude...stop what you're doing. You're going to hurt someone.

There was a professional and well-experienced audit service that offered their services to the Cyber Ninjas. They were rejected outright.

 

[Gun Nut]

"A Tesla" is pretty much an autonomous vehicle. Presently, it will drive the speed limit on the highway, and on major roads. It will follow a vehicle in the lane in front of you at a set distance, up to a set speed. It will stay in your lane. It will avoid obstacles. It is not fully autonomous, and it does not work on every road.
The "Autopilot" feature has lifetime upgrade support and the intention is to provide full autonomous functionality through software update.
Tesla has priced the Autopilot feature such that it costs significantly more to purchase every year. It goes up thousands of dollars in price annually. This means that it makes just as much sense to buy a new Tesla than a used one, if you want autopilot, due to the offset in residual value of the used vehicle (their $8,000 autopilot now costs $20,000, keeping the total value of the car at par with new). Either one gets the latest and greatest version of autopilot.

Which is great if you love marketing, and/or have more money than sense. It's a recipe for giving an undeserved bad name to future truly autonomous vehicles, and an extremely dangerous thing to dangle in the faces of morons who are happy to assume that legal disclaimers and instructions to remain alert and ready to take control are just a 'nudge and a wink'.

A Tesla STILL isn't an autonomous vehicle, as you yourself admit, despite regurgitating the hype (ie lies).

"Autopilot" might, one day, possibly, maybe, be an autonomous driving system. Until then, it's not. It's just cruise control with delusions of grandeur and a misleading name.

You're exaggerating its shortcomings and ignoring its capabilities. The more interesting bit IS the marketing, in that Elon Musk figured out how to maintain the value of his used cars by incrementally increasing the value of one of it's optional components that promises to be fully autonomous in the near future. You pay for what you get and then get more, as more is added as the initial cost increases.

 

[bilby]

"A Tesla" is pretty much an autonomous vehicle. Presently, it will drive the speed limit on the highway, and on major roads. It will follow a vehicle in the lane in front of you at a set distance, up to a set speed. It will stay in your lane. It will avoid obstacles. It is not fully autonomous, and it does not work on every road.
The "Autopilot" feature has lifetime upgrade support and the intention is to provide full autonomous functionality through software update.
Tesla has priced the Autopilot feature such that it costs significantly more to purchase every year. It goes up thousands of dollars in price annually. This means that it makes just as much sense to buy a new Tesla than a used one, if you want autopilot, due to the offset in residual value of the used vehicle (their $8,000 autopilot now costs $20,000, keeping the total value of the car at par with new). Either one gets the latest and greatest version of autopilot.

Which is great if you love marketing, and/or have more money than sense. It's a recipe for giving an undeserved bad name to future truly autonomous vehicles, and an extremely dangerous thing to dangle in the faces of morons who are happy to assume that legal disclaimers and instructions to remain alert and ready to take control are just a 'nudge and a wink'.

A Tesla STILL isn't an autonomous vehicle, as you yourself admit, despite regurgitating the hype (ie lies).

"Autopilot" might, one day, possibly, maybe, be an autonomous driving system. Until then, it's not. It's just cruise control with delusions of grandeur and a misleading name.

You're exaggerating its shortcomings and ignoring its capabilities.

No, I am saying, unequivocally, that "autopilot" is NOT an autonomous driving system. That's not an exaggeration of anything, it's a fact.

The more interesting bit IS the marketing, in that Elon Musk figured out how to maintain the value of his used cars by incrementally increasing the value of one of it's optional components that promises to be fully autonomous in the near future. You pay for what you get and then get more, as more is added as the initial cost increases.

Marketing is evil. This particular bit of clever evil is not made less evil by its cleverness.

Value is an opinion. Musk is successfully manipulating the opinions of the people he hopes to sell his products to. This isn't laudable behaviour.

 

[Treedbear]

You're exaggerating its shortcomings and ignoring its capabilities.

No, I am saying, unequivocally, that "autopilot" is NOT an autonomous driving system. That's not an exaggeration of anything, it's a fact. ...

The term autopilot seems to have been appropriated from the airplanes:

An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations (for example, monitoring the trajectory, weather and on-board systems)

So does that conform to what Tesla calls autopilot or not? I think it does, although it might not be a legitimate use simply because typically cars negotiating traffic frequently need to respond much more quickly than airplanes.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Folks buying Teslas AP are paying for a promise that may never come. Once the major manufacturers are in the game, Tesla may not be able to hang. Their vehicles are plain Jane. That pickup is an abomination. And their vehicles (which have a fraction of the moving parts an ICE vehicle has) are ranked near the bottom in reliability.

 

[hyzer]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[jonatha]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

It is my contention that the main invention necessary to make autonomous cars an economic success is the automotive equivalent of a toilet seat cover.

 

[James Brown]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Or just carjackers. One person to step into the road so that the car automatically stops, another to approach the vehicle with a handgun and politely ask the driver to exit the vehicle.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Or just carjackers. One person to step into the road so that the car automatically stops, another to approach the vehicle with a handgun and politely ask the driver to exit the vehicle.

There apparently is an SNL Knight Rider sketch here.

Hasselhoff: Come on, why are you stopped Kitt?
Kitt: I think my telemetry detected a squirrel. Okay, it is clear.
Hassellhoff: Alright, let's get them!
Kitt: *vroom*
Kitt: *screach*
Hassellhoff: WTF Kitt?!
Kitt: There is a tree in the road.
Hassellhoff: It is a lamp post and it is past the curb.
Kitt: Apparently the latest firmware upgrade didn't improve things.
Hassellhoff: Screw it, I'll just go by foot.

Something like that, but actually funny.

 

[bilby]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Do teens do that with existing cars?

I mean, it would work.

Mostly.

 

[bilby]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Or just carjackers. One person to step into the road so that the car automatically stops, another to approach the vehicle with a handgun and politely ask the driver to exit the vehicle.

That would work just as well right now. 99% of motorists would not choose to run someone down, on the mere suspicion that they might be a carjacker; And by the time that suspicion is confirmed, it's too late.

Americans raised on a diet of action movies might not agree, but it's true nonetheless.

 

[KeepTalking]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Or just carjackers. One person to step into the road so that the car automatically stops, another to approach the vehicle with a handgun and politely ask the driver to exit the vehicle.

Makes the carjackers easier to catch by the same token. No need for a high speed chase if it is that easy to stop the car.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I once attended a lecture by an expert in the future of autonomous vehicles in an urban environment. He presented all the great reasons for adopting them. However, he did have one "silver bullet" and that was jaywalkers. He commented that the vehicle controls will stop the autonomous vehicles instantly, so it is not the danger to jaywalkers, but instead from them - for he stated the moment one person steps off the curb at any place other at a corner with the light, all the vehicles in the city for blocks will instantly stop and that one back up could freeze an entire sector of a city. When queried about solutions he said, half jokingly 1) programming that allows vehicles to not stop for jaywalkers 2) fencing along all curbs.

Egad, that isn't even the start of it. I can imagine teens just screwing around, jumping out into streets to stop cars. This is why we can't have nice things.

Imagine?

The pests next door when I was growing up would do this. Fortunately they never did it in front of a distracted driver.

 

[ZiprHead]

Or just carjackers. One person to step into the road so that the car automatically stops, another to approach the vehicle with a handgun and politely ask the driver to exit the vehicle.

Makes the carjackers easier to catch by the same token. No need for a high speed chase if it is that easy to stop the car.

Have an app on your phone to report your car stolen. It locks the doors on your car and drives it to the nearest cop shop.

 

[zorq]

I suspect that car jackers in a world of universally self driven cars would be less interested in the cars and more interested in the contents of the car.

1. Consider that every single self driving car is GPS enabled and probably linked to the mobile data network making them all essentially LoJacked. It would take some sophisticated equipment or a relatively highly skilled criminal to jam or disable that equipment. This means that there is a high cost of entry into this car theft field of criminal endeavors.
2. Also consider that reconnecting a stolen car like this to the network registered to another driver would be extremely difficult, so the only reason to want the vehicle itself would be for it's value as scrap/parts.
Even if cars in this future world are using more expensive parts like lithium batteries, I don't see a lot of incentive there for actual car theft.

Which means that a jaywalker car-jacker might be more akin to a mugger who only wants the driver's personal effects. One of the biggest advantages that current drivers have which dissuade car-jackers is the fact that they are ALL actively in control of a dangerous weapon. But driverless cars are so safe they are no longer able to be used as weapons. So stopping a car just to demand the wallet becomes much more accessible from the perspective of the criminal.

More likely though, I think driverless delivery vehicles will be the target of choice for a jaywalking car-jacker. Stop the truck by standing in the road while your friends break into the cargo compartment and run off with the goodies.