The system of corporate veiling of responsibility is going to kill us all. What should happen is every single person who signed off on, voted for, or materially contributed to the implementation of this dangerous hardware should be prosecuted for criminal negligence. Gut the C-suite and the board.

Is it really task automation if it does it worse than a drunk human could have done it?

This technology purely exists to make human drivers redundant and put the money in the hands of big tech and eventually the ruling class composed off of politicians risk averse capitalists and beurocracy. There is no other explanation for robo taxis to exist.

There is another reason, though, and it's much simpler. Basic greed.

There are people who see the opportunity to make more money for themselves, so they'll do it. When it comes to robo taxis, they're not interested in class struggles, it's not about politics, their interest in making human drivers redundant extends only so far as increasing their customer base. These aren't Machiavellian schemers rubbing their hands together and cackling at their dark designs coming to fruition, it's just assholes in suits who's one and only concern is "number go up."

Even when it comes to their politics and to the class dynamics, their end goal is always the same. Number go up. They don't care about what harm it could do. They're not intent on deliberately doing more harm, they give no thought to doing less harm, they do not care. All that drives them, ever, is Number Go Up.

You aren't wrong.

I didn't claim Tesla has solved this automation problem.

Waymo is closer to human levels, but not yet considerably better.

I mean, compared to getting minimum wage flipping burgers in a hot kitchen, or picking vegetables in the sun, or working the register in a store in a bad neighborhood, or even restocking stuff at Walmart... yes, I would sit all day in an air conditioned car doing nothing but "paying attention".

Thanks for pointing out how insane and disconnected the elon glazers are in believing their Teslas will drive off while they sleep to earn any kind of positive cash flow, then show up back home just in time to recharge for the commute to work, smelling fresh as a daisy.

I don't see a problem with the second one. The bus is already doing the route, it costs basically nothing to have a few joy riders.

ride them around for fun

Imagine the horror!

Wow it's almost like having an AI with a 2D view to go off of is a bad idea? Hmmm who'd have thunk it?

The unfortunate thing about people is we acclimatise quickly to the demands of our situation. If everything seems OK, the car seems to be driving itself, we start to pay less attention. Fighting that impulse is extremely hard.

A good example is ADHD. I have severe ADHD so I take meds to manage it. If I am driving an automatic car on cruise control I find it very difficult to maintain long term high intensity concentration. The solution for me is to drive a manual. The constant involvement of maintaining speed, revs, gear ratio, and so on mean I can pay attention much easier. Add to that thinking about hypermiling and defensive driving and I have become a very safe driver, putting about 25-30 thousand kms on my car each year for over a decade without so much as a fender bender. In an automatic I was always tense, forcing focus on the road, and honestly it hurt my neck and shoulders because of the tension. In my zippy little manual I have no trouble driving at all.

So imagine that but up to an even higher level. Someone is supervising a car which handles most situations well enough to make you feel like a passenger. They will switch off and stop paying attention eventually. At that point it is on them, not the car itself being unfit. I want self driving to be a reality but right now it is not. We can do all sorts of driver assist stuff but not full self driving.

I can see the headlines... "Tesla. De-funding the police!"

You got downvoted but you’re right. The only cabal at work here is basic human greed. Anytime you want to know why people do something, consider the motivation of the person and the incentives. Musk constantly talks about how autonomy will make his company worth “trillions”, and he wants that because he’ll keep maxing the high score in Billionaire Bastard Bacchanalia.

He can claim noble intentions, but as you said, the game is simply to make Number Go Up. That it causes untold harm to others isn’t even an afterthought.

There's no accountability for this horribly dangerous driving, so they shouldn't be on the road. Period.

Well that's exactly what their post was about, adding accountability.

and these robo taxis don't have drivers.

Oh yes they do... The diver is Tesla, inc. There's no problem with charging a company fines, that's easy. It is difficult to issue higher penalties though, jail time, or license revocation. We'll need to work out solutions for that, they should not get off free.

But we can certainly fine the driver...

Man, I cannot figure out why that vehicle was turning. What is it trying to avoid? Why does it think there could be road there? Why doesn't it try to correct its action mid way?

I'm really concerned about that last question. I have to assume that at some point prior to impact, the system realized it made a mistake. Surely. So why didn't it try to recover from the situation? Does it have a system for recovering from errors, or does it just continue and say "well I'll get it next time, now on with the fetal crash"?

Actually, lots. The issue is that if it doesn't work it's dangerous.

That's where law is not justice.

I do agree with your sentiment, but if the law defines a driver as a human, which is usually the case, then by definition Tesla cannot be the driver.

It could even be that the passenger sitting in the driver's seat of a robotaxi would be defined as the driver.

And sure, these laws need to be adapted before robotaxis should be allowed to hit the streets.

You're telling me we're not at the point where self driving cars are a thing? But a Tech CEO said so? Who am I supposed to believe if not a Tech CEO?

Well obviously it's been trained on human taxi driver behaviour