Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk Tweeted: Tesla with Autopilot engaged is now approaching a “10 times lower” chance of an accident than an average vehicle.

Questions:

1. Why was Autopilot driving the car at high speeds with approaching curve?

2. If all the DUI accidents were eliminated, how lower would Tesla Electric fare?

"Driverless" vehicles are probably going to be a lot safer than some of the idiots I see driving on the roads daily.

I'm afraid of auto drive cars.

There are reasons but as the Report says - battery explosion is the main one.

As in all manufactured products there is a chance of failure without the ability to compensate.

Anything which is self-guided by mechanical or electronic inputs and actuators has a chance to fail catastrophically.

Even biological control can be compromised by failure of the body's input/output system. ~ Drunk Drivers!

The problem with a self-driving car or truck is the fact when there is an electronic or mechanical failure that failure is not recoverable.
A person can make a mistake/misjudgement and compensate for it with their reaction. A self-driving vehicle has no reaction to unknown occurrences.
Once something fails, it remains failed.

The same condition applies to robotics. On an assembly line if a system fails and the widget gets aligned wrong, all the widgets will continue to be misaligned until the failure is repaired.
Robots are programmed.
Fail-safes can fail. Back-up systems can fail to engage. Unforeseen events and conditions can supersede programing parameters. People can compensate for the unforeseen. Robots can't.

Even programmed AI systems can't meet changes which are beyond their ability to recognize. An AI which is programmed to learn from its mistakes must first recognize the mistake and how to react before it can effectively compensate.

Even space probes and rovers are equipped with redundant back-ups on their back-ups and when a failure occurs which was not anticipated by the builders, the probe or rover experiences a catastrophic failure. Plus, many of them require a human control connection to send instruction to prevent problems the redundancies can't compensate.

The future I see for self-driving vehicles is a system which includes dedicated paths isolated from open paths. Highways and byways with self-driving lanes separated by lane barriers. I'm thinking more as a commercial cargo conveyance than personal conveyance. Sorta like the rail systems of today but self-driving unmanned truck convoys rather than piloted trains.

Even a verbal command override redundancy in a passenger vehicle would require a person to be aware while the vehicle is in operation. Plus it would still depend on the mechanical/electronic integrity of the systems installed.
Not a truly self-driving vehicle at all.

Try driving your car down the highway with no brakes or your steering disconnected. Even redundancy systems can't compensate for a mechanical failure and if the actuator at the brake pedal of a self-driving car fails, its not going to slow down or stop.

For self-driving vehicles to be safe on our roads requires 100% reliability in all systems which allow the vehicle to operate and we are not even close to that technology yet.

Great write.

Safety issues aside, there's also companionship AI may provide. There's a movie using Jack Nicholson's voice for Car AI and CAI gauges the mood of driver as part of conversation .. Trying to recall the name of the movie - maybe later

Has anybody here ever flown in an airplane? You don't think they heavily rely on autopilot and computer control? They have for years. Cars have different levels of self driving but it is becoming more and more available on all level of cars. Auto parking, auto breaking, lane departure, and many now have cruise control that also keeps your car in its lane and avoids other cars. And yes even self driving cars, but they will alert you if you need to take over. Putting markers in the road would make things much safer, but people do need to be willing to pay for this. My cars GPS is not always accurate and doesn't always know the speed limit on certain roads so unless all things are set up I'm sure there will always be certain limitations like pulling into a driveway. Cars are getting safer with all their sensors, however things like the A pillars are now huge causing blind spots so some things that provide safety may also be dangerous.

Do the autopilot cars know about speed limits? Some highways are 65mph. Some are 75. Then there are the people who drive 85 or more. Can those cars get into the slower lane when they need to?

https://www.aitrends.com/ai-insider/changing-lanes-challenges-for-ai-autonomous-cars/

The complete article - by Dr. Lance Eliot, AI expert

It's ridiculous to view Electric Cars without some level of AI. This also means that with higher end AI, older women will no longer be interested in male companionship except for their utility value.

It's similar to what happened when hydraulic transmission was introduced, first to heavy earth movers and trucks; now that women could drive trucks the demand for 'equal pay for equal work' resonated with greater force. We may laugh this off but look at sales data for cars after fluid transmission came in; sales rose and although we don't see women opening passenger doors for men - this rise was due to women drivers.

Now in US, manual transmission is around 14% of sales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JuyDN0qzRY

As per forecast in Europe, the EU mandate for reduced emission was expected to drive up sales to 10% in 2020 - then of course we had the Covid interruption.

In US, although no similar mandate, we may expect AI to spur up the rise and with
Tesla dominant in both segments ...

Good intentions aside.
Technology generally functions to the level
of the operator.

Rise of the Machines is upon us. Dont buy this crap. Just another way to control you and make dumb people dumber.

I dont even like that my 1994 jeep has a computer.

More expensive to fix give me a classic any day

Right on girl... the days when I could tune them to my liking..

An overpriced driverless car,
two guys from Texas and a 12 pack of beer,
with Dukes of Hazard reruns fresh in their
minds.

It was bound to happen... Sooner or later.

I'm really trying to picture this whole scenario... lol

There are many people who love to drive, and they will never be onboard with these auto cars.

Nope, never.. I'll ride a donkey before I get in one of those mindless hunks of crap.

Hold my beer, and watch this.