Somewhat OT: fatal Tesla crash and smart systems

There was a fatal crash of an auto-pilot Tesla a couple days ago. Of course Tesla stock dropped in the wake of the event.

But here’s the thing. Tesla specifies that the driver be ready at all times to take control, and indeed the car warned the driver - whose hands were not on the wheel for six seconds - to put his hands on the wheel.

You see, a truly reliable autopilot system would require the following:

  • all other vehicles have reliable autopilot
  • communications among all those vehicles
  • an infrastructure, particularly painted guidance lines, that is in good shape and well maintained

So this reminds me of smart home systems in that vehicular self-drive is still in its infancy, and only folks imagine it can handle itself without routine manual intervention. It’ll be many years before that changes.

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Comparing a fatal car crash to smart home systems - hmmmmm.

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Comparing automated systems to automated systems… hmmmmm…

so that’s why the title is fatal tesla crash and smart systems