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Comment by hndamien | Hacker News Reader

Auto pilot != Self driving. People love to conflate these two so much that the people saying it rely on everybody else conflating it to justify their ignorance.

This is just like Fox "some people say" - Fox people say! Or Javascript Bitcoin miners - Monero is not Bitcoin! It's snowing so there is no global warming - It is "climate change" but the entire globe is warming! This hurricane is just weather, not climate change - it is the 10th 1 in 500 year hurricane we have had this month!

I could go on. Sure, talking about the future self driving features (and selling them) is poor form to avoid this from Tesla, so they aren't helping - but they have always been clear that it is not self driving. It is the listeners/ readers that are incorrectly connecting the dots.

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https://www.tesla.com/autopilot/ -> big text saying "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars" + video showcasing said capability.

You have to go way down to "Enhanced Autopilot" section to read the smaller text that mentions that its subject to regulatory approval, and that the driver is responsible.

If you don't think that's misleading advertising, I don't know what is.

In the purchase section it clearly breaks the capability out including which ones are active/ enabled. In addition on the car manual and UI at enabling also spells it out. It says keep your hands on the wheel and paying attention to pick over immediately.

People don't read manuals. People don't read instructions in the UI. That is well-established reality. People glance at a web page or ad and see the words "full self-driving" and that's what sets their expectations.

They don't apparently read pop-ups prior to driving, ends of sentences ("full self driving capable hardware"), definitions of words, hacker news comments, listen to audible warnings to keep hands on the steering wheel. At what point does a person become responsible for their own actions?

Rephrased: at what point should Tesla remove this ambiguity from their marketing materials?

Depends on the ambiguity. I would agree that they should remove the video unless they put a giant disclaimer on it right now.

By smaller text do you mean the text that is at the same sized font as every paragraph on the page except for the headings? Right in the middle of the page and not in a disclaimer wall of text (which also exists at the bottom with bold.)

I will admit showing a video of full hands off video, not on a highway, underneath a statement about the hardware, showing off software being used in a way that is not recommended in the manual is bad.

As I stated before in my first comment, they shouldn't be selling "self driving" that isn't available. I see no issue with promoting the hardware though and selling future proofing.

Well then maybe they shouldn't call it auto pilot? I mean, how dumb of a name could they have chosen if they didn't want people to think the car can drive itself?

They should also retrain their sales staff because on my test drive the saleswoman specifically told me the car could drive itself and that I should take my hands off the wheel to test it out.

They should also retrain their CEO who keeps talking about "self driving" in reference to existing cars:

https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now...

> "All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware"

Have full self driving hardware != full self driving software != full self driving capabilities.

Auto pilot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

"An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant 'hands-on' control by a human operator being required. Autopilots do not replace human operators, but instead they assist them in controlling the aircraft. This allows them to focus on broader aspects of operations such as monitoring the trajectory, weather and systems.[1]"

You are doing the exact conflating I am referring to.

If you want to be maximally pedantic, advanced autopilots are indeed capable of flying the plane by themselves. Modern commercial and military aircraft can take off, fly a route, and put the plane back on the ground, all by themselves. And autonomously flying a route is not unusual at all even in better-equipped small aircraft.

http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1026435

Autoland has been around for more than 80 years and been used commercially for 60 of those.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland.

It's pretty obvious what Tesla is getting at when they are advertising "every car sold with self-driving hardware".

The asterisk is of course that the hardware is self-driving capable, but the software isn't. But it's not hard to see where people are getting that idea from - it's Tesla's advertising and sales material.

Tesla sells a car that everyone from the sales people to the CEO says can drive itself, has a feature called Autopilot where the car drives itself and you're saying no one should be confused that the car can't drive itself...

Regardless, the actual people who have gotten into an accident because of this should be proof enough that Tesla is misleading people.

Those accidents and these comments and downvotes are a greater proof that people like to mislead themselves.

You must have missed the definition of autopilot in my comment.

I thought the car crashing into the parked police car, a parked fire engine, decapitated, and driving straight into a road divider at full speed were better proof that people are mislead by the term "autopilot."

Tesla likes to play both sides, it is "autopilot" when it works, but when it doesn't then the driver has literally under six seconds (according to Tesla) to avert a fatal accident.

>the driver has literally under six seconds (according to Tesla) to avert a fatal accident.

This is what gets me the most. Right after a tragedy Tesla is always quick to put out a victim blaming PR piece claiming that it's all the driver's fault and that they had i.e. "6 seconds" where they could see the divider yet they never publish anything like how long they had between when the car left the lane and the collision. Sure it was 6 seconds where they could see the barrier but how long was it between when autopilot went into casual murder mode and when it hit the barrier?

We've all seen videos like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8a0jfh/autopil... where autopilot swerves towards an obstacle and the driver only has a split second to react or be the next fatality. I think it's about time that Tesla acknowledges that their sensor platform is fundamentally dangerous. They never should have made such huge promises without lidar of any form. They aren't just going to be able to magically fix this with a software update.

No, it is always autopilot, you must pay attention and it never is or has been fully self driving.

Honestly the whole system is in the "uncanny valley." It is just effective enough to leave people with a false sense of security but just buggy enough to continue to kill people.

Any system that randomly needs a massive correction in under six seconds between potentially several minutes of inaction is too dangerous to be used on public roads.

I didn't sign Tesla's little disclaimer, I shouldn't have to share roads with people beta testing dangerous software.

You mean you shouldn't have to share roads with bad drivers. I do think that this probably makes bad drivers worse and good drivers marginally assisted.

It's great that you're willing to take a prescriptivist rather than descriptivist linguistic stance, but it's not that useful when it comes to consumer behavior.

I hardly think that is the distinction. The word is literally accompanied by a definition after its first use.

"Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage.

Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. Every driver is responsible for remaining alert and active when using Autopilot, and must be prepared to take action at any time."

Don't pretend that Tesla doesn't know exactly what people think when they hear "autopilot". It can be literally true and still deceptive marketing, like a jar of yogurt labeled "light" because it's lighter in color than the regular kind.

Those things are nothing alike. Some are facts that can be checked, others are definitions. If people all agree that the sun won't come up tomorrow, it's still coming up. If people all agree to start using a word in a new way, then it's time to change the dictionary.

So we should just start calling Monero Bitcoin because many people are consistently wrong?

No, we shouldn't.

But a company that advertises software against JavaScript-Bitcoin-miners knows exactly that people will think their software helps against JavaScript-Monero-miners.

If it's a reasonable company, they'll try to deal with this public misunderstanding and point out that their software can't help with Monero-miners.

If it's an asshole company, they'll cash in on people mistakenly buying their software. And even worse, those people will then think they're safe when they're not.

Such an asshole company deserves all of the negative PR, so that they're hopefully at some point forced to change their business practices.

There are no javascript Bitcoin miners, people just think they exist. I mean technically it is possible, but it would be very pointless.

People just lump all crypto together because of ignorance. As is the case here. Autopilot is not fully self-driving.

It's the difference between Tesla's capital A "Autopilot" product and the english word lower case a "autopilot." The language doesn't define Autopilot, but it does define autopilot, like it doesn't define Monero. If I had a product that I called Meat and it wasn't meat, I don't get to say "well the word 'meat' originally just meant solid food," when my customers complain I misled them.

> People love to conflate

Those people being Tesla's marketing team, presumably.

> they have always been clear that it is not self driving

That is very far away from the truth.

Based on all of your citations for evidence which should be numerous since it is by definition information delivered to the public.

You're like Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty

> what I say is always what I mean, and if you misunderstand, it's your fault.

Linguistic pragmatics 101: communication is a two way street.

That crosses into personal attack, which please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So Wikipedia's consensus that I linked to is wrong?

You've unfortunately contributed the most to this flamewar. We don't want those here. Please stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thank you. I didn't take any offense to Humpty Dumpty, I understand his point. I'm more surprised that somebody calling me a "smug pedant" led to me being banned for what seems a simple point, Tesla never said their car was fully self driving, and went to fairly great lengths to explain and notify that it isn't. (sans the video which I agree implies a lot too much).

You weren't banned! We'd have said so if we did that.

Being called a rude name is bad (though I think the commenter edited it out?), but like every user here, you still need to follow the rules regardless of what someone else does.

The core issue is the flamewar thing—by which I mean high-quantity, low-quality controversies—which is the essence of what we're asking people to avoid in comment threads.

Fair enough, I do see this as high quantity, low quality - although I do wish people would understand the point. I didn't realise that equalled a flame war. I just wanted to stand up for myself and an obvious truth. I didn't really think it was a flamewar until there was name slinging and the arguments deviated away from a reasoned rebuttal. The snark level was definitely escalating, so apologies if I contributed to that - my karma was duly punished :)

THat thank you was actually directed at dang, anyway, why am I not surprised that even that comment was downvoted. I am truly amazed by this conversation and fail to understand how those commenting here pass the bar for civil conversation.

It is unfortunate that they were name called “smug pedant”.

Yes, but not relevant to the main point, which is that users need not to proliferate high-quantity-low-quality controversies (a.k.a. flamewars) on this site.

(If we saw a commenter calling another a smug pedant, of course we'd tell them not to. I didn't see it though.)

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