@adamjcook@mmasnick
Amazing how many people who have rightly condemned Facebook for years are perfectly happy to use Instagram and now Threads. Even if you don’t care about “minor” issues like destroying democratic institutions and fueling an ethnic genocide, you’d think some of these folks would be turned off by the obnoxious advertising and algorithmic feed.
Here is the Hard Truth about #automotive software.
If it…
Looks like this; and
Has apps like this; and
Has pop-up notifications like this; and
Has widgets like this; and
Has distracting color palettes like this; and
Has small font sizes like this; and
Entertains people like this…
it is unsafe.
Full stop.
I could care less what consumers want. Consumers cannot appreciate systems safety. Regulators and systems safety experts should be making the calls.
This “Enhanced #CarPlay” product is a massive step in the wrong direction and it should be disallowed.
And do not get me started on #Tesla’s software or that of several up-and-coming Chinese #EV brands.
YouTube is stuffed full with human drivers messing around with their touchscreens (e.g. messing around with rows and rows of settings, checking efficiency charts, karaoke lyrics on the screen) **for miles **while their vehicles are in motion.
@adamjcook That's one of the worst things about modern Twitter, isn't it? You never know if it's broke, or an intentional change. It's such an unstable platform now.
@adamjcook I assume that this is intentional. In recent months, access has become more and more restrictive anyway. Most recently, the search function or clicking on hashtags was made impossible for visitors without an account.
So this is just the next logical step, as I suspect that they want to force people with all their might to create an account.
Strongly suspect that the numbers are now collapsing and the advertisers urgently demand better account statistics.
I do not recall an open letter with thousands of prominent signatories, a hastily-assembled White House Task Force and a big Senate hearing for automated driving systems.
You know... #SafetyCritical systems that are masquerading as #AI that have killed people and have the capacity to readily cause immediate injury and death.
We have an unregulated Wild West out there on that.
@Craktok The #NHTSA, the federal car safety regulator, actually has some pretty broad powers, in theory.
But decades of subservience to automakers have eroded their independence, competence and credibility.
The NHTSA has only had a whole 3 months with a permanent administrator during #Biden’s term.
The White House could have made some powerful moves, without Congress, to significantly rein in this Wild West… but they have not, across three different administrations now.
@Craktok Even the #FTC, being today probably the most robust it has even been in recent memory, refuses to rein in clear-cut, deceptive advertising that allows consumers to dangerously think their automated vehicles are more capable than they are.
Anyone remember the time when #Musk promised that, if you buy a #Tesla vehicle today, it will soon earn you $30,000/year in personal income by acting as a public "robotaxi" when not in use?
That was in 2019.
Same basic lie, different day.
The lie worked for Tesla when Tesla needed it most financially (and Musk was never challenged on it by US regulators), and so Musk is now trying it again.
Of course, the "Tesla Lie" actually killed people (by creating human driver complacency).
So, if it was not the case before, now that #Twitter seems to be walled off for good...
How can the #NWS and, say, The White House (as a two random examples) continue to remain solely on social media platforms that are inaccessible to millions of unregistered users?
Those exclusively on the #Fediverse, an open platform, are being actively denied public services, official policy announcements and timely emergency alerts.
I was at #Chicago Pride all weekend while visiting with my wife (videos and photos soon!), so I missed this #Tesla Drama concerning #FSDBeta that erupted.
Ok.
Let us, again, all put on our #SystemsSafety hats and take a look at the situation here as I understand it.
Below is the video that kicked the beehive between Tesla defenders and detractors on "what really happened?".
This clearly chaotic video was taken from a larger drive sequence in which FSD Beta was active.
The video above was extracted from the Tweet shown below.
If you do not know the players involved here...
Ross Gerber is the individual driving this #Tesla vehicle. Ross is an ardent Tesla supporter, Tesla investor and a prominent voice within the Tesla Community.
Dan O'Dowd is the individual in the passenger seat. Dan is the creator of The Dawn Project which primarily targets Tesla's #FSDBeta program in terms of what it perceives as its public safety issues.
First off, one really has to "love" the placement of the mobile device charging pads in this #Tesla vehicle - a vehicle which is unvalidated as it pertains to being equipped with a highly-complex automated driving system, no less.
The placement of these pads ensure maximum driver inattentiveness to the roadway and to the dynamic driving task.
This is not a "side issue". The #HumanFactors components are an integral part of the human-machine system in terms of a validation process.
#Handelsblatt, a prominent #German business publication, has obtained a considerable amount of internal Tesla files that may point to #PublicSafety and vehicle #safety concerns that were possibly hidden by Tesla.
Apparently, Handelsblatt is releasing reports on these files in stages.
I will be watching this space... probably to add comments after more is publicly released.
@adamjcook I just saw this news and was 99% sure you would be on top of it. Even if there isn’t criminal negligence, which there very well may be, I imagine lots of this will be making it into civil cases. Stock market opens in eight hours, too.
Please #journalists. Please. I am begging you. Stop doing this.
#Tesla's #Autopilot product is not at all, "partially" or otherwise, capable of "self-driving".
The official term, if you need to use something, is a "partial automated driving system" and the control responsibilities of the human driver utilizing such a system are exactly the same as if they were driving a 1995 Dodge Neon.
But, truth be told, the #SAE#J3016 standard has been a mistake from the start, IMO.
What was supposed to be a broad taxonomy of automated driving features has been basically warped (understandably so) by marketing and the media to fit certain narratives.
Worse still, J3016 is not a safety standard and laypeople (again, understandably) attempt to cram it into some sort of safety argument.
We really just needed a safety standard - and not some arbitrary taxonomy.
This is a really, really dumb thing to do on the part of the #CBC.
It plays right into #Musk’s hands and damages your journalistic credibility more than if you did not initially suspend your #Twitter activity in the first place.
Obviously, nothing has changed in terms of #PressFreedom and editorial interference over the past month on Twitter - if anything, it has become far worse.
@adamjcook@lolzac@snoda Sorry, Adam. I wasn’t really meaning to single you out for this, just borrowing CBC as an example.
You make a valid point about them making a show of leaving, even though they were abandoning their audience and could have predicted the resulting drop in traffic, and are now crawling back into the fold. That’s not a great look for CBC.
It’s more the “Every company or artist that makes a living in part via Twitter should leave and suffer financially” crowd that I have an issue with. I’ve seen several artists who sell works largely via Twitter attacked here for maintaining a presence on the ‘evil site’.
At some point, someone needs to do a investigative report on how many historic, vacant (but viable) buildings were demolished and condemned to surface parking lots in Downtown #Detroit in the service of a shallow, one-time Super Bowl (2006) event…
@inthedeltawaves They also tore apart the beautiful theatre part of the Michigan Theatre Building to build a multi-level parking garage in there...
Never going to get that back now.
Naturally, the infamous Detroit slumlord Dennis Kefallinos and his dipshit son are sitting on that historic property in the hopes of a future parking lot.
@adamjcook having lived out here in Portland for 8 years now, I find myself aching in my bones for the type of history Detroit has in spades.
The amount of 80s T-111 siding that sprouted up out here during this region’s big boom years is just sad. We have the right land use policies but not the historic fabric.
Michigan towns are just way too hard up for development of any kind and make too big of sacrifices. Lansing was the worst in this way. They’d tear anything down to appease developers.
Not sure about the historic district designation as far as the City of #Detroit is concerned... I had assumed it already was (but I have only been in Detroit for about a year so I am still playing catch up 😅).