A Telsa Model 3 crashed into a motionless, overturned semi-truck, reigniting debates over whether we're ready for AI-assisted driving.
Tesla's Autopilot feature has sat at the center of a debate over the future of driving for years now. While there are multiple stages between where we are and truly self-driving cars, Autopilot looks to bridge those gaps by offering Tesla owners numerous options to pilot a vehicle with the help of a computer. The obvious concern here is that a failure or glitch in the technology could prove fatal to the driver. As a result, there's an ongoing debate here because, when these things all work how they should, self-driving cars are far safer than those driven by humans. In a perfect world, these kinds of vehicles would actually prevent automobile injuries.
The problem is, this isn't a perfect world, and car crashes still happen. A video is making the rounds online depicting a Tesla Model 3 that crashes directly into an overturned semi on a highway. Given the amount of time the driver would have had to notice the truck, the fact that every other vehicle on the road was able to recognize and adjust well in advance, and the speed at which the car was traveling before futilely hitting the brakes at the last moment, people believe the Tesla was using Autopilot and the driver wasn't paying attention. The Twitter user who posted the footage isn't a fan of Tesla, and they provided several other examples of the technology failing to protect drivers.
Neither Drivers Nor Technology Is Ready for Self-Driving Cars
It's tragic whenever something like this happens (even though, thankfully, this driver was fine) but it's worse that there's no reason to assume it won't happen again. In this instance, there would have been systems to determine the presence of the stopped vehicle, alerts to inform the driver, and automatic brakes. Just before the point of impact, it appears the car's brake kicked in, but it's tough to assume any of those other things happened.
The tech behind these vehicles is amazing. The sensor arrays, AI, and pure, masterful engineering on display in Tesla vehicles is astounding. But until we can get to a standard for how drivers interact with these vehicles, we won't see truly autonomous cars. Tesla's automobiles use various layers of AI for many different features and other vehicle manufacturers have similar features. These assists, like the ones that subtly help a driver change lanes, get better every year. However, there are no rules about how these things have to be implemented, nor are there clear systems for reporting what works and what doesn't.
Source: Twitter