Judge finds evidence that Tesla, Musk knew about Autopilot defect
(www.reuters.com)
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 07:30
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/646782
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 22 Nov 2023 07:30
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/646782
A Florida judge found "reasonable evidence" that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker's vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Nov 21 (Reuters) - A Florida judge found “reasonable evidence” that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and other managers knew the automaker’s vehicles had a defective Autopilot system but still allowed the cars to be driven unsafely, according to a ruling.
Judge Reid Scott, in the Circuit Court for Palm Beach County, ruled last week that the plaintiff in a lawsuit over a fatal crash could proceed to trial and bring punitive damages claims against Tesla for intentional misconduct and gross negligence.
Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor, called the judge’s summary of the evidence significant because it suggests “alarming inconsistencies” between what Tesla knew internally, and what it was saying in its marketing.
“This opinion opens the door for a public trial in which the judge seems inclined to admit a lot of testimony and other evidence that could be pretty awkward for Tesla and its CEO,” Smith said.
The judge said the accident is “eerily similar” to a 2016 fatal crash involving Joshua Brown in which the Autopilot system failed to detect crossing trucks, leading vehicles to go underneath a tractor trailer at high speeds.
“It would be reasonable to conclude that the Defendant Tesla through its CEO and engineers was acutely aware of the problem with the ‘Autopilot’ failing to detect cross traffic,” the judge wrote.
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Friendly reminder that Musk used Tesla stock to fund $20 bn of the ~$27 bn he used to buy Twitter.
Which means, $20bn in Twitter seemed a better investment than keeping them in Tesla. I don’t know what would be funnier, that he was right or that he was wrong with that gamble.
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Technically he had a way out. He could pay 1bn to cancel the contract, but he didn’t. Again, very funny if he overpaid so much to make everybody think he’s so smart when he dad a “cheap” out
See, if he’d done that, he would have looked bad, and he couldn’t have that. He wanted out, but only if he could have the out not look like he was the one backing out. He needed it to be Twitter’s fault, same way as he’s trying to blame anyone by himself for advertisers fleeing.
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No he didn’t. The 1 billion fine was not a “get out of the contract” option.
techcrunch.com/…/elon-musks-twitter-deal-includes…
There is an excerpt of the agreement in there. Seems pretty clear to me, but I’m open to hear your interpretation.
The 1 billion termination fee only applied in very specific circumstances. He couldn’t just choose to pay it because he didn’t want to go ahead with the purchase.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/13/elon-musk-cant-just-walk-away-from-twitter-deal-by-paying-1-billion.html
Edit: Well, to be clear he actually he could decide to pay 1 billion and walk away but he would be opening himself up to a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Twitter for breaking the contract.
It’s the big tech version of trumps presidential campaign then, basically.
he never intended to buy Twitter though. He just wanted to manipulate the stock by saying that he’s going to buy it and then dump his shares at a higher price. He thought he could get away with that, because the SEC wouldn’t do shit. Like the time he said that he found a buyer for a Tesla. But then Twitter sued him and the judge forced the sale onto him.
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From memory I think it still had to go to trial and he had a good chance of weaseling his way out of it. Apparently there was a lot of stuff that would have come out in discovery so what ever was in there was bad enough that he preferred to take a really bad deal than let people find out what ever he’s been up to. For money grub musk that must have been very bad to lose money in favour of maintaining his privacy.
He didn’t sell the Tesla stock. He used it as collateral to borrow the money. Rich people rarely sell their things while they are alive. They borrow against their fortune because if they sell, they have to pay capital gains taxes.
Borrowing with stocks as collateral should be taxed at the capital gains rate
He did sell the stock, like $23 billion worth. He entered the agreement to buy Twitter to show that he had another use for that cash, so that Tesla investors didn’t get spooked and sell off when they see the biggest shareholder selling (along with the downward price pressure that comes from selling a significant percentage of a company’s stock).
There was some speculation at the time that he entered the agreement with Twitter with no intention to close, just to cover his desire to cash out of Tesla at its high. Then the courts actually held him to that.
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I purchased an FSD Model 3 a long time ago. For the life of me, I can’t understand why it is still so bad today. How hard is it to stay in the left lane when you’re just about to take a left?
However, that being said, it’s just a tool. The first time I drove (other) cars with cruise control or GPS, I knew I didn’t want to drive without those features anymore, even if it was years before they started working very well. I feel the same thing about FSD, even in its current poor state.
I know that it’s been advertised to be something it’s not, and I think Tesla needs to lose a lot of lawsuits over it, but I need this technology now.
Just like when cruise control and GPS came out, there were people who wrecked because they relied on them too much, the same thing is happening with new technology in a Tesla. There is no autonomous driving mode. The driver is supposed to be in control and paying attention the entire time.
Tesla advertised Full Self Driving, it’s literally what FSD stands for but in reality it was a somewhat better driver assistance. Why was? Well they are now relying almost exclusively on on normal fucking cameras which is why their depth perception is so spotty, they don’t have depth perception anymore the hardware for it has been removed.
It’s still somewhat better driver assistance. Like I said, it was advertised to be something it’s not. My car has the lidar, and I can tell you from personal experience that it’s much better at driving assist now without the lidar than it was with the lidar. That may be due to other improvements, but the point stands.
When you use the “FSD” mode, you free up a ton of your attention. You don’t have to concentrate on staying in the lane. Lots of cars have lane assist now, and it’s definitely the number one feature on the Tesla, as well. You don’t have to focus as much on speed. You rarely have to think about navigation. It does the lane changes for you, and it does the turning for you. You can glance at the display, and it very reliably shows you where all of the cars are near you.
You get to reclaim all of that attention and with that, you can be better aware of what other cars are doing. I was already a very safe driver, the sort who focused on defensive driving, before I got FSD, and FSD has only made my drive even safer. My biggest complaint is that it makes some really stupid lane change decisions, which I can simply cancel. Of course, that’s after it has turned on the signal, which feels embarrassing, although probably nobody else cares. It also has some issues when there are multiple turn lanes. It likes to choose the stupidest turn lane every time.
You use the car. You learn the quirks of the current software, and then you correct when it does something wrong. That’s it. It’s game changing. It’s not as game changing as true FSD, but it’s huge. It doesn’t matter if it only uses cameras. We drive with only our eyes. Could it be better if they also used lidar? Probably, although AI famously can have worse results sometimes with more inputs. But it’s the other things that are more important.
Is there a chance now that he gets punished for a crime?
lol, nah
Any crime? What crime are you talking about?
There’s a case to be made for criminal negligence resulting in loss of life.
Well, maybe, but did you forget that he’s rich?
Yes but those were poor people. So it doesn’t count.
It’s a textbook case of what could trigger the depraved heart homicide rule.
The idea is that, in the case of someone knowingly and intentionally doing or allowing something extremely likely to cause serious injury or death, the “depraved indifference” to human life can be treated as intent to kill and elevate a negligent manslaughter charge to murder.
Do we have probability numbers yet for likelihood of accident? And if so, would that satisfy “extremely likely?” The letter of the law can be fickle.
When you have millions of units on the road, a one in a billion chance of the error killing someone on a drive is pretty much a guarantee.
I don’t know if that’s the reasoning that will hold up in court. Would a judge say a 1 in a billion chance is "extremely likely? That reasoning would apply to all cars in general wouldn’t it? Driving is potentially dangerous no matter what car you drive. People are guaranteed to die in car accidents everyday just by sheer volume and that would be true if Tesla didn’t exist.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not apologizing for them. I’m just dubious of getting a conviction.
It’s not that people die crashing them, or even that a manufacturing/software defect causes the deaths.
It’s that Tesla knew that there was a software error that would almost certainly cause somebody to die, and intentionally chose not to address the issues for financial reasons. That’s textbook depraved indifference.
Reminds me of that cost of a recall calculation scene from Fight Club.
And that’s exactly why the depraved indifference rule exists.
Are there any famous examples of that being used?
Schlitterbahn waterpark is a fairly recent high-profile example.
The designers of the water coaster and co-owner of the park were charged with murder because they knew the ride was lethally dangerous and kept it running.
In fact, they’d paid off people hurt in other near-death accidents to keep quiet.
Thanks for the example! I’ll definitely check that out.
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No, he’s rich.
Lol no
Do you really think they didn’t know it? I mean they made it how in the fuck they wouldn’t know about it?
You can have middle managers that will hide stuff from the c suite.
That’s not good and those middle managers should be corrected, but it can happen.
Yes yes, we all knew that. But it’s good that the judge decided that his court should match reality.
I recall musk saying something on the lines of “we have to accept that self driving cars will also cause deaths” like 10 years ago or so
Context is important. If we focused on perfect safety like this for other forms of transportation we’d never fly, take trains, drive cars, ride on boats, or anything else. Self driving has a significantly better safety record than humans. That context is critical. It doesn’t mean that we stop striving to be safer; it just means it’s reasonable to use it in many circumstances.
Jail everyone