Item — HN Reader

No one who has access to FSD Beta, is in any shape or form mistaken, to think that Tesla is under any obligation to keep providing the feature whether the driver has a safety score of 100 or not. Tesla clearly states in their terms, before you can turn FSD Beta on, that they reserve the right to take it away at any time for any reason and rightly so.

Our great HN community here throws rocks at Tesla and FSD Beta any chance they get. Why in the world would Tesla allow someone whom they employ, to generate bad press while they're still heavily developing a tech. Isn't FSD Beta already not enough negatively covered?

As for firing the employee, WTF Tesla?

3 comments

>Our great HN community here throws rocks at Tesla and FSD Beta any chance they get.

Wow, you and I have totally different perspectives. I see people rightly calling out the limitations and dangers of a technology whose benefits are greatly exaggerated by sycophants.

It's telling that you say a Tesla employee, car owner and fan is generating "bad press" by showing that the technology isn't what is claimed.

I'm in full support of people pointing out issues with tech (not so much with the press writing 10 page articles based on a tweet though). I'm also understanding of Tesla's position. We gotta call it what it really is — bad press. Dan O’Dowd of Dawn project put up a full page ad recently pooping all over Tesla. Guess where the evidence came from: FSD Beta videos on youtube. One has to essentially not care one bit to be OK with these videos if they run Tesla and hope to innovate in such a hostile industry and regulatory environment.

If you consider the US a hostile regulatory environment for cars, then don't innovate there. Teslas are sold worldwide. I'm glad the FCC, EPA, NHTSA exist, for all their flaws.

Plus, you can't pick and choose what bad press you choose to accept. This is true anywhere. Tesla's nonexistent PR department may have handled it better.

> If you consider the US a hostile regulatory environment for cars, then don't innovate there.

Most other western countries are alike (or worse). Except, US is where the energy, best capitalism and talent is so despite the above, probably still the best choice.

> I'm glad the FCC, EPA, NHTSA exist, for all their flaws.

Of course you do, as a consumer. It's only until you want to make something that isn't already made for the past few decades that you start disliking, hating and outright wanting them to just get the heck out of your way. Regulation in itself isn't a problem, its ever increasing and rarely ever decreasing amount that is the issue. There are many rules and regulation that haven't been updated for decades.

> Why in the world would Tesla allow someone whom they employ, to generate bad press while they're still heavily developing a tech. Isn't FSD Beta already not enough negatively covered?

Welp, you can’t blame others when you yourself is jumping into the burning pot of politics. Tesla just did that by firing the employee in question, and also blurred the line b/w normal business operation and politics by disabling FSD. Now, nothing can stop all the political notes from everywhere. Rather, if you advocate the freedom of speech, you should encourage this.

> Tesla just did that by firing the employee in question

I think that was a mistake. Taking away the beta privileges would have been sufficient.

> blurred the line b/w normal business operation and politics by disabling FSD

You're way down playing the impact of the kind of mindset that the average joe has about FSD Beta as portrayed in mainstream media. It's so hostile, emotionally charged and void of any evidence of actual danger, that it pushes the bias needle against Tesla to the breaking point. If your blood sweat and tear is being pummeled around the clock, you get into politics in a blink and double down with whatever you can muster.

Those who think Tesla is just in it for the money, well, there is no conversation to be had with them. They'll catch up. But if one actually believes in what Tesla claims to exist for, then it doesn't take a lot of thinking to see they're right in pushing back aggressively as they do.

This isn't GMail Beta though. This is beta-quality software roaming the streets posing potential, life-threatning danger to people. Why is it out there to begin with? You can't roll out unfinished features to a safety-critical machine and expect people to shut the fuck up.

> potential

That's the keyword here. It looks dangerous to some, but evidently, no one's hurt yet, driver or pedestrain. And we're talking 60K people with FSD Beta as of Jan (perhaps getting close to 100K around now). At 100K, and average 1000 miles, over 3-6month period, you have 100 million miles driven without a single injury let alone fatality. US average is 1.1 death per 100 million miles. If you don't look at these numbers and just go with the news, it sounds like Teslas are running over people GTA style.

> Why is it out there to begin with?

Because that turns out to be the only way so far to massively train the AIs to move this tech forward. If you think Waymo or any other self driving companies out there are gonna get anywhere with the amount of data they have, you need to get in the weeds a little and see what's what.

Yeah I get that it's one of those things where the only way to truly test it is "in the production environment," but Tesla must understand that _everybody_ is participating in those beta tests, not just the enrolled drivers. So long as that car is near me, I'm a participant too. Bu the way, Teslas are getting more common in Israel, and though I have no idea if FSD is even available here, I've noticed that whenever I see a Tesla in the mirror, I try to get as far away as possible from it, because there's a much higher than normal chance the driver isn't paying any attention. But I digress.

The things is that, looking from the side, it doesn't really seem like Tesla is interested in any feedback, judging by their reactions to what could only be described as healthy discussions. If they're getting a lot of flak, it's because they've earned it.

> If they're getting a lot of flak, it's because they've earned it.

I guess so, but I think in a different way. Only if they talked more about how much attention they pay to safety of people when they roll out beta to more users and add features, then perhaps the general public would be more understanding. I know about it from obscure tweets and fleeting mentions having watched countless hours of Tesla people talking about FSD, but you really have to dig to hear about it.