In October 2019, I started my driving lessons. I aced the exam part but the real driving was something entirely different. I was overwhelmed by all the sensations and instructions. After 10 minutes of driving, I'd mentally and emotionally shut down and start making mistakes. Over time, I managed to keep going longer and longer without losing focus. It turned out the key is to remain relaxed, looking straight ahead except when switching lanes and just keep going according to the traffic lights or signs.
At first, I thought I was meant to have total knowledge of everything but the brain can't handle it. I was scared out of my mind of what might happen if I bump into someone or scrape a car but later I came to the conclusion – traffic accidents happen. I need to stay calm no matter what happens and keep on trucking. I am not meant to know everything or be in total control at all times. In that regard, the car turned out an amazing psychological tool, useful for evaluation. In my case, I was too timid and frightful.
The dream of self-driving cars feels like a tremendous burden off of drivers' shoulders. But, like with all dreams, we can see it but can't grab or hold on to it. As I wrote and read about self-driving capabilities of modern cars, I became convinced they work great if the entire environment is 100% controlled but fail miserably or catastrophically in all other circumstances. The best example of this is Tesla car.
Tesla car promises the dream of self-driving but delivers autonomous piloting instead. The key difference is that, in the latter case Tesla sheds legal responsibility by stating the driver has to keep his hands on the wheel at all times. So, the car is sold under the promise of self-driving but the driver still has to operate it. Worse yet, Tesla car has at its core a computer that has all the bog standard computery problems.
In one instance, Tesla removed two features that were paid for from a used car. A Hacker News thread titled "Tesla remotely removed autopilot features from used Tesla without notice" and the linked Jalopnik article, both posted 6th February 2020, provide a detailed breakdown of the event. Here's what happened:
Let's analyze what happened. There was definitely a failure in communication between different Tesla departments. The snag appears to be in that one department at Tesla treats software features separately from the car, while the other department, the one that sold the car to the dealer, just dealt with the machine. The two departments didn't coordinate, causing a whole lot of mess for the dealer and Alec. Finally, customer support simply said what it was instructed to say by its superiors: "No, we will not remove features from used cars".
That's not a good sign of things to come from Tesla. Legally, Alec can sue the car dealer for false advertising and the dealer can sue Tesla for the same. In the meantime, the car's features are missing and they were removed after Tesla sold the car to a dealer. The main problem is uncertainty. Customers and dealers need to have clear, precise and sensible rules on what is going on so they don't have to take on any unnecessary risk.
My guess as to what happened is based off of how the Jalopnik article worded the removal of both features:
The result of that audit was that, when the car’s software was updated to the latest version in December, the Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving Capability (FSD) were removed from the car.
To me, it is clear the previous versions of both features were considered paid for, but the new version was obviously considered a separate product and hence not delivered.
I think poor internal communication will be the end of Tesla. It would be acceptable if they were making a mistake at their own expense but product feature skimming, especially of paid ones, won't fare well for Tesla. I also think self-driving cars are a meme, especially since traffic signs can be easily vandalized in a way that doesn't ruin them for human drivers but does for computers.