this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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I am against cars getting more like everyday electronic gadgets. Why do you need a selfie camera inside it? Also who attends zoom calls in it? Evs are notorious for doing so. Not to mention all the privacy concerns over the data these smartcars collect.
Tesla has a game system on its huge touchscreen panel. At least you have to be parked to use it, but that's still fucking stupid.
My wife played some Fallout Shelter while we were in the carwash one time. I played some arcade game while in the waiting with my daugher while the wife was inside the store getting some groceries. It's pretty neat. And when we go on a roadtrip next summer it might be nice to play a game of chess while charging.
It's stupid
It's completely out of your way if you don't go looking for it. For those that enjoy it it is great. Too bad you are so close minded and simple you can not see other people's point of view. How limiting it must be for you.
I worry about features in cars.
For example, our Mazda has headlights that turn with the steering wheel (ala Tucker Torpedo's center light). Neat idea and it is a useful feature while driving at night on the rural roads by our house. But what will happen when it fails, and how much will they cost to replace? (I've been told they "fail straight ahead", but who really knows for sure. I'm hoping we get rid of the car before that happens.)
I saw a pickup with automatic folding mirrors having an issue with them folding and unfolding while the guy was driving. I followed him through several traffic lights and watched it happen a few times. Automatic folding mirrors would be a nice feature on my pickup, but I'd rather not have them fail especially when I'm towing a trailer and be completely blind to the rear-right.
I've seen pickups with the running bar that folds out. I'm not sure there's much value in that other than "oooh shiny" but if it fails to open while I'm getting out, it could hurt.
Our Mazda again has several software bugs in the infotainment system. None of these are critical, but it does make me wonder how much testing they did on the software that controls the brakes, for example. Are the brakes going to fail to release someday? I already know the computer has some control of them, because of the auto-hold feature that I usually keep turned off, and because I sometimes notice a slight delay in releasing the brakes when I take my foot off the pedal.
The FCA Uconnect 8.4 infotainment systems allowed an attacker to remotely take over throttle, brakes, etc. until they were patched. That's an obvious safety issue.
And that crash at the Peace Bridge last week, it seems very likely it was caused by an issue with the car, rather than the driver (there is evidence the driver was alert and trying to stop, and he swerved around another car that turned in front of him before the crash). Turns out the right-hand drive version of that car had a recall of an issue with the accelerator...which supposedly did not effect left-hand drive vehicles. But here we are with two people dead and a third injured from a vehicle that may have been accelerating out of control through no fault of the driver.
The point is that including additional features, even if only software, increases the complexity of the system and makes errors more likely. It increases the chances of some unexpected interaction or failure. It increases the surface of a software attack for a potential safety issue. It makes the code that much harder to test for bugs in general and security in particular.
You speak as if there's never been any recalls of cars in the past, before they had electronic and computer systems in them.
My Ford Explorer trunk door almost fell on my head and killed me. It's tires shredded while driving on the freeway at high speeds, almost killing me and my family, twice. Neither of those had electronics or computer parts.
I don't think you'll have any car manufactured anymore that's not complex, it's just part of what happens over time, new technology is taken advantage of in the manufacturing of products.
I'm not sure I follow your point here. Even necessary parts of a car failed for you, and almost caused injury. Now people are advocating adding unnecessary parts to cars that may also fail and cause injuries or death.
I would have thought this was straightforward enough...
Your whole comment that I replied to was about faults in advanced/electronic systems as the reasons that make cars unsafe to drive.
"Unnecessary" is in the eye of the beholder.
They were very few parts needed to actually make an automobile go into motion and be steerable, but there's many additional bells and whistles that people considered necessary for them when they purchase a vehicle.
The reason I didn't understand your comment is that your examples just proved my point - safety critical items WERE NOT VETTED correctly. What makes you think the auto manufacturers are being careful with software? They aren't, or are doing the bare minimum. I listed multiple software issues with various manufacturer that never should have happened.
Look, I'm not a luddite. I like having nav and satellite radio and all of that. But adding a game to the already questionable software development in a car is insane. Cars are a safety critical item and everything added to them should be carefully considered and thoroughly vetted.
Someone compared it to a cell phone, but cell phones aren't 3,000 lbs of heavy machinery barreling down a highway at 70 mph. A phone needing to reset or whatever is a minor inconvenience compared to what could go wrong with a serious software bug in a car. I'm not sure why people would argue against this, it seems self-evident. I provided examples.
Insane? That's the word you're going to use, really? Seems overly extreme.
I wouldn't disagree with that paragraph in general, but, it doesn't mean not used.
It's just a computer. Asking for cars never to use computers going forward in the future is a non-starter, that's not how Humanity works.
Would your concerns go away if somebody was doing the exact same things I've mentioned with a laptop, instead of using the computer built into the vehicle?
(And in case it has to be explicitly said, I'm speaking towards while the car is not being driven.)
Nope.
I don't know how I can explain this better, so I'll summarize.
Cars are safety-critical items, being they weigh 3000+ lbs and travel at high speed and can kill people when something goes wrong.
It's critical that the software that controls the drivetrain, brakes, etc. be as perfect as it possibly can be because of the first point.
Adding more features increases the likelihood of something going wrong.
I don't understand why this is even an argument. It's common sense. Why would anyone disagree with those three points? (Unless they're the reason vehicle deaths are up...maybe they just don't care and see their car like a cheap appliance and ignore the "potential to kill" factor.)
Your comments about the hatch and the tires only prove my point: Auto manufacturers already make plenty of mistakes on things that have existed for decades, things that should be solved problems by now. Why would software be any different? They're going to fuck things up there, too. And already have; I gave examples before.
More complex software means more bugs; anyone in software development or testing can tell you that. These are known facts. What if that game has some bug in it that lets hackers take over the brakes remotely? Unlikely, sure. Impossible? Definitely not - again, look at the Uconnect 8.4 issue in FCA vehicles a few years back; a remote attacker could break into the car and do just that. It's an extremely scary bug. Fortunately they were white hat and FCA actually listened to them and worked with them to patch the bugs, but what would have happened if it hadn't been white hats that found it? Or the manufacturer didn't care to listen, as often happens with software vulnerabilities?
No one would accept a computer program that runs an X-ray machine overdosing people (which has happened). It's the same thing. The FDA would hopefully never approve an X-ray machine that has Tetris on it, either, for the same reasons we shouldn't accept it in cars.
The advantages of computer control are huge, we're getting more mileage and more power out of smaller engines all the time. I'm not recommending we get rid of computers in cars. I'm saying it's imperative that any additional features are weighed against the benefit. Playing Tetris on a dashboard screen is not a useful feature in a car that can't be easily handled by the smartphone you almost certainly also own.
I don't think there's any more to be gained by discussing this further. I can't make it any clearer. Good day.
No one is arguing this point.
You're making an assumption, an incorrect assumption, and you're arguing a strawman.
As someone whose career was software development, and who worked on critical mission devices, I'm aware of the importance of the software working properly, and I still stand by my point.
Nothing you described would cause failure when the vehicles parked and not being driven, just because you're using the onboard computer.
Hell, even when driven, having the passenger watching Netflix movie on the monitor will not cause the vehicle to crash and kill them (notice I said passenger, not driver).
Or are you also advocating the removal of any graphic map displays and GPS, bluetooth music software, etc., that's are in computerized vehicles as well, and which is actually using when the vehicle is driven?
Cars are already computerized. What you are arguing for hasn't been a case for many years.
Before you go, I'd love to hear your opinion on the last point I made, about cars already being computerized and having features for many years, that you would deem as being hazardous to have?
I have already addressed that point twice. Why do you keep ignoring it? Some improvements are good.
I understand the game can be played only while parked. But guess what? That software is in the car all the time. It's another place there could be a bug that allows access to vital systems. It's another place where there could be some weird interaction with other systems in unintended ways.
I don't understand why you keep ignoring that point. A software developer should understand the issue better than most people. I've given example after example of why we should be careful about what we put in cars and weigh the benefits against the risks. You refuse to acknowledge that there might even be an issue.
I can only hope when this shit fails, it doesn't kill me.
Noticed you ignored my whole point of cars already being computerized for many years, and my question to you ....
What, you're expecting the car to explode if somebody plays a Netflix movie or video game while waiting for someone to come out of the store?
And again, if I wanted to, I can make the same argument you just did (carefulness) about the hydraulics that hold the rear hatch door up, or the tires that were on my SUV.
It's a car. Use your phone or something. Cars aren't game systems.
AKA ...
Nothing wrong with playing a video game (or watch a show/movie) in a car while you're waiting for somebody in the store. Doesn't matter which device it's being played on.