You and I agree on a lot of topics but I'm gonna take a hard pass on that and disagree strongly. What's being reported is just a part of doing business. It not only affects the tech industry but every facet of society. The media reports what it wants to report. That is not, nor should it ever be, a reason for not reporting the data on autonomous driving. More importantly, the media is a moot point that has nothing to do with any of this. I'll explain.I disagree - slightly - on this one. In late 2014 & early 2015 I was integrating some high end lab equipment in a location on a major Apple competitors campus. I can't say what it was for, but it wasn't the self-drive program.
I asked them about their very visible - and at the time, in the news - vehicle program. They were frustrated because all the data they provided was being cherry picked and reports being written by media with only 20% of the available information. What was in the news at the time was essentially click-bait
"______'s autodrive test cars have been in 6 accidents in the last two years!!"
Well, the news completely ignored the fact that in none of those were ______'s vehicle found to be at fault. And in only one was it determined that a human operator might have been able to avoid the collision as 4 or 5 of them were strikes from behind by inattentive motorists.
And all of that was after the test fleet had collectively logged over 1.1 million miles of autonomous driving.
I say all this, because that was in my mind when I read the article. When looking through that lens, it makes some sense to only have to go "full public" with the most essential bits, even if the DMV still has the rest available on file, or at least requires the company to have it available within 24 hours any time they request it.
Do me a favor, go back and read the article. This has nothing to do with disclosure to the public. Apple is requesting to not report the information to the DMV, not the public. If the disengagements don't have to be reported to the DMV, then there is no record for them to have on file. The public only comes into play because the information is open to the public. Transparency is the only way to do this properly and safely so the public has full confidence in the information being disseminated. When we start excluding what's being reported, we start fomenting mistrust. Mistrust is the last thing autonomous driving needs.
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