Joshua Brown, 40, of Canton, Ohio, was a special guy. His death, which occurred last May in a car crash on a Florida highway, was no less special.
Joshua was a patriot, willing to serve in the US Navy for more than a decade and specialize in disarming explosives – a pretty risky activity. During his service, he also had a stint with the SEALs, the legendary US Navy’s special operations force.
Before that time, Joshua had attended the University of New Mexico, studying physics and computer science. In the course of his life he always had a strong passion for technology and an eagerness to test its limits.
That passion, which he was able to survive during his adventurous military time, led to his unfortunate death in the accident that was revealed last week – the first known fatality in over 130 million miles where Tesla’s self-driving feature called Autopilot was activated.
In other words, Joshua was killed while his Tesla Model S sedan was driving itself.
Joshua Brown was no novice. He was a conscientious and accountable person. He was also compassionate, ready to help friends in need and inclined to stay in touch with fellow veterans.
That attitude had brought him to start a company, Nexu Innovations, devoted to setting up internet access for people living in rural areas disconnected from the wider world by forests and mountains.
Sure, he had an enthusiasm for his Tesla car and its Autopilot feature, which he documented in several videos posted on YouTube showing him driving hands-free.
The most popular of his videos, titled “Autopilot Saves Model S”, shows Joshua driving on an interstate highway. Suddenly a white truck cuts in front of his vehicle: the Autopilot feature swerves the car to the right, avoiding a dangerous collision.
But Joshua – and the Autopilot system – were tricked a few weeks later when a trailer truck in front of them made a left turn on the highway. As the Tesla team said in the company blog, “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied”. These apparently very rare circumstances caused the car “to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S”.
As told by Tesla, the description of the accident is only part of the story. The blog post also says that “Tesla disables Autopilot by default and requires explicit acknowledgement that the system is new technology and still in a public beta phase before it can be enabled”.
Besides, when drivers activate Autopilot, the acknowledgment box explains that the system “is an assist feature that requires you to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times”. That said, according to Tesla, the technology is already safer than manual driving and keeps improving.
However, people in the industry with knowledge of self-driving systems were less convinced. Some noted that Tesla’s technology may give a false sense of security and that public beta tests for self-driving cars are a treacherous idea, as the technology by definition is not yet perfect (or tested enough to guarantee safety).
In a recent piece on Mashable, Nick Jaynes argues that other carmakers such as Mercedes and Audi could publicly beta-test systems that are similar to Autopilot but – considering the potential harm to drivers and everyone else on the road – they don’t.
In a way, the Tesla accident story has caught people’s imagination because it evokes one of our dreams – being driven around in a vehicle operated by computer systems.
Cars are never 100% safe, nor are planes, and we are usually prone to accept that traveling may involve some danger. Are we ready to take a risk for a not-fully tested technology marvel such as a car that drives itself? Joshua Brown certainly was, and he gave his life to prove it.
Have something to say about this story? Share it in the comments.