When "Auto-Pilot" is Not Auto-Pilot

Autonomous cars have quite a ways to go.  Tesla has for years had an auto-pilot feature on its cars that is not exactly true to its name.  It appears they were beta testing tens of thousands of cars on customers and collecting data from the cars to improve performance and autonomous performance.  Unfortunately, for one customer in Florida whose car could not tell the difference between the white side of a semi and the sky, that meant an early death.

News out today suggests the government believes Tesla's "Auto-Pilot" system was at least partially at fault, which I wrote about many months ago. 

http://financialspiltmilk.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2016-09-30T09:24:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=14&by-date=false

Now I make no predictions on the outcome of the suit as lawyers will sue whenever they have the least bit of evidence - or even none- to support their position.  I am an attorney and see this all the time.  Still, the government finding the Tesla Auto-Pilot at least potentially at fault will likely lead to some liability.  Well, using 70,000 or so customers to beta test your system may have its consequences. 

By the way, the House passed legislation recently to advance autonomous car testing throughout the U.S. and I expect the Senate to follow suit.  We will see.  Either way, the federal government taking some control over the regulation of these vehicles will certainly speed up their deployment.

"LOWER" Act

The Administration is working on a RAISE Act that makes it more difficult for low wage foreigners who do not speak English to enter the country legally and get a job.  While I support efforts to stop illegal immigration, I am not a big fan of raising the bar on legal immigration.  My ancestors are all immigrants and the United States is a melting pot and I believe benefits from it.  In my view, our strength is in no small part from our diversity.  OK - political speak done.

But I do not think it is political speak to note the RAISE Act is ill considered and especially now is not the time.  I truly think and assume our President will reconsider the Act given current circumstances.  And by current circumstances I am referring to Harvey and Irma.   I wrote twice in August on this site on how low wage labor was being pushed out due to Administrative policies and driving up housing costs and how the participation rate on those here legally in the U.S. was the lowest in decades.  That was before we were hit by two massive hurricanes.

Also, since then I have learned of a study attributing a fifth of the low participation rate of those young males legally in the U.S. to drugs, which is truly sad:

http://www.newsweek.com/one-five-men-leave-workforce-due-opioid-epidemic-so-drugs-are-stealing-jobs-661395

Either way, we will need a lot, and I mean a lot, of workers to deal with housing repairs and the like in Texas and Florida.  Setting up a procedure to legally admit them and vet those already here for legal citizenship, or at least legal work, makes abundant sense to me.  But hey, what do I know.