After watching the full video and reading the comments exchanged, I don't believe Veritasium there is guilty of anything more than believing studies with questionable funding sources and buying into autonomous cars too soon.

Tom Nicholas' set of arguments are in general good fodder for discussion but the premise is ultimately undermined by the video clickbait title and thumbnail calling several different creators' works abject propaganda. I get it, there's a counterculture cottage industry to be had going after larger creators.

To pick one example of problematic information: Tom presents his argument that the figure of 94% of accidents being caused by human error is a misleading statistic and argues an example scenario that would seem to assign blame to the driver unfairly (a hedge or tree branch obscures a stop sign, road markers have been worn away, etc.).

The issue with this presentation is that as a counterargument to the roughly 2.1 million accidents being compared to, it utterly fails on its face. There's no possible way that represents a substantial enough portion of the accidents to be more than a rounding error. I haven't poured over the NHTSA/CDC data around that, obviously but this just doesn't pass the smell test of "how likely is the described counter-scenario?" However, the overwhelming majority of accidents have been shown to occur close to home during a daily commute, in areas you are likely familiar with.[1] Additionally, it also doesn't square with the evidence that shows the majority (~55%) of fatal car accidents are single vehicle accidents.[2] It's an example of a contrived example that is so contrived so as to be meaningless. In a section of the video with the title "Lying with Statistics" it's an interesting choice to Lie without Statistics instead.

If you don't believe the researchers of the Waymo-funded study were ethical based wholly on where their money comes from and its lack of peer review, that's very reasonable. However, the funding source is less problematic to me than the lack of peer review because the system of scientific study is broken throughout the world, and we often see companies commissioning studies for whatever their particular area of operation is because they're the only ones with a vested interest in examining it. I'd love to see a separate solution for that.

Another example: In his text responses to Veritasium, Tom responds with:

It is, again, completely disingenuous to refuse to mention the maps which Waymo vehicles rely on when it suits your argument during your initial video but to now hold them up as a vital part of the technology. You spoke as though those maps didn’t exist in the video and so it was only fair, in critiquing your video, to respond in kind.

A further point for consideration here is the extent to which creating maps/scans for the entirety of even the United States (let alone other countries too) is practical. That seems like a highly intensive task which would be very costly, possibly to the point it’s unworkable.

I would hope the flaw in this concept is obvious to anyone here but there are OPEN SOURCE high-quality sources of mapping information, let alone maps that could be built by someone with funding.

Secondly, the idea of crying foul that because Veritasium didn't mention the maps "enough" in their video when they they responded to him about it is a further example of goalpost shifting. Furthermore, if you're trying to get to the source of truth, don't you think it's wise in terms of critique to you know, BE ACCURATE about what you're saying? This kind of thing should be unacceptable for someone proclaiming to be exposing "the extent to which a creator signing up to one of these sponsorship deals results in them compromising the editorial content of their videos to the point where education becomes misinformation."

I'm not going to rehash the entire argument between them. I think the primary thing Veritasium is guilty of here is of overstating and over-believing how ready for use autonomous cars are. I get it, Derick's ridden in one, so that likely leaves an impression (the psychology of "I wouldn't have done this if it was unsafe" at play). I disagree though, as I've said in other threads on HN, I'm staunchly against putting these things on the road until they're better than humans. It certainly doesn't rise to the level of propaganda in my opinion, even though I disagree with Veritasium on how ready the things are.

This is a good example of why I'd recommend the channel though. Veritasium actually responded to the criticism video with their own points and responded to Tom Nicholas when he sent them requests for comment. If nothing else this at least demonstrates a willingness to engage.

[1]: https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2108966/survey-finds-vehicle-... (I can only find contemporary articles, not the survey itself, though this particular fact is repeated here in Australia/New Zealand with an actual study: https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/yes,-car-crashes-are-more-li...)

[2]: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/urban...