3 ms·

Static risk tolerance + altered risk perception. People are only as careful as they think they need to be, because they're lazy. This causes your behavior bas

• Nadya 10y ago
  Not quite what I was thinking of, so I'll make up a scenario and numbers. Take any technology that automates a task. Say it has a 0.00005% failure rate which results in death of a random passerby at the time it occurs. Then take any human being in charge of that same task. Say the risk is 0.05% human error which results in death of a random passerby at the time it occurs. There are people who will argue that the 0.05% is acceptable and will vehemently disagree with and prevent any attempt to switch to the 0.00005% failure rate because the machine killing someone is unacceptable while a human killing 1,000-fold more people is somehow acceptable. Even if human laziness of an assisted (not completely automated) version of the same task had a 0.005% risk it would still be unacceptable when compared with the 100% human-error rate. Morally, I can't wrap my head around the reasoning. More deaths seems to be acceptable as long as some person can be "at fault". The moment the death is "blameless" it cannot be allowed. In other words: 10,000 "someone can be blamed" deaths is better than 10 "who is to blame?" deaths.
  • Natanael_L 10y ago
    Empathy with the human, fear of change, fear of the unknown, a need to have somebody to blame...