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Exactly. The biggest impediment is going to be insurance and liability. What do you think it will cost to insure a robotic driving vehicle? On whom does the lia

Exactly. The biggest impediment is going to be insurance and liability. What do you think it will cost to insure a robotic driving vehicle? On whom does the liability fall in the case of an accident – the owner, or the manufacturer?

maxerickson 10y ago
It will likely cost less to insure self driving systems. Especially over time. It won't get ever get drunk, it won't get tired. It will be less likely to operate a vehicle that is in disrepair, it will be less likely to operate a vehicle in weather it can't cope with. It won't be in a hurry. It won't be eating. It will learn from mistakes made by other self driving systems. It's also pretty likely that whatever framework develops to license the systems will address liability (I think by requiring the operator of record to insure the vehicle).
- abalone 10y ago
  It is unclear how the existing insurance system will translate to a future where all liability is concentrated on the manufacturer. Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. All precedent is that auto manufacturers are responsible for manufacturing defects that lead to injury or death, not the owner or driver. Even the term "operator of record" has new meaning in the fully autonomous era. Bottom line if software bugs cause injury it's the software writers that are responsible. You mention many problems with human drivers. But software has been known to have bugs too, and the world is an almost infinitely complex learning environment. It is most likely that the safer future will involve the intersection and mutual augmentation of these two control systems, not the swift replacement of one by the other. As is the case for example with aircraft.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. How often is the driver in those cases under insured? I also wonder how often criminal charges pop up for drivers that weren't being negligent.
    - abalone 10y ago
      Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. The really serious accidents result in millions of dollars in damages (especially when lawsuits are involved). What would have been isolated to a personal backruptcy is now concentrated on the autonomous auto manufacturer. As for criminal charges, the key question is whether a bad bug can constitute negligence. That will no doubt be tested in courts when lives have been lost.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. What does 'fully insured' mean here? A sensible approach is to have liability coverage sufficient to protect your assets. That might be a lot more coverage than the legal minimum, but a large personal umbrella policy might be hundreds of dollars a year. People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance, not because it is onerously expensive.
        abalone 10y ago
        > What does 'fully insured' mean here?... People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance Not necessarily. Even "large" policies will not protect your assets from the worst cases where damages run into the millions of dollars, e.g. where you kill a family or hospitalize someone for months. You propose that everyone with coverage less than "sufficient to protect your assets" is guilty of being "under insured". But there is no amount of coverage you can pre-determine to protect your assets in all possible cases. Not unless you purchase a policy with no upper limit -- but those are rare in the auto insurance world. Thus, even if you have a "large" policy that falls on the high end of typical coverage limits, truly catastrophic cases often result in personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy courts cap the payouts. There are no such caps on auto manufacturers responsible for accidents... unless they go bankrupt too.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        I'm pretty skeptical that there are a large number of these huge claims. I tried looking for some info about it but it gets obscured by advertising for liability insurance. I would expect many of the largest settlements to involve negligence like drunk driving or excessive speed (a system might have the wrong speed for a stretch of road, but it mostly will have accurate speeds). Of course there are also ways that a driving system could be implemented negligently that don't apply to a human driver (but I sort of expect the licensing process to address that).
ksdale 10y ago
If they are really safer than human driven vehicles, then it will likely cost less to insure them than human driven vehicles. And as a higher percentage of vehicles become autonomous, the roads as a whole should get safer (assuming self driving cars are actually safer) and that will also lower insurance costs. As for liability, there is already generally strict liability when products malfunction. If the product didn't malfunction, then that would mean someone else was at fault, and the cases where there was no malfunction and no one else at fault should be rare. Regardless, there's a huge body of law out there regarding product liability. Once again, I'm assuming that autonomous vehicles deliver on the safety promises. If they become as safe as a lot of people think they can be, there will be so many fewer accidents that I don't think insurance and liability will be as big of an issue as they are now for human driven vehicles.
jrockway 10y ago
Robots in safety-critical applications are not new. Who do you sue if the fire alarm in your building fails to detect a fire? Who do you sue if the railroad crossing gates don't go down when a train is coming? Who do you sue when you're walking on the sidewalk, a bicyclist yells at a cab driver, the cab driver gets flustered, jumps the curb, and amputates one of your legs? The answer is: it's complicated. That's why we have courts. We don't even have it sorted out for human drivers yet; if you kill someone with your car, you may get off without even a ticket, you may end up in prison for manslaughter. I honestly don't think robotic drivers add any complexity: there's already infinite complexity ;)

maxerickson 10y ago

It will likely cost less to insure self driving systems. Especially over time. It won't get ever get drunk, it won't get tired. It will be less likely to operate a vehicle that is in disrepair, it will be less likely to operate a vehicle in weather it can't cope with. It won't be in a hurry. It won't be eating. It will learn from mistakes made by other self driving systems. It's also pretty likely that whatever framework develops to license the systems will address liability (I think by requiring the operator of record to insure the vehicle).

abalone 10y ago
It is unclear how the existing insurance system will translate to a future where all liability is concentrated on the manufacturer. Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. All precedent is that auto manufacturers are responsible for manufacturing defects that lead to injury or death, not the owner or driver. Even the term "operator of record" has new meaning in the fully autonomous era. Bottom line if software bugs cause injury it's the software writers that are responsible. You mention many problems with human drivers. But software has been known to have bugs too, and the world is an almost infinitely complex learning environment. It is most likely that the safer future will involve the intersection and mutual augmentation of these two control systems, not the swift replacement of one by the other. As is the case for example with aircraft.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Currently major fatal accidents often result in bankruptcies and may even incur criminal charges. They are not fully covered by insurance. How often is the driver in those cases under insured? I also wonder how often criminal charges pop up for drivers that weren't being negligent.
  - abalone 10y ago
    Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. The really serious accidents result in millions of dollars in damages (especially when lawsuits are involved). What would have been isolated to a personal backruptcy is now concentrated on the autonomous auto manufacturer. As for criminal charges, the key question is whether a bad bug can constitute negligence. That will no doubt be tested in courts when lives have been lost.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Even if fully insured, most policies have a limit under $100k/person. What does 'fully insured' mean here? A sensible approach is to have liability coverage sufficient to protect your assets. That might be a lot more coverage than the legal minimum, but a large personal umbrella policy might be hundreds of dollars a year. People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance, not because it is onerously expensive.
      - abalone 10y ago
        > What does 'fully insured' mean here?... People go bankrupt because they skimp on insurance Not necessarily. Even "large" policies will not protect your assets from the worst cases where damages run into the millions of dollars, e.g. where you kill a family or hospitalize someone for months. You propose that everyone with coverage less than "sufficient to protect your assets" is guilty of being "under insured". But there is no amount of coverage you can pre-determine to protect your assets in all possible cases. Not unless you purchase a policy with no upper limit -- but those are rare in the auto insurance world. Thus, even if you have a "large" policy that falls on the high end of typical coverage limits, truly catastrophic cases often result in personal bankruptcies. Bankruptcy courts cap the payouts. There are no such caps on auto manufacturers responsible for accidents... unless they go bankrupt too.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        I'm pretty skeptical that there are a large number of these huge claims. I tried looking for some info about it but it gets obscured by advertising for liability insurance. I would expect many of the largest settlements to involve negligence like drunk driving or excessive speed (a system might have the wrong speed for a stretch of road, but it mostly will have accurate speeds). Of course there are also ways that a driving system could be implemented negligently that don't apply to a human driver (but I sort of expect the licensing process to address that).

ksdale 10y ago

If they are really safer than human driven vehicles, then it will likely cost less to insure them than human driven vehicles. And as a higher percentage of vehicles become autonomous, the roads as a whole should get safer (assuming self driving cars are actually safer) and that will also lower insurance costs. As for liability, there is already generally strict liability when products malfunction. If the product didn't malfunction, then that would mean someone else was at fault, and the cases where there was no malfunction and no one else at fault should be rare. Regardless, there's a huge body of law out there regarding product liability. Once again, I'm assuming that autonomous vehicles deliver on the safety promises. If they become as safe as a lot of people think they can be, there will be so many fewer accidents that I don't think insurance and liability will be as big of an issue as they are now for human driven vehicles.

jrockway 10y ago

Robots in safety-critical applications are not new. Who do you sue if the fire alarm in your building fails to detect a fire? Who do you sue if the railroad crossing gates don't go down when a train is coming? Who do you sue when you're walking on the sidewalk, a bicyclist yells at a cab driver, the cab driver gets flustered, jumps the curb, and amputates one of your legs? The answer is: it's complicated. That's why we have courts. We don't even have it sorted out for human drivers yet; if you kill someone with your car, you may get off without even a ticket, you may end up in prison for manslaughter. I honestly don't think robotic drivers add any complexity: there's already infinite complexity ;)