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Waiting for the headline: "Human Fails to Prevent Accident, Outraged Public Calls for Banning of all Human Drivers" The obsession with perfection in self-drivi

Waiting for the headline: "Human Fails to Prevent Accident, Outraged Public Calls for Banning of all Human Drivers" The obsession with perfection in self-driving cars is misplaced, they just need to be demonstrably better than humans. This is obviously the future.

Twisell 10y ago
Or an alternate headline : "Telsa confirm they will always say its the customer fault!"
NamTaf 10y ago
At the very least in a legal standpoint that's not true, because with a human driver it's far easier to define fault (which in turn allows for the issue to be resolved) than if two autopilots happen to collide. Who pays for what then? From a safety point of view, I'm more inclined to agree however I'm not entirely convinced that we've passed the novelty stage of it yet where drivers will remain vigilant because it's a new and exciting feature and that mentally primes them to keep focused. It wouldn't suprise me that as it becomes more mainstream, drivers begin to be less vigilant on staying focused as society as a whole begins to trust it more. That's when everything could go bad. Nevertheless, you're absolutely right that this is the future no matter what so we need to design it as best we can to resolve all of the issues it may give rise to.
- furyg3 10y ago
  There's all sorts of cases in real life now when defining fault is not at all easy. Children and animals are two examples of 'autonomous' individuals who's liability may lie with another party (parent/owner), buy also may not, depending on the circumstances. Additionally, who's at 'fault' really doesn't matter when in most cases the damages are fully outsourced to insurance providers. In the case of autonomous driving, this insurance burden is shifted up a level to the automaker, but this cost will be passed on to the car's owner in some way, either in the cost of the car or a subscription to autonomous driving. However if autonomous driving is safer than non-autonomous driving, premiums will go down, probably dramatically. Insurance companies can much more easily monitor the quality of autonomous driving for various automakers / cars either by the testing specification that they meet or the real-world statistics. Are autonomous Tesla's in less accidents than autonomous Volvo's? Cheaper premiums for Tesla. This is exactly the situation you want to be in. Premiums for individuals are blunt instrument... it's hard to change many individuals behavior, the rewards may be low for the individual (save $3 on your premium!), and the penalties can be pretty random (you sped that one time so you're a high risk driver... or are there just more police in your city?). It's way better to incentivize at a higher level, like the automaker. The only case where automakers would truly be at risk is something they should control, and that is if they pulled a VW and committed fraud on their autonomous driving tests, or were negligent in overlooking scenarios or providing updates.

Twisell 10y ago

Or an alternate headline : "Telsa confirm they will always say its the customer fault!"

NamTaf 10y ago

At the very least in a legal standpoint that's not true, because with a human driver it's far easier to define fault (which in turn allows for the issue to be resolved) than if two autopilots happen to collide. Who pays for what then? From a safety point of view, I'm more inclined to agree however I'm not entirely convinced that we've passed the novelty stage of it yet where drivers will remain vigilant because it's a new and exciting feature and that mentally primes them to keep focused. It wouldn't suprise me that as it becomes more mainstream, drivers begin to be less vigilant on staying focused as society as a whole begins to trust it more. That's when everything could go bad. Nevertheless, you're absolutely right that this is the future no matter what so we need to design it as best we can to resolve all of the issues it may give rise to.

furyg3 10y ago
There's all sorts of cases in real life now when defining fault is not at all easy. Children and animals are two examples of 'autonomous' individuals who's liability may lie with another party (parent/owner), buy also may not, depending on the circumstances. Additionally, who's at 'fault' really doesn't matter when in most cases the damages are fully outsourced to insurance providers. In the case of autonomous driving, this insurance burden is shifted up a level to the automaker, but this cost will be passed on to the car's owner in some way, either in the cost of the car or a subscription to autonomous driving. However if autonomous driving is safer than non-autonomous driving, premiums will go down, probably dramatically. Insurance companies can much more easily monitor the quality of autonomous driving for various automakers / cars either by the testing specification that they meet or the real-world statistics. Are autonomous Tesla's in less accidents than autonomous Volvo's? Cheaper premiums for Tesla. This is exactly the situation you want to be in. Premiums for individuals are blunt instrument... it's hard to change many individuals behavior, the rewards may be low for the individual (save $3 on your premium!), and the penalties can be pretty random (you sped that one time so you're a high risk driver... or are there just more police in your city?). It's way better to incentivize at a higher level, like the automaker. The only case where automakers would truly be at risk is something they should control, and that is if they pulled a VW and committed fraud on their autonomous driving tests, or were negligent in overlooking scenarios or providing updates.