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You're not looking at the whole picture here. What's your odds of being killed by a drunk/inattentive/inexperienced driver vs odds of being killed by randomware

You're not looking at the whole picture here. What's your odds of being killed by a drunk/inattentive/inexperienced driver vs odds of being killed by randomware? Road fatalities are already the number 1 killer of some age groups, its estimated that over a million people worldwide die on the roads every year. Around 40,000 in the US last year. If we trade 40,000 road deaths for 10,000 ransomware deaths, it's a massive improvement. Ignoring that, that ransomware wont' even exist for a number of reasons, the biggest being it wouldn't be profitable. Ransomware authors aren't going to get a payout, very few people are going to be able to buy Bitcoin in 30 minutes while unable to leave their car even if they wanted to. Not only that, it isn't remotely difficult to have a manual, physical, kill switch that physically stops the car in a life or death situation. Even if you didn't have a kill switch, you could simply call the police and they can lay down a spike strip. >who are careful because they fear their own death just as much as I do. LOL! That's a good one! Have you actually even been on the roads before!?! When I worked drive thru I had people who were so drunk they could hardly form a sentence come through my drive thru. That's just ONE example. You share the road with these upstanding citizens who are clearly very careful and concerned for their own wellbeing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcnuIWNv8lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcnuIWNv8lw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hddt4bWNns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hddt4bWNns

c22 9y ago
What are the odds of a single drunk driver killing thousands of people?
- bdamm 9y ago
  What are the odds of many drunk drivers killing thousands of people? p(x)=1.0, it happens every year.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    Humans are bad at risk assessment. You won't convince everyone a self-driving car is safer with math.
    - c22 9y ago
      I agree that self driving cars have the potential to be much safer in the long run, but the concern that a single error could have outsized consequences is too serious to just be swept under the rug because "lol driving is already scary". How many drunk programmers are out there?
Spivak 9y ago
If you're going to actually get people to change their opinion you should really give your own position the most uncharitable phrasing. > Road fatalities are already the number 1 killer of some age groups You're hiding a weakness in your argument by not specifying the age groups. You're hiding a weakness in your argument by restricting to cross-sections of the population that support your argument. You're misleading your listener by hiding the fact that this statement isn't because traffic accidents are unusually high, but that other causes of death are unusually low. > Around 40,000 in the US last year. Careful using absolute numbers, using 40,000 which is a very small number compared to other kinds of deaths like hard disease (800,000 deaths last year) can be misleading because 40,000 sounds like a big number. > its estimated that over a million people worldwide die on the roads every year You're hiding the fact that the US has 4% of the world's automobile deaths but 20% of the world's cars. You're using aggregate data to smooth over deaths that are caused by dangerous driving environments, roads, or ineffective traffic laws and misleading your listener into assuming that they're caused by human error. Total deaths is not a useful statistic. The deaths that could have been prevented by L4 autonomous cars but could have not been prevented by L1-L3 or more conventional safety practices is what you should be presenting. Give as little surface area as possible to people who would use it to push back.

c22 9y ago

What are the odds of a single drunk driver killing thousands of people?

bdamm 9y ago
What are the odds of many drunk drivers killing thousands of people? p(x)=1.0, it happens every year.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  Humans are bad at risk assessment. You won't convince everyone a self-driving car is safer with math.
  - c22 9y ago
    I agree that self driving cars have the potential to be much safer in the long run, but the concern that a single error could have outsized consequences is too serious to just be swept under the rug because "lol driving is already scary". How many drunk programmers are out there?

Spivak 9y ago

If you're going to actually get people to change their opinion you should really give your own position the most uncharitable phrasing. > Road fatalities are already the number 1 killer of some age groups You're hiding a weakness in your argument by not specifying the age groups. You're hiding a weakness in your argument by restricting to cross-sections of the population that support your argument. You're misleading your listener by hiding the fact that this statement isn't because traffic accidents are unusually high, but that other causes of death are unusually low. > Around 40,000 in the US last year. Careful using absolute numbers, using 40,000 which is a very small number compared to other kinds of deaths like hard disease (800,000 deaths last year) can be misleading because 40,000 sounds like a big number. > its estimated that over a million people worldwide die on the roads every year You're hiding the fact that the US has 4% of the world's automobile deaths but 20% of the world's cars. You're using aggregate data to smooth over deaths that are caused by dangerous driving environments, roads, or ineffective traffic laws and misleading your listener into assuming that they're caused by human error. Total deaths is not a useful statistic. The deaths that could have been prevented by L4 autonomous cars but could have not been prevented by L1-L3 or more conventional safety practices is what you should be presenting. Give as little surface area as possible to people who would use it to push back.