6 ms·

Can anyone with some legal background comment on liability implications?

kss238 9y ago
IANAL but I would presume the same as when a human is driving a car.
awestroke 9y ago
IANAL, but it seems straightforward to me. The vehicle will have to be fully insured. While this is a strange concept in America, where each driver is insured for a specific vehicle, this is how insurance is done in many countries in Europe; an insured vehicle is insured no matter who drives it. So American insurance companies will just need to start insuring vehicles by themselves, and if something happens then the insurance company will pay up.
- simion314 9y ago
  But is not only about the money, humans can lose their freedom from major accidents, what if you get a bad update or bad sensors and your car kills some people, some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company. I do not want some manager to think something like "don't worry about that bug, it is very rare so insurance will cover us in case something bad happens, we need to push the update now"
  - dx034 9y ago
    > But is not only about the money, humans can lose their freedom from major accidents, what if you get a bad update or bad sensors and your car kills some people, some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company. Software automation has already happened in other areas. If the bug was introduced on purpose or if there was insufficient oversight/negligence, people can go to jail. Not not any error automatically is a crime. If you kill someone with your car that doesn't mean that you'll be charged even if the accident was your fault.
    - simion314 9y ago
      I understand but is there something in place to handle this issue, you would need people that will analyze the car software, the updates, the practices and decide who is responsible, my question is there something in place or we need to wait for this laws to appear ?
      - MBCook 9y ago
        Right. How many people will be horribly injured or die in ‘the incident’ that leads to the lawsuit that gets these companies to take this stuff seriously.
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    > some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company That's already how insurance works. You pay by paying for insurance premiums. Why do you think people shouldn't be allowed to use insurance to cover accidents in just this situation?
    - simion314 9y ago
      Say the manager knows about a bug in the AI but it consider that is more expensive to wait and properly fix it then push an update with the bug present. Should the decision of fixing or not a bug that can cause lives be influenced only by how much will insurance cost? I am not arguing that a person should pay with his freedom for a mistake, people do mistake, I am afraid that the bad behavior from software industry will apply to self driving cars, the move fast and brake things mentality,ship with known bugs etc.
      - chrisseaton 9y ago
        > Should the decision of fixing or not a bug that can cause lives be influenced only by how much will insurance cost? But the price of the insurance takes into account the risk of a bug costing a life. They know if they make riskier decisions their insurance premiums will go up. Insurance doesn't magically remove costs. It just amortises them. Loss adjusters have been experts at this for centuries.
        simion314 9y ago
        >But the price of the insurance takes into account the risk of a bug costing a life. The possible problem is who sets this price for a life, it needs to be high enough but not absurd.
        chrisseaton 9y ago
        But this isn't a new problem at all. Loss adjusters have already been doing this for many industries where someone can be killed. Insurance for normal cars already does it even! Why are self-driving cars any different?
- azag0 9y ago
  Ok, that's financial liability. What about criminal liability? What if the car breaks rules and kills someone. Will the programmers be responsible? The CEO? Can companies be criminally convicted in the US? Or will it be on par with other "machine accidents", where there is typically no criminal responsibility?
  - awestroke 9y ago
    I don't understand this obsession with finding someone to hold responsible for an accident before the accident happens. When an accident with self-driving cars actually happen, if someone is found to have committed a crime, that person will be charged.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      If you run a red light and kill someone, it's pretty clear who is responsible though. If a driverless car runs a red light because of a hardware defect, who is? No one? Or do you think there will be a committee trying to establish what exactly went wrong and where? With planes, when autopilot does something stupid, Boeing/Airbus will ground all planes of the same type until they can figure out what the issue is. I can't imagine we will ever hold cars to the same standard as we hold airplanes, that's just impossible.
      - awestroke 9y ago
        Sometimes, nobody should be held responsible. It's called an accident.
        diggernet 9y ago
        And if nobody is held responsible, there is no risk for a company to put shoddy software on the street.
        ergothus 9y ago
        At which point they've crossed the line into a crime, so liability is a crime. These concepts are already in play in other industries that use software on devices that could harm or kill.
- gambiting 9y ago
  >> this is how insurance is done in many countries in Europe. Not all though. For example in Poland you insure the vehicle and anyone with a valid driver licence is allowed to drive it and is fully covered. As a matter of fact it's enshrined in law that insurance companies have to provide cover no matter who drives the car, as long as there is insurance on the car.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Strange normally insurance is tied to the person in the UK
    - gambiting 9y ago
      I know, it was really strange to me when I moved to UK - what do you mean, I can't just let someone else drive my car? I have to add them to my insurance? Why? I mean, I understand how it works now, but to me it still seems like an excuse to extract a lot more money from British drivers.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - jk563 9y ago
        I'm not sure about that. The flip side of that is that my standard insurance insures me on my car, but I'm also insured to drive someone else's car too without further premiums required.
        walshemj 9y ago
        So an experienced driver is subsidizing young drivers
        gambiting 9y ago
        Well.....that's not quite true - British insurance usually covers you for driving other cars, but only gives you 3rd party insurance....so I would never risk driving someone's car unless it was some really old beater not worth much.
ghaff 9y ago
The manufacturer is the one "driving" the vehicle so I would assume that they have all the liability. As an occupant, it's certainly in no way my responsibility if a vehicle I'm just sitting in hits a pedestrian or otherwise gets into an accident. It also looks as if there will still be a safety driver; they will just be remote vs. being in the car.
- adventured 9y ago
  That prompts an unusual edge case for passenger liability. Idiots doing things to the vehicle as it's driving. Inevitably across a zillion miles, passengers will do everything that can be done to a vehicle. They're guaranteed to cause wrecks in the early years (even if it's extraordinarily rare), until or unless the manufacturer idiot-proofs everything in the style of the inside of a McDonald's. So does the manufacturer carry liability for the behavior of the people inside, or will that be pushed on to the passenger. I suspect it'll be a dual case scenario, the manufacturer will have to carry some passenger liability for such events, and the passenger will still be simultaneously pursued.
walshemj 9y ago
Might be interesting to compare this to other engineering doctrines if say a bridge collapses the supervising engineer personally can get in trouble. Do the senior engineers in these firms have professional liability insurance
- ghaff 9y ago
  I don't know how common it is, but professional liability insurance for engineers definitely exists. I expect that it's more common for consultants and others operating their own businesses than it is for employees of large companies. But there are certainly areas like construction where someone with a professional engineer license has to sign off on drawings where it may be more of a thing.
  - simion314 9y ago
    That sounds fair, you would have a software lead that will be responsible for the software, then the management can't push him around to release fast, he would make sure to follow all the rules (we would need rules if those are not there yet, maybe NASA or airplanes industry has such rules).
da_chicken 9y ago
Damage liability remains with the vehicle owner, just like if you loan a vehicle to a friend. You don't insure your ability to drive safely; you insure the vehicle for damages to it and caused by it. Fault will likely be determined exactly how it is for a human driver.
rhino369 9y ago
Not my particular area of expertise, but you can probably go after everyone involved: Operators and owners--negligence for using car without a driver, strict liability for ultra-hazardous activity Manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and anyone who makes products available--are liable under products liability for any manufacturing defect, design defect, or failure to warn of dangers. Potential criminal penalties for anyone involved (including engineers) if they put out cars knowing they aren't ready yet) or fake results, etc. One thing that keeps most car accidents from going into full scale massive litigation is that the drivers causing the accidents are usually not worth that much money. But if I'm a plaintiff lawyer and my client got killed by a Google car? I'm not asking for the 500k dollars the insurance coverage provides. I'm asking for big numbers because juries are going to make Google pay for each death.

IANAL but I would presume the same as when a human is driving a car.

IANAL, but it seems straightforward to me. The vehicle will have to be fully insured. While this is a strange concept in America, where each driver is insured for a specific vehicle, this is how insurance is done in many countries in Europe; an insured vehicle is insured no matter who drives it. So American insurance companies will just need to start insuring vehicles by themselves, and if something happens then the insurance company will pay up.

simion314 9y ago
But is not only about the money, humans can lose their freedom from major accidents, what if you get a bad update or bad sensors and your car kills some people, some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company. I do not want some manager to think something like "don't worry about that bug, it is very rare so insurance will cover us in case something bad happens, we need to push the update now"
- dx034 9y ago
  > But is not only about the money, humans can lose their freedom from major accidents, what if you get a bad update or bad sensors and your car kills some people, some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company. Software automation has already happened in other areas. If the bug was introduced on purpose or if there was insufficient oversight/negligence, people can go to jail. Not not any error automatically is a crime. If you kill someone with your car that doesn't mean that you'll be charged even if the accident was your fault.
  - simion314 9y ago
    I understand but is there something in place to handle this issue, you would need people that will analyze the car software, the updates, the practices and decide who is responsible, my question is there something in place or we need to wait for this laws to appear ?
    - MBCook 9y ago
      Right. How many people will be horribly injured or die in ‘the incident’ that leads to the lawsuit that gets these companies to take this stuff seriously.
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  > some engineers or managers should have to pay if they did something wrong and not point to the insurance company That's already how insurance works. You pay by paying for insurance premiums. Why do you think people shouldn't be allowed to use insurance to cover accidents in just this situation?
  - simion314 9y ago
    Say the manager knows about a bug in the AI but it consider that is more expensive to wait and properly fix it then push an update with the bug present. Should the decision of fixing or not a bug that can cause lives be influenced only by how much will insurance cost? I am not arguing that a person should pay with his freedom for a mistake, people do mistake, I am afraid that the bad behavior from software industry will apply to self driving cars, the move fast and brake things mentality,ship with known bugs etc.
    - chrisseaton 9y ago
      > Should the decision of fixing or not a bug that can cause lives be influenced only by how much will insurance cost? But the price of the insurance takes into account the risk of a bug costing a life. They know if they make riskier decisions their insurance premiums will go up. Insurance doesn't magically remove costs. It just amortises them. Loss adjusters have been experts at this for centuries.
      - simion314 9y ago
        >But the price of the insurance takes into account the risk of a bug costing a life. The possible problem is who sets this price for a life, it needs to be high enough but not absurd.
        chrisseaton 9y ago
        But this isn't a new problem at all. Loss adjusters have already been doing this for many industries where someone can be killed. Insurance for normal cars already does it even! Why are self-driving cars any different?
azag0 9y ago
Ok, that's financial liability. What about criminal liability? What if the car breaks rules and kills someone. Will the programmers be responsible? The CEO? Can companies be criminally convicted in the US? Or will it be on par with other "machine accidents", where there is typically no criminal responsibility?
- awestroke 9y ago
  I don't understand this obsession with finding someone to hold responsible for an accident before the accident happens. When an accident with self-driving cars actually happen, if someone is found to have committed a crime, that person will be charged.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    If you run a red light and kill someone, it's pretty clear who is responsible though. If a driverless car runs a red light because of a hardware defect, who is? No one? Or do you think there will be a committee trying to establish what exactly went wrong and where? With planes, when autopilot does something stupid, Boeing/Airbus will ground all planes of the same type until they can figure out what the issue is. I can't imagine we will ever hold cars to the same standard as we hold airplanes, that's just impossible.
    - awestroke 9y ago
      Sometimes, nobody should be held responsible. It's called an accident.
      - diggernet 9y ago
        And if nobody is held responsible, there is no risk for a company to put shoddy software on the street.
        ergothus 9y ago
        At which point they've crossed the line into a crime, so liability is a crime. These concepts are already in play in other industries that use software on devices that could harm or kill.
gambiting 9y ago
>> this is how insurance is done in many countries in Europe. Not all though. For example in Poland you insure the vehicle and anyone with a valid driver licence is allowed to drive it and is fully covered. As a matter of fact it's enshrined in law that insurance companies have to provide cover no matter who drives the car, as long as there is insurance on the car.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Strange normally insurance is tied to the person in the UK
  - gambiting 9y ago
    I know, it was really strange to me when I moved to UK - what do you mean, I can't just let someone else drive my car? I have to add them to my insurance? Why? I mean, I understand how it works now, but to me it still seems like an excuse to extract a lot more money from British drivers.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - jk563 9y ago
      I'm not sure about that. The flip side of that is that my standard insurance insures me on my car, but I'm also insured to drive someone else's car too without further premiums required.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        So an experienced driver is subsidizing young drivers
      - gambiting 9y ago
        Well.....that's not quite true - British insurance usually covers you for driving other cars, but only gives you 3rd party insurance....so I would never risk driving someone's car unless it was some really old beater not worth much.

ghaff 9y ago

The manufacturer is the one "driving" the vehicle so I would assume that they have all the liability. As an occupant, it's certainly in no way my responsibility if a vehicle I'm just sitting in hits a pedestrian or otherwise gets into an accident. It also looks as if there will still be a safety driver; they will just be remote vs. being in the car.

adventured 9y ago
That prompts an unusual edge case for passenger liability. Idiots doing things to the vehicle as it's driving. Inevitably across a zillion miles, passengers will do everything that can be done to a vehicle. They're guaranteed to cause wrecks in the early years (even if it's extraordinarily rare), until or unless the manufacturer idiot-proofs everything in the style of the inside of a McDonald's. So does the manufacturer carry liability for the behavior of the people inside, or will that be pushed on to the passenger. I suspect it'll be a dual case scenario, the manufacturer will have to carry some passenger liability for such events, and the passenger will still be simultaneously pursued.

walshemj 9y ago

Might be interesting to compare this to other engineering doctrines if say a bridge collapses the supervising engineer personally can get in trouble. Do the senior engineers in these firms have professional liability insurance

ghaff 9y ago
I don't know how common it is, but professional liability insurance for engineers definitely exists. I expect that it's more common for consultants and others operating their own businesses than it is for employees of large companies. But there are certainly areas like construction where someone with a professional engineer license has to sign off on drawings where it may be more of a thing.
- simion314 9y ago
  That sounds fair, you would have a software lead that will be responsible for the software, then the management can't push him around to release fast, he would make sure to follow all the rules (we would need rules if those are not there yet, maybe NASA or airplanes industry has such rules).

da_chicken 9y ago

Damage liability remains with the vehicle owner, just like if you loan a vehicle to a friend. You don't insure your ability to drive safely; you insure the vehicle for damages to it and caused by it. Fault will likely be determined exactly how it is for a human driver.

rhino369 9y ago

Not my particular area of expertise, but you can probably go after everyone involved: Operators and owners--negligence for using car without a driver, strict liability for ultra-hazardous activity Manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and anyone who makes products available--are liable under products liability for any manufacturing defect, design defect, or failure to warn of dangers. Potential criminal penalties for anyone involved (including engineers) if they put out cars knowing they aren't ready yet) or fake results, etc. One thing that keeps most car accidents from going into full scale massive litigation is that the drivers causing the accidents are usually not worth that much money. But if I'm a plaintiff lawyer and my client got killed by a Google car? I'm not asking for the 500k dollars the insurance coverage provides. I'm asking for big numbers because juries are going to make Google pay for each death.