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It's a sad reality, but regardless of how many times per day a pedestrian is hit by a human-driven car, such incidents involving self-driving cars will be headl

It's a sad reality, but regardless of how many times per day a pedestrian is hit by a human-driven car, such incidents involving self-driving cars will be headline news for years to come.

ambivalents 9y ago
Having a hard time sympathizing here. It's one thing to fear air travel based on the very few but very publicized plane incidents (considering all the data we have on the safety of air travel). It's another thing to hold these self-driving car companies accountable, considering a) the lack of data and history of such programs, and b) their touted benefit as a safer alternative to human-driven cars.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- FeepingCreature 9y ago
  It's not about sympathy. It's about one question: do they kill fewer or more people than humans per mile? If they kill fewer people, they can be run by a joint venture of Satan and the Mafia for all I care.
  - bonzini 9y ago
    If the miles are not enough, they kill less until they first kill someone. At which point they kill several orders of magnitude more. # of events per something are not always a statistically valid way to measure things.
    - Dayshine 9y ago
      Well, the miles are enough...
      - shkkmo 9y ago
        Only if you aggregate them across companies and ignore the fact that the distribution those miles are not comparable to to distribution of human driven miles.
    - GavinMcG 9y ago
      Do you really think there's too little data by now, or are you just making a technical point that isn't actually relevant to this specific situation?
      - bonzini 9y ago
        As far as I know Uber has done pretty few miles, compared for example to Alphabet, so it is relevant.
  - ambivalents 9y ago
    The entire potential of self-driving cars shouldn't be dismissed based on accidents like this - that would be an unfortunate side effect of these headlines. But I also reckon this coverage actually incentivizes better and safer programs. It's such early days, we simply need more data to form sound opinions. In the meantime, journalism is serving an important role here.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    So far: more, by a factor of 20-25.
  - snarfy 9y ago
    From the comments above, this question is answered. Uber is around 25x worse than humans.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    What if self driving cars kill less people, but the type of people they kill are different from the type of people who die in human driving accidents? For example, what if instead of 100 people per day dying from human-driven car accidents(where 95 of them are car drivers/passengers, and the other 5 are pedestrians/bicyclists), self-driving cars only kill 30 people per day, but 28 out of 30 are pedestrians/bicyclists?
  - ino 9y ago
    If human behavior on the street changes because of the fear of autonomous cars, life on the streets and the streets themselves will be much shittier. I can see banning autonomous vehicles in city centers.
asah 9y ago
As they should: humans fail independently, but autonomous cars can fail systemically, including hacking. Bicycles are known to be tricky for autonomous cars.
awakeasleep 9y ago
Wow. This is dark but it feels real to me. I had been assuming that self driving cars would be a 'reset' for our decision to value cars more than the countless lives they end. Self driving cars could take the irrationality and emotion out of driving. It would be America's "stop the murder of children" moment (The Netherlands rallying cry to reform auto traffic in 1970's). But now I see that it can, and probably will go the other way. These giant companies could push to further restrict the rights of cyclists/pedestrians around roadways, vilify the 'stupid' people who made a reckless decision that resulted in an accident, and push our country even further into car culture.
waynecochran 9y ago
Even if its provable that self driving cars are 10x safer, every accident of this unfortunate kind will be used against autonomous cars. I don't see how to overcome this -- I don't expect reason will overcome the perceived danger.
brbrodude 9y ago
You're goddamn blind. Yes, of course it matters more if I'm killed by an AI machine than it does if I'm killed by another human being. This is a new development, humans killing humans are not. What if it was autonomous warfare? It is surely coming about in a very near shipment, SOON. The world and history are not static, and techno-utopia is big fat lie, and the idea that things just get better as time advances frontwards is plain infantile. Reality is way more fucked up than you can imagine.
- dang 9y ago
  > You're goddamn blind. We ban accounts that do this. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting if you want to keep commenting here.

It's a sad reality, but regardless of how many times per day a pedestrian is hit by a human-driven car, such incidents involving self-driving cars will be headline news for years to come.

ambivalents 9y ago

Having a hard time sympathizing here. It's one thing to fear air travel based on the very few but very publicized plane incidents (considering all the data we have on the safety of air travel). It's another thing to hold these self-driving car companies accountable, considering a) the lack of data and history of such programs, and b) their touted benefit as a safer alternative to human-driven cars.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
FeepingCreature 9y ago
It's not about sympathy. It's about one question: do they kill fewer or more people than humans per mile? If they kill fewer people, they can be run by a joint venture of Satan and the Mafia for all I care.
- bonzini 9y ago
  If the miles are not enough, they kill less until they first kill someone. At which point they kill several orders of magnitude more. # of events per something are not always a statistically valid way to measure things.
  - Dayshine 9y ago
    Well, the miles are enough...
    - shkkmo 9y ago
      Only if you aggregate them across companies and ignore the fact that the distribution those miles are not comparable to to distribution of human driven miles.
  - GavinMcG 9y ago
    Do you really think there's too little data by now, or are you just making a technical point that isn't actually relevant to this specific situation?
    - bonzini 9y ago
      As far as I know Uber has done pretty few miles, compared for example to Alphabet, so it is relevant.
- ambivalents 9y ago
  The entire potential of self-driving cars shouldn't be dismissed based on accidents like this - that would be an unfortunate side effect of these headlines. But I also reckon this coverage actually incentivizes better and safer programs. It's such early days, we simply need more data to form sound opinions. In the meantime, journalism is serving an important role here.
- tptacek 9y ago
  So far: more, by a factor of 20-25.
- snarfy 9y ago
  From the comments above, this question is answered. Uber is around 25x worse than humans.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  What if self driving cars kill less people, but the type of people they kill are different from the type of people who die in human driving accidents? For example, what if instead of 100 people per day dying from human-driven car accidents(where 95 of them are car drivers/passengers, and the other 5 are pedestrians/bicyclists), self-driving cars only kill 30 people per day, but 28 out of 30 are pedestrians/bicyclists?
- ino 9y ago
  If human behavior on the street changes because of the fear of autonomous cars, life on the streets and the streets themselves will be much shittier. I can see banning autonomous vehicles in city centers.

asah 9y ago

As they should: humans fail independently, but autonomous cars can fail systemically, including hacking. Bicycles are known to be tricky for autonomous cars.

awakeasleep 9y ago

Wow. This is dark but it feels real to me. I had been assuming that self driving cars would be a 'reset' for our decision to value cars more than the countless lives they end. Self driving cars could take the irrationality and emotion out of driving. It would be America's "stop the murder of children" moment (The Netherlands rallying cry to reform auto traffic in 1970's). But now I see that it can, and probably will go the other way. These giant companies could push to further restrict the rights of cyclists/pedestrians around roadways, vilify the 'stupid' people who made a reckless decision that resulted in an accident, and push our country even further into car culture.

waynecochran 9y ago

Even if its provable that self driving cars are 10x safer, every accident of this unfortunate kind will be used against autonomous cars. I don't see how to overcome this -- I don't expect reason will overcome the perceived danger.

brbrodude 9y ago

You're goddamn blind. Yes, of course it matters more if I'm killed by an AI machine than it does if I'm killed by another human being. This is a new development, humans killing humans are not. What if it was autonomous warfare? It is surely coming about in a very near shipment, SOON. The world and history are not static, and techno-utopia is big fat lie, and the idea that things just get better as time advances frontwards is plain infantile. Reality is way more fucked up than you can imagine.

dang 9y ago
> You're goddamn blind. We ban accounts that do this. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting if you want to keep commenting here.