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>I'm happy to take the risk to crash with a sleepy fleshdriver, but I'm not ok with crashing due to a software bug. I find this very hard to understand, especi

>I'm happy to take the risk to crash with a sleepy fleshdriver, but I'm not ok with crashing due to a software bug. I find this very hard to understand, especially when you're making the choice on behalf of others. Would you drive your children to school, knowing that you're making them less safe, just so that if they do die it's your fault rather than that of some programmer?

tremon 9y ago
What's the hard to understand part? The programmer is not the one facing a life-or-death decision when a driving hazard occurs -- the driver is.
- OscarCunningham 9y ago
  Sure, which might mean that the programmer is more careless and might cause more crashes. But if you've already stipulated that the driverless cars are safe than driven ones, then that fact is irrelevant. The program has already been written and if it is in fact safer than my own driving then I would want to use it.
- msl 9y ago
  It seems to me that people are actually more likely to take unreasonable risks when they have to make these calls on the spot. We often overestimate our ability to handle difficult situations and are prone to valuing "getting there in time" more than playing it safe. NASA is known to define a set of strict and absolute mission rules before the beginning of a mission for just this reason. See for example the rules defined for various Apollo missions [1]. Note how those rules define all sorts of limits and abort triggering conditions. This is done because there is always a desire accomplish the mission even when something has gone wrong. [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-MissionRules.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-MissionRules.html
alkonaut 9y ago
I'm not entirely sure why I accept being hit by a drunk driver but not by an AI driver. I suspect that first of all, my reasoning can not be backed up by pure reasoning and numbers, so any attempt to say that "look, our AI is safer than humans we should allow it" is probably doomed to fail (I mean I'm a bloody programmer by trade and even I refuse to accept simple statistical arguments in this case! - what will then "regular" people think?) But perhaps the most convincing argument is that even the drunk, sleepy or sloppy driver at least takes a reciprocal risk in traffic. The one thing that makes me believe that people try their best to avoid hitting me is that we will both be in the accident. Simply put: we are sort of fine with being put at risk by human behavior. That's part of of the risks we have already accepted. This is a new risk and even if it reduces another risk (fewer human drivers) we classify it as a "new risk" and we are risk averse.

tremon 9y ago

What's the hard to understand part? The programmer is not the one facing a life-or-death decision when a driving hazard occurs -- the driver is.

OscarCunningham 9y ago
Sure, which might mean that the programmer is more careless and might cause more crashes. But if you've already stipulated that the driverless cars are safe than driven ones, then that fact is irrelevant. The program has already been written and if it is in fact safer than my own driving then I would want to use it.
msl 9y ago
It seems to me that people are actually more likely to take unreasonable risks when they have to make these calls on the spot. We often overestimate our ability to handle difficult situations and are prone to valuing "getting there in time" more than playing it safe. NASA is known to define a set of strict and absolute mission rules before the beginning of a mission for just this reason. See for example the rules defined for various Apollo missions [1]. Note how those rules define all sorts of limits and abort triggering conditions. This is done because there is always a desire accomplish the mission even when something has gone wrong. [1] https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-MissionRules.html https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/alsj-MissionRules.html

alkonaut 9y ago

I'm not entirely sure why I accept being hit by a drunk driver but not by an AI driver. I suspect that first of all, my reasoning can not be backed up by pure reasoning and numbers, so any attempt to say that "look, our AI is safer than humans we should allow it" is probably doomed to fail (I mean I'm a bloody programmer by trade and even I refuse to accept simple statistical arguments in this case! - what will then "regular" people think?) But perhaps the most convincing argument is that even the drunk, sleepy or sloppy driver at least takes a reciprocal risk in traffic. The one thing that makes me believe that people try their best to avoid hitting me is that we will both be in the accident. Simply put: we are sort of fine with being put at risk by human behavior. That's part of of the risks we have already accepted. This is a new risk and even if it reduces another risk (fewer human drivers) we classify it as a "new risk" and we are risk averse.