35 ms·

Then you and other people like you can volunteer to work at a test track as obstacles. Leave the rest of us out of it. You’re entitled to your utopian fantasy o

Then you and other people like you can volunteer to work at a test track as obstacles. Leave the rest of us out of it. You’re entitled to your utopian fantasy of what might be, and the best way to express that is to put your life on the line instead of volunteering others to do it. Statements like this seem to be trying to make the point that any amount of increased public risk is unacceptable unless everyone opts in to accept it. No, statements like mine reject the notion that sacrificing lives today for the possibility of an unproven improvement sat some unspecified later date is morally reprehensible. My answer is to invite the person endorsing this to put their own life on the line instead. If we were talking about medical testing on humans instead of cars, maybe it would be easier for some to understand. “It’s so bad today, the only course of action is to act recklessly to improve things as fast as possible!” is a thoroughly rejected argument.

zaroth 8y ago
Statements like this seem to be trying to make the point that any amount of increased public risk is unacceptable unless everyone opts in to accept it. I find this argument entirely uncompelling. There are an inordinate amount of risks imposed upon me while operating in society which I neither agreed to nor would I given the choice, aside from in a hand-wavy “social contract” sense. However as a member of society I am in fact compelled to accept myriad risks on a daily basis imposed on me for the benefit of others, or the benefit of potential scientific advancement. This concept that a society cannot morally make risk-reward decisions in the course of technological advancement is entire bunk IMO. Government can absolutely morally make these trade offs and does so constantly. I feel pretty good about the current legal and regulatory frameworks and the technical chops of the NTSB to monitor developments in self-driving R&D adequately. One thing I am certain of is that we absolutely must succeed in developing, productizing, deploying, and ultimately mandating self-driving technology. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars are at stake, and yes, society as a whole will incur individual loss of life in the pursuit of this goal. An attempt to develop the technology with zero risk of collateral damage would in fact cost many more lives overall.
- dbt00 8y ago
  So far, per mile driven, the fatality rates of Uber and Tesla SDVs are far higher than human drivers in statistically safer than average vehicles. Waymo has a better track record but essentially refuses to drive at significant speed -- I have yet to see a Waymo SDV place itself in a situation with a higher speed limit than 35mph, and I see them a lot.
  - mclehman 8y ago
    I regularly see the Waymo vehicles in 45 mph zones on my commute. I can't say I've seen them go any faster, but I spend about 95% of my time on roads marked 45 mph or less.
- gascan 8y ago
  See, what I hear you saying is "Other people will needlessly die, but their sacrifice is a chance I am willing to take". The public takes risks every day, but it rarely gives companies a free pass to move fast and kill people.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. This has nothing to do with sacrafice. The government necessarily makes life and death trade-offs in setting regulatory hurdles. It’s entirely unconvincing to argue that the beta driver assistance and beta self-driving technology should be banned from roads because it can’t guarantee someone won’t die. Because in fact automobiles are killing over a million people per year. Self driving automobiles are responsible for exactly 1 of those 1.25 million deaths, and driver assistance technology have contributed to about a dozen more. What is indisputably moving fast and killing people are... people driving cars. The singular solution to this ongoing bloodbath may be only a few years away. But you seem to want millions of people to continue dying because of a misappropriated Facebook slogan? I’m not a big fan of populist outrage in the best of times, but when it seeks to perpetuate the status quo of 1.25 million annual auto fatalities I think we owe it to ourselves to elevate the discussion to the point where you are actually considering the implication of your proposed solution. Every year you shift the self-driving adoption curve you are killing hundreds of thousands of people. But in the real world today this technology could arguably share the blame for about dozen deaths. Should the government ban the technology from public roads and force companies like Tesla to recall their existing functionality? There’s a hysterical appeal to emotion be made, but nothing close to a cogent logical argument. If anything, government should be pushing self-driving requirements harder than carbon limits. Instead of municipalities claiming they are going to be banning gas engines by 2030 they should be claiming they will ban steering wheels. The steering wheel is far, far deadlier.

zaroth 8y ago

Statements like this seem to be trying to make the point that any amount of increased public risk is unacceptable unless everyone opts in to accept it. I find this argument entirely uncompelling. There are an inordinate amount of risks imposed upon me while operating in society which I neither agreed to nor would I given the choice, aside from in a hand-wavy “social contract” sense. However as a member of society I am in fact compelled to accept myriad risks on a daily basis imposed on me for the benefit of others, or the benefit of potential scientific advancement. This concept that a society cannot morally make risk-reward decisions in the course of technological advancement is entire bunk IMO. Government can absolutely morally make these trade offs and does so constantly. I feel pretty good about the current legal and regulatory frameworks and the technical chops of the NTSB to monitor developments in self-driving R&D adequately. One thing I am certain of is that we absolutely must succeed in developing, productizing, deploying, and ultimately mandating self-driving technology. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars are at stake, and yes, society as a whole will incur individual loss of life in the pursuit of this goal. An attempt to develop the technology with zero risk of collateral damage would in fact cost many more lives overall.

dbt00 8y ago
So far, per mile driven, the fatality rates of Uber and Tesla SDVs are far higher than human drivers in statistically safer than average vehicles. Waymo has a better track record but essentially refuses to drive at significant speed -- I have yet to see a Waymo SDV place itself in a situation with a higher speed limit than 35mph, and I see them a lot.
- mclehman 8y ago
  I regularly see the Waymo vehicles in 45 mph zones on my commute. I can't say I've seen them go any faster, but I spend about 95% of my time on roads marked 45 mph or less.
gascan 8y ago
See, what I hear you saying is "Other people will needlessly die, but their sacrifice is a chance I am willing to take". The public takes risks every day, but it rarely gives companies a free pass to move fast and kill people.
- zaroth 8y ago
  I am saying we all go out into a chaotic world every day and face technology which companies have put into the world for their own profit-seeking motive which is just as likely (if not significantly more-so) to kill us as a self driving car. This has nothing to do with sacrafice. The government necessarily makes life and death trade-offs in setting regulatory hurdles. It’s entirely unconvincing to argue that the beta driver assistance and beta self-driving technology should be banned from roads because it can’t guarantee someone won’t die. Because in fact automobiles are killing over a million people per year. Self driving automobiles are responsible for exactly 1 of those 1.25 million deaths, and driver assistance technology have contributed to about a dozen more. What is indisputably moving fast and killing people are... people driving cars. The singular solution to this ongoing bloodbath may be only a few years away. But you seem to want millions of people to continue dying because of a misappropriated Facebook slogan? I’m not a big fan of populist outrage in the best of times, but when it seeks to perpetuate the status quo of 1.25 million annual auto fatalities I think we owe it to ourselves to elevate the discussion to the point where you are actually considering the implication of your proposed solution. Every year you shift the self-driving adoption curve you are killing hundreds of thousands of people. But in the real world today this technology could arguably share the blame for about dozen deaths. Should the government ban the technology from public roads and force companies like Tesla to recall their existing functionality? There’s a hysterical appeal to emotion be made, but nothing close to a cogent logical argument. If anything, government should be pushing self-driving requirements harder than carbon limits. Instead of municipalities claiming they are going to be banning gas engines by 2030 they should be claiming they will ban steering wheels. The steering wheel is far, far deadlier.