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Because it’s impossible to guarantee that an algorithm will be 100% effective in preventing deaths. So, you either are for driverless vehicles and are willing

Because it’s impossible to guarantee that an algorithm will be 100% effective in preventing deaths. So, you either are for driverless vehicles and are willing to accept some risk, or you are against driverless vehicles driving on roads. It has to be one or the other.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
You can fail to be against something without being for it. I find it strange that people seem to have a problem with my question but no one but me seems to have a problem with someone simultaneously claiming that we need to treat training deaths as shrug-worthy while assuming that driverless vehicles will clearly eliminate huge numbers of deaths annually once they are out there. This is the first suggestion I have heard that human drivers actively need to be eliminated instead of driverless vehicles being yet one more option in an increasingly diverse transportation ecosystem. Although I no longer have a driver's license, the implication that someone might desire to outlaw human drivers someday for supposed safety reasons while simultaneously justifying accepting death by driverless vehicle seems somewhat disturbing.
- vasilipupkin 8y ago
  “You can fail to be against something without being for it.” Not sure what that means, but testing autonomous vehicles will result in deaths. So, you either decide zero deaths are acceptable and don’t test, or allow some deaths and test. There is no third option in this case
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    FYI: All caps on the internet is generally considered to be yelling and is a violation of HN guidelines.
    - vasilipupkin 8y ago
      I changed it to comply with guidelines. Feel free to respond to substance.
  - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
    Typically, when we test experimental products to gauge their safety and efficacy, we engage in informed consent with the participating parties. If everyone involved knew the risks, accepted them and moved forward, I'd agree with your premise. However, if I am walking down the street and I'm run over by a rogue autonomous vehicle, I didn't give consent. I don't think anyone would be as blasé as they are with autonomous vehicle deaths in a different situation. For example, if a potential cure for heart disease was tested by dumping it in the public water supply causing people to die, would we have posters here saying that testing such drugs will result in deaths and shrug them off?
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > If everyone involved knew the risks, accepted them and moved forward, I'd agree with your premise. Do you consent to the risks of letting 16 year olds drive? They're high, but you don't get the option. I understand not agreeing to extremely-risky self-driving cars. But if they can beat the very lax standards we use to license humans, that should be good enough. Requiring them to be infinitely more perfect than humans is nonsense. If a car drives you over, do you really care if it was a robot or a human driving? I don't. The most I can ask for is a universal bar. And all the evidence I've seen is that Waymo is meeting that bar. > For example People would object because that's a stupid way to test and unrelated to the job of delivering safe water. If you want to talk about real water treatments, we do make tradeoffs!
      - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
        > Do you consent to the risks of letting 16 year olds drive? They're high, but you don't get the option. There's a very low bar for them to pass to have their driving privileges revoked if they prove themselves to be a danger. Society necessitates that people drive. Society does not necessitate that Company X gets autonomous vehicles on the roads by target date Y so that their investors are happy. > But if they can beat the very lax standards we use to license humans, that should be good enough. "If". We have some very lax standards for what we consider intelligible English, yet Alexa can't set a timer correctly when I tell it to. > Requiring them to be infinitely more perfect than humans is nonsense. Who is proposing this? > If a car drives you over, do you really care if it was a robot or a human driving? I don't. The most I can ask for is a universal bar. Do you apply this accident causation blindness universally? Do you care if a person that hits you was drunk or lacked a driver's license vs driving diligently and licensed? > People would object because that's a stupid way to test and unrelated to the job of delivering safe water. If you want to talk about real water treatments, we do make tradeoffs! Some people might object to allowing unproven autonomous vehicles onto the street as stupid, but choose not to use that word in effort to have a respectful discussion.
- tigershark 8y ago
  Why should it be disturbing? For me would be far more disturbing to have a safety proven and affordable self driving car that doesn’t drive carelessly causing accidents and to allow humans to continue to drive, at cost of tens of thousands lives per year only in the US.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    We discuss privacy issues and the like daily on HN. If software is driving your car, does someone have access to the data on where you go? Can your car be shut down or driven to the nearest police station by a third party? If you are Black, gay or any number of other things, are you cool with giving up such control in an openly hostile social climate? How much cost does it add to the car? If a software update is buggy and you not only can't drive, but it is illegal for a human to drive, does your wife give birth at home while we wait for Google to fix the bug and update the software because you are neither allowed to drive her to the hospital nor is there any such thing as human ambulance drivers anymore? Etc ad nauseum.
    - tigershark 8y ago
      If it can save 40k lives per year it’s in any case a no-brainer. Ask all the millions of people that have a relative killed by a car if they would care at all. Edit: also it is pretty curious that you are against testing self driving cars because they might kill someone during the testing, while you are perfectly fine with 40k people killed per year and you are concerned about the privacy of the people. I’ll tell you a secret. A dead person couldn’t care less about his privacy.
      - DoreenMichele 8y ago
        You know, someone made a real cavalier sounding remark about how you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette. I replied to that with saying, basically, I understand that attitude for making peace with training deaths in the military but I don't think it's justified for driverless cars. I tried to make it clear later that part of the difference in my mind is that people die in military training because people are being trained to do dangerous things. But if you are training a driverless vehicle, there's really no reason that absolutely has to involve endangering anyone's life. And, wow, has that gotten tons of push back while people go to great lengths to frame me like I'm some extremist lunatic. Meanwhile, the person cavalierly brushing off training deaths is making rather extreme comments about how driverless vehicles can completely replace all human drivers, etc and most people are not arguing with that. No, I am the one being argued with. It's starting to look to me like people are basically looking for some silly reason to argue with me in specific. Because I really did not assert a lot of the stuff being hung on me here. Again, yes, if we can save 40k lives. That's a very big if. It assumes a 100% reduction in mortality. That implies that you expect driverless vehicles to not merely be better than human drivers, you expect them to be perfect and to have flawless performance. And it's that sort of ridiculous unstated assumption that has me rolling my eyes and going "Wow, people on HN sure are just looking for crazy reasons to argue with me." Because I don't think that's a remotely defensible position.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

You can fail to be against something without being for it. I find it strange that people seem to have a problem with my question but no one but me seems to have a problem with someone simultaneously claiming that we need to treat training deaths as shrug-worthy while assuming that driverless vehicles will clearly eliminate huge numbers of deaths annually once they are out there. This is the first suggestion I have heard that human drivers actively need to be eliminated instead of driverless vehicles being yet one more option in an increasingly diverse transportation ecosystem. Although I no longer have a driver's license, the implication that someone might desire to outlaw human drivers someday for supposed safety reasons while simultaneously justifying accepting death by driverless vehicle seems somewhat disturbing.

vasilipupkin 8y ago
“You can fail to be against something without being for it.” Not sure what that means, but testing autonomous vehicles will result in deaths. So, you either decide zero deaths are acceptable and don’t test, or allow some deaths and test. There is no third option in this case
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  FYI: All caps on the internet is generally considered to be yelling and is a violation of HN guidelines.
  - vasilipupkin 8y ago
    I changed it to comply with guidelines. Feel free to respond to substance.
- fucking_tragedy 8y ago
  Typically, when we test experimental products to gauge their safety and efficacy, we engage in informed consent with the participating parties. If everyone involved knew the risks, accepted them and moved forward, I'd agree with your premise. However, if I am walking down the street and I'm run over by a rogue autonomous vehicle, I didn't give consent. I don't think anyone would be as blasé as they are with autonomous vehicle deaths in a different situation. For example, if a potential cure for heart disease was tested by dumping it in the public water supply causing people to die, would we have posters here saying that testing such drugs will result in deaths and shrug them off?
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > If everyone involved knew the risks, accepted them and moved forward, I'd agree with your premise. Do you consent to the risks of letting 16 year olds drive? They're high, but you don't get the option. I understand not agreeing to extremely-risky self-driving cars. But if they can beat the very lax standards we use to license humans, that should be good enough. Requiring them to be infinitely more perfect than humans is nonsense. If a car drives you over, do you really care if it was a robot or a human driving? I don't. The most I can ask for is a universal bar. And all the evidence I've seen is that Waymo is meeting that bar. > For example People would object because that's a stupid way to test and unrelated to the job of delivering safe water. If you want to talk about real water treatments, we do make tradeoffs!
    - fucking_tragedy 8y ago
      > Do you consent to the risks of letting 16 year olds drive? They're high, but you don't get the option. There's a very low bar for them to pass to have their driving privileges revoked if they prove themselves to be a danger. Society necessitates that people drive. Society does not necessitate that Company X gets autonomous vehicles on the roads by target date Y so that their investors are happy. > But if they can beat the very lax standards we use to license humans, that should be good enough. "If". We have some very lax standards for what we consider intelligible English, yet Alexa can't set a timer correctly when I tell it to. > Requiring them to be infinitely more perfect than humans is nonsense. Who is proposing this? > If a car drives you over, do you really care if it was a robot or a human driving? I don't. The most I can ask for is a universal bar. Do you apply this accident causation blindness universally? Do you care if a person that hits you was drunk or lacked a driver's license vs driving diligently and licensed? > People would object because that's a stupid way to test and unrelated to the job of delivering safe water. If you want to talk about real water treatments, we do make tradeoffs! Some people might object to allowing unproven autonomous vehicles onto the street as stupid, but choose not to use that word in effort to have a respectful discussion.
tigershark 8y ago
Why should it be disturbing? For me would be far more disturbing to have a safety proven and affordable self driving car that doesn’t drive carelessly causing accidents and to allow humans to continue to drive, at cost of tens of thousands lives per year only in the US.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  We discuss privacy issues and the like daily on HN. If software is driving your car, does someone have access to the data on where you go? Can your car be shut down or driven to the nearest police station by a third party? If you are Black, gay or any number of other things, are you cool with giving up such control in an openly hostile social climate? How much cost does it add to the car? If a software update is buggy and you not only can't drive, but it is illegal for a human to drive, does your wife give birth at home while we wait for Google to fix the bug and update the software because you are neither allowed to drive her to the hospital nor is there any such thing as human ambulance drivers anymore? Etc ad nauseum.
  - tigershark 8y ago
    If it can save 40k lives per year it’s in any case a no-brainer. Ask all the millions of people that have a relative killed by a car if they would care at all. Edit: also it is pretty curious that you are against testing self driving cars because they might kill someone during the testing, while you are perfectly fine with 40k people killed per year and you are concerned about the privacy of the people. I’ll tell you a secret. A dead person couldn’t care less about his privacy.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      You know, someone made a real cavalier sounding remark about how you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette. I replied to that with saying, basically, I understand that attitude for making peace with training deaths in the military but I don't think it's justified for driverless cars. I tried to make it clear later that part of the difference in my mind is that people die in military training because people are being trained to do dangerous things. But if you are training a driverless vehicle, there's really no reason that absolutely has to involve endangering anyone's life. And, wow, has that gotten tons of push back while people go to great lengths to frame me like I'm some extremist lunatic. Meanwhile, the person cavalierly brushing off training deaths is making rather extreme comments about how driverless vehicles can completely replace all human drivers, etc and most people are not arguing with that. No, I am the one being argued with. It's starting to look to me like people are basically looking for some silly reason to argue with me in specific. Because I really did not assert a lot of the stuff being hung on me here. Again, yes, if we can save 40k lives. That's a very big if. It assumes a 100% reduction in mortality. That implies that you expect driverless vehicles to not merely be better than human drivers, you expect them to be perfect and to have flawless performance. And it's that sort of ridiculous unstated assumption that has me rolling my eyes and going "Wow, people on HN sure are just looking for crazy reasons to argue with me." Because I don't think that's a remotely defensible position.