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I think that's a very totalitarian/utilitarian view though. Some of the people in the article have "valid" reasons for their hatred/distrust: > The trouble sta

I think that's a very totalitarian/utilitarian view though. Some of the people in the article have "valid" reasons for their hatred/distrust: > The trouble started, the couple said, when their 10-year-old son was nearly hit by one of the vehicles while he was playing in a nearby cul-de-sac. > "They didn’t ask us if we wanted to be part of their beta test" We all know self-driving cars are going to be safer, but very few people would sacrifice their own loved ones to make self driving cars reality.

diydsp 8y ago
Moving the responsibility away from humans for accidents to a faceless corporation where we can all anticipate no one will be sufficiently accountable means we would have no more justice, which may be more important to us than safety. After all, we're humans with emotions, not robots with spreadsheets. We may not actually want safer. We may actually want more just. With 37,000 auto deaths last year in the U.S., what if Waymo perfected the self-driving car, such that they killed no one, but instead senseless slaughtered 1000 random people on the streets. Would they be justified? Of course not, because even though they would have made it safer, they would have made it less just.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Would that actually qualify as more just? They are deciding that more people must die just because they don't want to give up their illusion of control. Since you can die just as well due to a driver legally in the right in an accident with nothing you can do to stop it. Just because it may be consensus doesn't make it remotely rational or right. I mean mobs lynching every suspect would ensure more people are held accountable but mean more innocents would die as well.
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  You might want to take into account that severe punishment for car accidents is the exception, reserved to the most egregious cases. You are unlikely to get justice when a human driver kills, unless they are drunk or try to flee. As for the hypothetical, I would definitely take the senseless, unpunished death of one close family member over the properly punished deaths of 37 close family members. But I agree that less extreme numbers could put me in doubt.
  - diydsp 8y ago
    definitely a fascinating insight, thank you. it is worth thinking more deeply about how insurance mediates justice. Having personally been in an accident a while back, I feel a sense of justice from the person who struck my car, at least with respect to the finding of their fault via police investigation. I wonder how that changes if there were no driver responsible. My sense of justice in this case arises from my belief that the other driver has confronted their mistake to a sufficient degree that it will improve their behavior to the standard I approve. I believe with a corporation's software having caused damage, I would have little confidence that the damage they had inflicted would confront the corporation in such a way that it would improve its behavior. (Obvious anecdata from an emotionally-biased POV, but still worth it just to practice thinking about it!)

diydsp 8y ago

Moving the responsibility away from humans for accidents to a faceless corporation where we can all anticipate no one will be sufficiently accountable means we would have no more justice, which may be more important to us than safety. After all, we're humans with emotions, not robots with spreadsheets. We may not actually want safer. We may actually want more just. With 37,000 auto deaths last year in the U.S., what if Waymo perfected the self-driving car, such that they killed no one, but instead senseless slaughtered 1000 random people on the streets. Would they be justified? Of course not, because even though they would have made it safer, they would have made it less just.

Nasrudith 8y ago
Would that actually qualify as more just? They are deciding that more people must die just because they don't want to give up their illusion of control. Since you can die just as well due to a driver legally in the right in an accident with nothing you can do to stop it. Just because it may be consensus doesn't make it remotely rational or right. I mean mobs lynching every suspect would ensure more people are held accountable but mean more innocents would die as well.
emiliobumachar 8y ago
You might want to take into account that severe punishment for car accidents is the exception, reserved to the most egregious cases. You are unlikely to get justice when a human driver kills, unless they are drunk or try to flee. As for the hypothetical, I would definitely take the senseless, unpunished death of one close family member over the properly punished deaths of 37 close family members. But I agree that less extreme numbers could put me in doubt.
- diydsp 8y ago
  definitely a fascinating insight, thank you. it is worth thinking more deeply about how insurance mediates justice. Having personally been in an accident a while back, I feel a sense of justice from the person who struck my car, at least with respect to the finding of their fault via police investigation. I wonder how that changes if there were no driver responsible. My sense of justice in this case arises from my belief that the other driver has confronted their mistake to a sufficient degree that it will improve their behavior to the standard I approve. I believe with a corporation's software having caused damage, I would have little confidence that the damage they had inflicted would confront the corporation in such a way that it would improve its behavior. (Obvious anecdata from an emotionally-biased POV, but still worth it just to practice thinking about it!)