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Except humans are also steering those 4000 pound blocks of metal around and not doing such a great job of it. Here in Australia, with a population of 25 Millio

by jussij 7y ago

Except humans are also steering those 4000 pound blocks of metal around and not doing such a great job of it. Here in Australia, with a population of 25 Million there where 1,140 road deaths in 2018. The USA with it's 327 million population had some 40,000 road deaths on 2018. I find it hard to imagine the av will end up doing any worse a job driving than the humans currently on the road. And since, even with the occasional bug, the av would be doing a better job of it, that means they will end up saving lives (and lots of them).

cameronbrown 7y ago
Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? The difference between those two scenarios is that different people will die. It also assumes we all adopt AVs too. Now of course everybody has equal value, but are you prepared to accept that a software bug and a lapse in human judgement are also equal? Without accepting that at a societal level the average person will not accept AVs. Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again, or be punished if alcohol was involved. With an AV, currently nobody knows. It could be as simple as "we've checked in the bugfix to prevent this from happening again" with no emotion behind it.
- foob 7y ago
  Hasn't the rise of Uber and Lyft already turned it into a numbers game? I get drivers that I would consider below average all the time, and I don't have any control over which driver I get. Even when you're the one driving, you have no control over whether the car in front of you is being driven by a good driver or somebody texting who might cause an accident that endangers you. I agree that it needs to be accepted on a societal level, but if you can definitively say "self driving cars are safer than the average Uber driver," then I don't think it will be that hard of a sell. That's especially true if it results in less expensive rides in addition to lower crash rates.
  - gibolt 7y ago
    This. For the majority of fatalities, the driver that caused the accident is rarely among the dead. They are generally in another vehicle. Everything is random. Decreasing the odds of failure will kill individuals, but even a software edge case can cause a phone to explode. The assumption we are always in control is what needs to change.
- jussij 7y ago
  > Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? The reality is lots of people die on the road and the numbers show this sad fact. Now the reality is some of those who are killed, die from no fault of their own. They die at the hands of the other driver. The sooner we can take away that human element from driving the better, because that one act will end up saving lots of lives. > Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again That is so untrue, at least for what happens here in Australia. Here in Australia we have many hundreds in not thousands of repeat drink driving, speeding offenders on the roads, and short of locking them up there is no way to keep them off the roads. Taking away their license makes no difference as they just drive without a license.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    >Now the reality is some of those who are killed, die from no fault of their own. They die at the hands of the other driver. That's way fewer
    - jussij 7y ago
      This seems like a very circular argument. The argument in this thread seems to suggest we should be slow at adopting av technology because it could kill some innocent people. Now I accept that point as a fact. There is no doubt people will die in av cars just like people die in cars today. Yet, on the other we have human drivers killing innocent people today, which is acceptable collateral damage, even though introducing av technology would help to greatly reduce that number.
      - AdieuToLogic 7y ago
        > Yet, on the other we have human drivers killing innocent people today, which is acceptable collateral damage, even though introducing av technology would help to greatly reduce that number. Speaking for no one other than myself, vehicular deaths are not "acceptable collateral damage" so much as a statistical inevitability, one sought to be minimized as much as possible. The problem with introducing autonomous vehicle technology, again IMHO, is the assumption that it "would help to greatly reduce that number." This is not a known result.
- randomsearch 7y ago
  Yes. We absolutely want to turn it into a “numbers game”, we want to make rational policy decisions.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  > Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? Yes, of course we want this to be a numbers game. What else would you have this discussion be about? Irrational feelings?
- jogjayr 7y ago
  > Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again, or be punished if alcohol was involved. With an AV, currently nobody knows. Easy to turn that around. Only individual humans learn from their mistakes - and even then, not always. But with AI, the whole fleet learns that lesson.
justinpombrio 7y ago
Uber's stats are worse. Humans have fatal accidents about once per 100 million miles. Uber's AVs have had one fatal accident, and they'd driven 2 million miles in Dec 2017 [1]. EDIT: While this isn't a huge amount of information to go on, it strongly suggests that Uber AV's are more dangerous than human drivers. I mean, yes, it is fine for AVs to have an occasional bug --- as long as that occasional bug kills only kills one person per 100 million miles driven. But that's actually a pretty high bar. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-2-million-miles/#2d8cc469a4fe https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self...
- jussij 7y ago
  If av technology does ever get rolled out in a big way, then I would expect to see suspect a big reduction in the numbers of road/vehicle related deaths. Now if instead the road deaths stay the same or go up, then naturally that should should also spell the death of av technology.
  - blub 7y ago
    You "expect" why? What is your prediction based on? There is no data to suggest that this will happen. Furthermore, if self-driving cars do take off, they will continue to be outnumbered by normal cars for a very long time. It's not even clear that they will or should be the majority.
  - bildung 7y ago
    Only if the companies get forced by regulations to actually target that metric. The participants are in it for the profit, not for saving lives. The US health care misery is a prime example of what happens when you try to solve a situation through the market, which by definition has to treat human lives as an externality: People in the US die earlier than in any other first world country.
    - vmurthy 7y ago
      > People in the US die earlier than in any other first world country The causes of death might not be the healthcare system ,no? What if the majority of these deaths are caused by bad diets and stress? Would you blame the healthcare system for it?
notyourday 7y ago
> Except humans are also steering those 4000 pound blocks of metal around and not doing such a great job of it. Humans making a reckless mistake while driving go to jail. Are those that advocate the promise of this tech willing to say "Reckless commits and reckless code reviews send engineers to jail"?
- mapcars 7y ago
  What about industrial robots and computers malfunctioning and causing damage? Who goes to jail for it?

by jussij 7y ago

cameronbrown 7y ago

Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? The difference between those two scenarios is that different people will die. It also assumes we all adopt AVs too. Now of course everybody has equal value, but are you prepared to accept that a software bug and a lapse in human judgement are also equal? Without accepting that at a societal level the average person will not accept AVs. Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again, or be punished if alcohol was involved. With an AV, currently nobody knows. It could be as simple as "we've checked in the bugfix to prevent this from happening again" with no emotion behind it.

foob 7y ago
Hasn't the rise of Uber and Lyft already turned it into a numbers game? I get drivers that I would consider below average all the time, and I don't have any control over which driver I get. Even when you're the one driving, you have no control over whether the car in front of you is being driven by a good driver or somebody texting who might cause an accident that endangers you. I agree that it needs to be accepted on a societal level, but if you can definitively say "self driving cars are safer than the average Uber driver," then I don't think it will be that hard of a sell. That's especially true if it results in less expensive rides in addition to lower crash rates.
- gibolt 7y ago
  This. For the majority of fatalities, the driver that caused the accident is rarely among the dead. They are generally in another vehicle. Everything is random. Decreasing the odds of failure will kill individuals, but even a software edge case can cause a phone to explode. The assumption we are always in control is what needs to change.
jussij 7y ago
> Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? The reality is lots of people die on the road and the numbers show this sad fact. Now the reality is some of those who are killed, die from no fault of their own. They die at the hands of the other driver. The sooner we can take away that human element from driving the better, because that one act will end up saving lots of lives. > Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again That is so untrue, at least for what happens here in Australia. Here in Australia we have many hundreds in not thousands of repeat drink driving, speeding offenders on the roads, and short of locking them up there is no way to keep them off the roads. Taking away their license makes no difference as they just drive without a license.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  >Now the reality is some of those who are killed, die from no fault of their own. They die at the hands of the other driver. That's way fewer
  - jussij 7y ago
    This seems like a very circular argument. The argument in this thread seems to suggest we should be slow at adopting av technology because it could kill some innocent people. Now I accept that point as a fact. There is no doubt people will die in av cars just like people die in cars today. Yet, on the other we have human drivers killing innocent people today, which is acceptable collateral damage, even though introducing av technology would help to greatly reduce that number.
    - AdieuToLogic 7y ago
      > Yet, on the other we have human drivers killing innocent people today, which is acceptable collateral damage, even though introducing av technology would help to greatly reduce that number. Speaking for no one other than myself, vehicular deaths are not "acceptable collateral damage" so much as a statistical inevitability, one sought to be minimized as much as possible. The problem with introducing autonomous vehicle technology, again IMHO, is the assumption that it "would help to greatly reduce that number." This is not a known result.
randomsearch 7y ago
Yes. We absolutely want to turn it into a “numbers game”, we want to make rational policy decisions.
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> Do we really want to turn this into a numbers game? Yes, of course we want this to be a numbers game. What else would you have this discussion be about? Irrational feelings?
jogjayr 7y ago
> Humans who cause accidents will have remorse and learn never to do it again, or be punished if alcohol was involved. With an AV, currently nobody knows. Easy to turn that around. Only individual humans learn from their mistakes - and even then, not always. But with AI, the whole fleet learns that lesson.

justinpombrio 7y ago

Uber's stats are worse. Humans have fatal accidents about once per 100 million miles. Uber's AVs have had one fatal accident, and they'd driven 2 million miles in Dec 2017 [1]. EDIT: While this isn't a huge amount of information to go on, it strongly suggests that Uber AV's are more dangerous than human drivers. I mean, yes, it is fine for AVs to have an occasional bug --- as long as that occasional bug kills only kills one person per 100 million miles driven. But that's actually a pretty high bar. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-2-million-miles/#2d8cc469a4fe https://www.forbes.com/sites/bizcarson/2017/12/22/ubers-self...

jussij 7y ago
If av technology does ever get rolled out in a big way, then I would expect to see suspect a big reduction in the numbers of road/vehicle related deaths. Now if instead the road deaths stay the same or go up, then naturally that should should also spell the death of av technology.
- blub 7y ago
  You "expect" why? What is your prediction based on? There is no data to suggest that this will happen. Furthermore, if self-driving cars do take off, they will continue to be outnumbered by normal cars for a very long time. It's not even clear that they will or should be the majority.
- bildung 7y ago
  Only if the companies get forced by regulations to actually target that metric. The participants are in it for the profit, not for saving lives. The US health care misery is a prime example of what happens when you try to solve a situation through the market, which by definition has to treat human lives as an externality: People in the US die earlier than in any other first world country.
  - vmurthy 7y ago
    > People in the US die earlier than in any other first world country The causes of death might not be the healthcare system ,no? What if the majority of these deaths are caused by bad diets and stress? Would you blame the healthcare system for it?

notyourday 7y ago

> Except humans are also steering those 4000 pound blocks of metal around and not doing such a great job of it. Humans making a reckless mistake while driving go to jail. Are those that advocate the promise of this tech willing to say "Reckless commits and reckless code reviews send engineers to jail"?

mapcars 7y ago
What about industrial robots and computers malfunctioning and causing damage? Who goes to jail for it?