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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

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?
    - bildung 7y ago
      (I didn't mean to derail this thread, but want to answer you anyway) You're right, one can't isolate one institution for topics as complex as these. I'm pretty sure it plays a role, though, as (ignoring fundamental differences in poverty rates, workplace regulations etc.) many countries employ the healthcare system to inform the population about healthy eating and offer incentives and free courses for coping with stress. Thats the beauty of a single payer system: Beyond ethics, the healthcare system has an intrinsic interest to prevent the preventable, as that is almost universally cheaper than bearing the cost of circulatory disorders later.
      - vmurthy 7y ago
        Bang on about the incentives part. I don't quite know about the healthcare system in the US but don't they have incentives to prevent diseases?
        bildung 7y ago
        I'm just another armchair economist, but in a market based system the risk IMO is that the insuree grabs the preventive offers from insurer A and a few years later wanders off to a competitor with cheaper rates for that age bracket. So insurer A has no real incentive to prevent illnesses because in the long term, all insurees will switch anyway.
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Didn't uber shut down their self-driving attempts? Why are we still even talking about them if they are not even in the game anymore? (By their own volition or by virtue of being regulated, doesn't matter.)

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?
  - bildung 7y ago
    (I didn't mean to derail this thread, but want to answer you anyway) You're right, one can't isolate one institution for topics as complex as these. I'm pretty sure it plays a role, though, as (ignoring fundamental differences in poverty rates, workplace regulations etc.) many countries employ the healthcare system to inform the population about healthy eating and offer incentives and free courses for coping with stress. Thats the beauty of a single payer system: Beyond ethics, the healthcare system has an intrinsic interest to prevent the preventable, as that is almost universally cheaper than bearing the cost of circulatory disorders later.
    - vmurthy 7y ago
      Bang on about the incentives part. I don't quite know about the healthcare system in the US but don't they have incentives to prevent diseases?
      - bildung 7y ago
        I'm just another armchair economist, but in a market based system the risk IMO is that the insuree grabs the preventive offers from insurer A and a few years later wanders off to a competitor with cheaper rates for that age bracket. So insurer A has no real incentive to prevent illnesses because in the long term, all insurees will switch anyway.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

Didn't uber shut down their self-driving attempts? Why are we still even talking about them if they are not even in the game anymore? (By their own volition or by virtue of being regulated, doesn't matter.)