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>While we accept to be killed by our own mistakes at the wheel, society (we) will not accept that a machine makes the same Ideally we should not be accepting e

>While we accept to be killed by our own mistakes at the wheel, society (we) will not accept that a machine makes the same Ideally we should not be accepting either. It is outrageous how many people we allow to be killed regularly for slightly more comfortable transport.

DuskStar 7y ago
Some number of deaths will always occur due to the tradeoffs we make in transportation. We can minimize this number, but even "no cars, no bikes, no trains, no planes, no going outside" would cause deaths due to the lack of things like ambulance or fire services. (and of course if you allow those, someone small number of people will die in crashes)
handpanda 7y ago
I think there's an implicit bargain made when you get in a car that a person is driving: you're both risking your lives on this journey. A self-driving car is risking possibly millions of dollars and bad publicity, but not a life. It's hard to trust a computer like that.
- pkulak 7y ago
  Which is why the recennt spike in pedestrian and bicycle deaths is even more alarming.
- mlang23 7y ago
  Ultimately, you dont have to trust a computer. You have to trust the corporation that built that computer. That is quite different IMO. How am I supposed to entrust my life to a machine built by a corporation that just recently dropped the slogan "we wont do evil"? How am I going to entrust my life to a machine that has been built by a company that, like all the others, is maily interested in maximising profit margins? Why should I believe they care about my health as an individual? As you said, if I am passenger of a human driver, I can at least hope they dont want to die. If the machine crashes itself, who cares?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    You trust corporations all the time to make products, construct buildings, etc. to not kill you when used more or less correctly in accordance with what most people would consider common sense because said companies know they will be sued, fined, etc. if they don’t make safe things. It’s actually unclear what this means in the context of autonomous vehicles that will presumably have some non zero accident rate even if safe enough at some level.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
> slightly more comfortable transport. Slightly more comfortable than what? Horses? Bicycles? Walking? There were 158,493 registered deaths in Australia in 2018, [1] of which 1137 were due to motor vehicle accidents [1]. Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. [also 1] The rate of motor vehicle related deaths in Australia peaked in 1970 at 30.4 per 100,000 population per year, and has been on a steady decline since and now sits at 4.6 per 100,000 per year.[2] This seems reasonable to me. 1. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/47E19CA15036B04BCA2577570014668B?Opendocument https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/47E19CA15036B04BC... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
- varjag 7y ago
  How about the deaths not related to biology/age of your body? It should really be compared with other accidents. Cyclist deaths, bathtub drownings, slipping on banana peels. Choking on food perhaps. Have the feeling it would rank pretty high in its cohort.
- michaelt 7y ago
  > Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. According to [1] in the US road traffic accidents are the 17th-most-common cause of death across all age ranges. But among 15-24 year olds? Number 1 cause of death. In fact you have to reach age 45 before road traffic accidents are even outside the top five. If you really want to ramp up the rhetoric, compare road deaths to mass shootings and September 11th. Where's the trillion-dollar invasion of Detroit to overthrow the Drivetrain Of Evil? [1] https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-age-and-gender https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-ag...
  - francisofascii 7y ago
    Right. And you are just looking at deaths. The injury rates are much higher. And crash injuries can be debilitating. Certainly the #1 threat to health in the U.S.
  - 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
Cars are way more comfortable and more convenient than public transit. Working Parisians who take transit spend 113 minutes a day commuting: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-year-on-public-transport https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y... DC, where most people drive, averages about 70 minutes. Commuters in Dallas, where everyone drives, spend just 54 minutes a day commuting: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-doesn-t-have-the-worst-commute-time-in-13187899.php https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hou...
- KaiserPro 7y ago
  your implied conclusion is that its better to drive doesn't stand up. You _can't_ drive to central paris. London you're looking at a £15 charge and a time penalty of ~15-45 minutes.
  - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
    Public transport to and from work can be pretty awesome. There’s a lot of stuff you can do, that you wouldn’t be able to do while driving.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Maybe you can, but I get car sick when I try to do anything on the bus. I also spend twice as much time on the bus vs driving - all wasted time because either way I'm staring at the road out the window.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Most jobs aren’t in central Paris.
- C14L 7y ago
  Not sure why you quote average commute times of random cities and what that has to do with comfort of cars v. public transit. But personally, I prefer to take the subway and read and relax for half an hour before and after work, instead of having to drive in rush hour.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
Ideally, I would like a pony. Realistically there is no alternative option, so there is no question. > for slightly more comfortable transport In some large metro areas, maybe. Outside of that bubble millions of people depend on a car to even be able to work.
- Steltek 7y ago
  Large metro areas effectively subsidize the rural areas. Those millions of people have enjoyed amazingly subsidized civil engineering to have that car commute. If those commutes built-in the correct costs in land usage, gov budget impact, and environmental impact, those commutes would be untenable.
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    You missed the phrases "flyover states" and insulting people as rednecks and hillbillies.
    - Steltek 7y ago
      You're accusing me of a bias that does not exist. If you want to live in the country with a different taste of personal freedom, please be my guest. However, it comes with a cost that has been ignored for too long. Personally, I view a city that is safe from cars as the greater freedom. It means my children can walk to school/friends/store without the very real danger of being killed. Cars are the number one cause of death for children.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Without populated rural areas to support them, people in cities would start cannibalizing each other within weeks. You seem to have a lot of disdain for people that make your urban lifestyle possible.
    - francisofascii 7y ago
      OP is referring to people who live in a rural area but commute to/from a city. Sounds like you are talking about farmers.

DuskStar 7y ago

Some number of deaths will always occur due to the tradeoffs we make in transportation. We can minimize this number, but even "no cars, no bikes, no trains, no planes, no going outside" would cause deaths due to the lack of things like ambulance or fire services. (and of course if you allow those, someone small number of people will die in crashes)

handpanda 7y ago

I think there's an implicit bargain made when you get in a car that a person is driving: you're both risking your lives on this journey. A self-driving car is risking possibly millions of dollars and bad publicity, but not a life. It's hard to trust a computer like that.

pkulak 7y ago
Which is why the recennt spike in pedestrian and bicycle deaths is even more alarming.
mlang23 7y ago
Ultimately, you dont have to trust a computer. You have to trust the corporation that built that computer. That is quite different IMO. How am I supposed to entrust my life to a machine built by a corporation that just recently dropped the slogan "we wont do evil"? How am I going to entrust my life to a machine that has been built by a company that, like all the others, is maily interested in maximising profit margins? Why should I believe they care about my health as an individual? As you said, if I am passenger of a human driver, I can at least hope they dont want to die. If the machine crashes itself, who cares?
- ghaff 7y ago
  You trust corporations all the time to make products, construct buildings, etc. to not kill you when used more or less correctly in accordance with what most people would consider common sense because said companies know they will be sued, fined, etc. if they don’t make safe things. It’s actually unclear what this means in the context of autonomous vehicles that will presumably have some non zero accident rate even if safe enough at some level.

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

> slightly more comfortable transport. Slightly more comfortable than what? Horses? Bicycles? Walking? There were 158,493 registered deaths in Australia in 2018, [1] of which 1137 were due to motor vehicle accidents [1]. Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. [also 1] The rate of motor vehicle related deaths in Australia peaked in 1970 at 30.4 per 100,000 population per year, and has been on a steady decline since and now sits at 4.6 per 100,000 per year.[2] This seems reasonable to me. 1. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/47E19CA15036B04BCA2577570014668B?Opendocument https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/47E19CA15036B04BC... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_Australia_by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...

varjag 7y ago
How about the deaths not related to biology/age of your body? It should really be compared with other accidents. Cyclist deaths, bathtub drownings, slipping on banana peels. Choking on food perhaps. Have the feeling it would rank pretty high in its cohort.
michaelt 7y ago
> Motor vehicle related deaths don't even rate in the top 20 causes of death. According to [1] in the US road traffic accidents are the 17th-most-common cause of death across all age ranges. But among 15-24 year olds? Number 1 cause of death. In fact you have to reach age 45 before road traffic accidents are even outside the top five. If you really want to ramp up the rhetoric, compare road deaths to mass shootings and September 11th. Where's the trillion-dollar invasion of Detroit to overthrow the Drivetrain Of Evil? [1] https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-age-and-gender https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-ag...
- francisofascii 7y ago
  Right. And you are just looking at deaths. The injury rates are much higher. And crash injuries can be debilitating. Certainly the #1 threat to health in the U.S.
- 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

Cars are way more comfortable and more convenient than public transit. Working Parisians who take transit spend 113 minutes a day commuting: https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-year-on-public-transport https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/parisians-spend-23-days-a-y... DC, where most people drive, averages about 70 minutes. Commuters in Dallas, where everyone drives, spend just 54 minutes a day commuting: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-doesn-t-have-the-worst-commute-time-in-13187899.php https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hou...

KaiserPro 7y ago
your implied conclusion is that its better to drive doesn't stand up. You _can't_ drive to central paris. London you're looking at a £15 charge and a time penalty of ~15-45 minutes.
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  Public transport to and from work can be pretty awesome. There’s a lot of stuff you can do, that you wouldn’t be able to do while driving.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Maybe you can, but I get car sick when I try to do anything on the bus. I also spend twice as much time on the bus vs driving - all wasted time because either way I'm staring at the road out the window.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Most jobs aren’t in central Paris.
C14L 7y ago
Not sure why you quote average commute times of random cities and what that has to do with comfort of cars v. public transit. But personally, I prefer to take the subway and read and relax for half an hour before and after work, instead of having to drive in rush hour.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

Ideally, I would like a pony. Realistically there is no alternative option, so there is no question. > for slightly more comfortable transport In some large metro areas, maybe. Outside of that bubble millions of people depend on a car to even be able to work.

Steltek 7y ago
Large metro areas effectively subsidize the rural areas. Those millions of people have enjoyed amazingly subsidized civil engineering to have that car commute. If those commutes built-in the correct costs in land usage, gov budget impact, and environmental impact, those commutes would be untenable.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  You missed the phrases "flyover states" and insulting people as rednecks and hillbillies.
  - Steltek 7y ago
    You're accusing me of a bias that does not exist. If you want to live in the country with a different taste of personal freedom, please be my guest. However, it comes with a cost that has been ignored for too long. Personally, I view a city that is safe from cars as the greater freedom. It means my children can walk to school/friends/store without the very real danger of being killed. Cars are the number one cause of death for children.
- catalogia 7y ago
  Without populated rural areas to support them, people in cities would start cannibalizing each other within weeks. You seem to have a lot of disdain for people that make your urban lifestyle possible.
  - francisofascii 7y ago
    OP is referring to people who live in a rural area but commute to/from a city. Sounds like you are talking about farmers.