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> Evidence could also be a self-driving vehicle that doesn't drive under the beds of trucks, run people over or is statistically safer than human drivers. The
by Diederich 7y ago
> Evidence could also be a self-driving vehicle that doesn't drive under the beds of trucks, run people over or is statistically safer than human drivers.
The relevant part is the last: "statistically safer than human drivers."
Every driving system that has existed or will exist will make errors due to extremely novel situations. Given the energies involved, such errors will lead to crashes, some of which will be horrible.
The standard for self driving systems is, at a high level, simple: statistically safer, by a fair margin, than human drivers.
- the8472 7y ago> statistically safer, by a fair margin, than human drivers. Considering other utility unlocked by autonomous cars (e.g. less stress, life-hours freed up, helping the disabled) they could even be marginally less safe than human drivers and still provide a net benefit.
- rootusrootus 7y ago> statistically safer, by a fair margin, than human drivers And not just that, but individually they have to be seen as safer. As in, I am not going to be happy with a computer driving me around that is merely safer than an average driver. Given that I'm middle aged, don't drink and drive, or drive while exhausted, etc, and I haven't ever caused an accident, I'm going to need a little more assurance.
- Diederich 7y agoI understand, that's what I was, roughly, trying to capture with 'by a fair margin'. I believe Elon Musk has talked about targeting '10x safer' than an average driver. My guess is that's a sufficient margin to cover the vast majority of better than average drivers.