7 ms·

I don't see the problem if rate of accidents and incidents are way lower, and they will be. If rate of accidents and incidents gets to 10 times less, the price

I don't see the problem if rate of accidents and incidents are way lower, and they will be. If rate of accidents and incidents gets to 10 times less, the price of insurance will drop 10 times. Claims go to manufacturers? Manufacturers will insure, and you will pay that price, that will be smaller than current insurance. We know the rate of accidents could drop enormously because we have seen what has happened with airplanes. I modeled mathematically accident causes for a big insurer in Spain. They have a database of accidents and most accidents are preventable. 10x less accidents is very conservative and easy to get in a small period of time(10 years). Something as simple as "knowing the road conditions", like "this place is dangerous after the bridge in winter because there is shadow and water and ice is created", or "here there are construction's trucks that leave sand at the curve, dangerous for motorbikes", "here children go out the school that is near and cross the road instead of taking the bridge". When a car can download all this information and take decisions based on that, I expect the rate of accidents to drop dramatically.

roenxi 6y ago
Makes a lot of sense. Instead of insurance premiums being paid directly by consumers it'd be paid by car manufacturers who pass it on by slight price increases. It could work very well. I'm pretty extreme, I'd even accept a look-the-other-way policy for the first 10 years where vehicle manufacturers are given a few extra shields from liability. The potential for this tech to save thousands of young lives is very real and we should be bringing it to fruition with indecent haste.
- unishark 6y ago
  Individuals aren't generally the target of class-action lawsuits or giant billion dollar judgements to force a collective behavior change (or just outright bankruptcy) of every driver in one judgement. They could do this once big companies become responsible for a large number of "drivers" at once. I am also hopeful technological progress will be allowed to win out, however.
CPLX 6y ago
Do you realize that what you’re describing is essentially a general AI?
tosser0001 6y ago
It’s not really the rate of accidents so much as who will be getting sued. I think it will take legislation to protect autonomous vehicle manufacturers against certain lawsuits otherwise the cost of liability will be so high the vehicles will be rendered uneconomical as the costs are passed on to consumers, or the companies driven out of business altogether. The article mentions the General Aviation Revitalization Act. The small aircraft industry was almost wiped out until these protections were afforded. I don’t see how any company could risk unleashing a fleet of vehicles with the threat of uncapped liability looming over them.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Yep. The key point here isn't whether autonomous cars will be better at solving general AI problems related to accident risk than humans [although the OP's extraordinary claim that this will be 'easy to get in a short period of time' requires extraordinary evidence], but who the liability falls upon when they don't, and what happens when this is tested in court. When a human is accused of an egregious driving error with serious consequences, it's a discrete problem. When software makes an egregious error, it probably isn't, and simply removing that particular instance of software from the road and paying off directly affected parties isn't likely to be a satisfactory resolution. To take another example from aviation, two 737 MAX accidents attributed to its software see the entire fleet grounded and very serious questions being asked about its future, and by extension the company's. That entails much more expensive consequences and complex legal cases than car accidents for which humans are held responsible, even though car accidents are much more frequent.
  - aeternum 6y ago
    The latest cars are constantly collecting data, so automated driving errors likely could be treated as a discrete problems. Process would likely be: 1) Determine damages like we currently do, and manufacturer, which is likely to be the same as the insurer, pays out. 2) Manufacturer has a fixed amount of time to show that they've re-trained the system on the problem scenario and scenarios close to it such that it no longer occurs given similar conditions. 3) Push the update to the fleet, the same accident should never happen again. If we could do this with human drivers, we would be in great shape.
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Its not about when it works. Its about the first accident. Should the car have performed better? Who is liable - the owner? the manufacturer? the software company? The good news is, when an issue is found then all the cars can be updated. The bad news is, conflicting decisions about right behavior. The trolley car problem springs to mind - can an AI car leave the road to avoid a collision? What if somebody is on the shoulder and could be hit? Which accident should the AI choose? Different municipalities/states/judges will have different ideas. It'll be a madhouse until some groundrules are in place e.g. "An AI car shall not leave the road". Call it the 'Laws of automotive Robotics'.
- btbuildem 6y ago
  The "trolley problem" is such nonsense in this context. As if a human driver in that situation isn't going to freeze up / knee-jerk-react / not even be paying attention at the moment. These are split second decisions and people wheel out philosophical problems?
  - _sillymarketing 6y ago
    But we would blame the person in your situation. In the vehicle, is it still the fault of the driver, or the software company? Or insurance?
    - noodlesoups 6y ago
      It's always insurance that pays regardless, so it isn't really a part of the equation. It also depends a lot on what kind of accident it is. Is someone driving into you? Not much physically you can do to avoid it no matter who/what is driving. Semi-autonomous cars can easily be blamed on the driver, because they're still in charge of the car, just being assisted, not commanded. Is the car taking unlawful actions on it's own? Should propably fix that on the maker side. Why should any company be exempt when their product is not up to spec? The price increase to make it compliant is necessary, not a nice to have. And with the trolley problem, you often can't compute philosophical questions with pure logic because of their fractal nature, but you can make it a legal argument. Does the car have the right to kill? If it doesen't, it can't and won't choose. It will be an accident just like any other would be.
jopsen 6y ago
How about not exceeding the speed limits.. most people on semi empty roads tend til exceed limits just a little bit. Might it not reduce accidents, and reduce the severity of accidents, hence, reducing expensive human injuries.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Speed limits (ignoring shenanigans like setting them low to increase revenue) and other traffic laws are fundamentally a measure of what society considers acceptable risk. If people are regularly exceeding the speed limit in certain conditions then the limit is too low for those conditions. Attempts to get drivers to act like robots and follow the rules or to replace them with AI that does just that are mostly than a waste of words because the fundamental hard problem is reaching a compromise on what is acceptable risk in any given situation.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    There is also sometimes a disconnect between perceived risk by the driver and the actual risk. How we design roads can have a large effect on this. If people are regularly exceeding the speed limit, you designed your road wrong.
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Or you set the speed limit too low.
      - jopsen 6y ago
        Road design and speed limits supposedly goes hand in hand.
  - dredds 6y ago
    Generally we drivers are very poor at judging acceptable risk, like iffy weather conditions where we will feel pressure to keep that annoying tail-gaiter from overtaking even thou they are driving as if the conditions were optimal. Why? Time constrains of appointments or just a need to get home quickly. Then a myriad of things; stress, lack of sleep, boredom, age, health, hunger, intoxicants. We don't parse any of these risks at all well given the real conditions, as evidenced by the road toll. Removing human foibles from everyday transport should make driving steadily safer just as automated systems have for flying or rail, etc. As for the liability, perhaps some portion of the reduction of insurance costs for damages to health and property can be funneled into a fund for mitigating wherever improvements are most needed across the sector generally including signage, road markings, code audits, sensor checks and so on. A small levy on the autonomous car's insurance should do the trick.

roenxi 6y ago

Makes a lot of sense. Instead of insurance premiums being paid directly by consumers it'd be paid by car manufacturers who pass it on by slight price increases. It could work very well. I'm pretty extreme, I'd even accept a look-the-other-way policy for the first 10 years where vehicle manufacturers are given a few extra shields from liability. The potential for this tech to save thousands of young lives is very real and we should be bringing it to fruition with indecent haste.

unishark 6y ago
Individuals aren't generally the target of class-action lawsuits or giant billion dollar judgements to force a collective behavior change (or just outright bankruptcy) of every driver in one judgement. They could do this once big companies become responsible for a large number of "drivers" at once. I am also hopeful technological progress will be allowed to win out, however.

CPLX 6y ago

Do you realize that what you’re describing is essentially a general AI?

tosser0001 6y ago

It’s not really the rate of accidents so much as who will be getting sued. I think it will take legislation to protect autonomous vehicle manufacturers against certain lawsuits otherwise the cost of liability will be so high the vehicles will be rendered uneconomical as the costs are passed on to consumers, or the companies driven out of business altogether. The article mentions the General Aviation Revitalization Act. The small aircraft industry was almost wiped out until these protections were afforded. I don’t see how any company could risk unleashing a fleet of vehicles with the threat of uncapped liability looming over them.

notahacker 6y ago
Yep. The key point here isn't whether autonomous cars will be better at solving general AI problems related to accident risk than humans [although the OP's extraordinary claim that this will be 'easy to get in a short period of time' requires extraordinary evidence], but who the liability falls upon when they don't, and what happens when this is tested in court. When a human is accused of an egregious driving error with serious consequences, it's a discrete problem. When software makes an egregious error, it probably isn't, and simply removing that particular instance of software from the road and paying off directly affected parties isn't likely to be a satisfactory resolution. To take another example from aviation, two 737 MAX accidents attributed to its software see the entire fleet grounded and very serious questions being asked about its future, and by extension the company's. That entails much more expensive consequences and complex legal cases than car accidents for which humans are held responsible, even though car accidents are much more frequent.
- aeternum 6y ago
  The latest cars are constantly collecting data, so automated driving errors likely could be treated as a discrete problems. Process would likely be: 1) Determine damages like we currently do, and manufacturer, which is likely to be the same as the insurer, pays out. 2) Manufacturer has a fixed amount of time to show that they've re-trained the system on the problem scenario and scenarios close to it such that it no longer occurs given similar conditions. 3) Push the update to the fleet, the same accident should never happen again. If we could do this with human drivers, we would be in great shape.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Its not about when it works. Its about the first accident. Should the car have performed better? Who is liable - the owner? the manufacturer? the software company? The good news is, when an issue is found then all the cars can be updated. The bad news is, conflicting decisions about right behavior. The trolley car problem springs to mind - can an AI car leave the road to avoid a collision? What if somebody is on the shoulder and could be hit? Which accident should the AI choose? Different municipalities/states/judges will have different ideas. It'll be a madhouse until some groundrules are in place e.g. "An AI car shall not leave the road". Call it the 'Laws of automotive Robotics'.

btbuildem 6y ago
The "trolley problem" is such nonsense in this context. As if a human driver in that situation isn't going to freeze up / knee-jerk-react / not even be paying attention at the moment. These are split second decisions and people wheel out philosophical problems?
- _sillymarketing 6y ago
  But we would blame the person in your situation. In the vehicle, is it still the fault of the driver, or the software company? Or insurance?
  - noodlesoups 6y ago
    It's always insurance that pays regardless, so it isn't really a part of the equation. It also depends a lot on what kind of accident it is. Is someone driving into you? Not much physically you can do to avoid it no matter who/what is driving. Semi-autonomous cars can easily be blamed on the driver, because they're still in charge of the car, just being assisted, not commanded. Is the car taking unlawful actions on it's own? Should propably fix that on the maker side. Why should any company be exempt when their product is not up to spec? The price increase to make it compliant is necessary, not a nice to have. And with the trolley problem, you often can't compute philosophical questions with pure logic because of their fractal nature, but you can make it a legal argument. Does the car have the right to kill? If it doesen't, it can't and won't choose. It will be an accident just like any other would be.

jopsen 6y ago

How about not exceeding the speed limits.. most people on semi empty roads tend til exceed limits just a little bit. Might it not reduce accidents, and reduce the severity of accidents, hence, reducing expensive human injuries.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Speed limits (ignoring shenanigans like setting them low to increase revenue) and other traffic laws are fundamentally a measure of what society considers acceptable risk. If people are regularly exceeding the speed limit in certain conditions then the limit is too low for those conditions. Attempts to get drivers to act like robots and follow the rules or to replace them with AI that does just that are mostly than a waste of words because the fundamental hard problem is reaching a compromise on what is acceptable risk in any given situation.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  There is also sometimes a disconnect between perceived risk by the driver and the actual risk. How we design roads can have a large effect on this. If people are regularly exceeding the speed limit, you designed your road wrong.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Or you set the speed limit too low.
    - jopsen 6y ago
      Road design and speed limits supposedly goes hand in hand.
- dredds 6y ago
  Generally we drivers are very poor at judging acceptable risk, like iffy weather conditions where we will feel pressure to keep that annoying tail-gaiter from overtaking even thou they are driving as if the conditions were optimal. Why? Time constrains of appointments or just a need to get home quickly. Then a myriad of things; stress, lack of sleep, boredom, age, health, hunger, intoxicants. We don't parse any of these risks at all well given the real conditions, as evidenced by the road toll. Removing human foibles from everyday transport should make driving steadily safer just as automated systems have for flying or rail, etc. As for the liability, perhaps some portion of the reduction of insurance costs for damages to health and property can be funneled into a fund for mitigating wherever improvements are most needed across the sector generally including signage, road markings, code audits, sensor checks and so on. A small levy on the autonomous car's insurance should do the trick.