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You asked for accepted products that kill people, not for products that kill unconditionally. Foods are conditionally unsafe (if consumed in excess) just like c

You asked for accepted products that kill people, not for products that kill unconditionally. Foods are conditionally unsafe (if consumed in excess) just like cars are conditionally unsafe (if not operated carefully). Deaths by cardiovascular diseases (partially caused by inappropriate diet) exceed vehicular deaths. And yet they're accepted.

ghaff 6y ago
There is no shortage of products that can injure or kill you if you operate them unsafely including cars. But you won't "operate" an autonomous vehicle at least while it's autonomous. An autonomous vehicle causing an accident due to a software mistake is the equivalent of a regular automobile suddenly losing steering control because of a design defect on a highway--and the latter would absolutely be a liability issue for the car maker.
- the8472 6y ago
  Right, I forgot that this was an argument about responsibility. In the case of food I guess there's some shared responsibility. The customers of course have a lot of choice here, but the manufacturer still optimizes for tastiness (increasing consumption) without necessarily optimizing for healthiness. That could also be considered a design defect. Perhaps for an owned autonomous vehicle the equivalent shared responsibility would be a user-selectable conservative ("comfort") vs. aggressive ("sporty") driving style. Or the option to drive yourself and only let the software intervene if it thinks what you're doing is unsafe. So, back to the question > We don't really see consumer-facing products that, even if used as directed, kill a fair number of people and we just go oops. The only very nebulous other case that comes to mind are unsafe computer systems in general. When a hospital or critical infrastructure gets hacked then this is treated almost like an unavoidable natural disaster rather than the responsibility of the operator or manufacturer.

ghaff 6y ago

There is no shortage of products that can injure or kill you if you operate them unsafely including cars. But you won't "operate" an autonomous vehicle at least while it's autonomous. An autonomous vehicle causing an accident due to a software mistake is the equivalent of a regular automobile suddenly losing steering control because of a design defect on a highway--and the latter would absolutely be a liability issue for the car maker.

the8472 6y ago
Right, I forgot that this was an argument about responsibility. In the case of food I guess there's some shared responsibility. The customers of course have a lot of choice here, but the manufacturer still optimizes for tastiness (increasing consumption) without necessarily optimizing for healthiness. That could also be considered a design defect. Perhaps for an owned autonomous vehicle the equivalent shared responsibility would be a user-selectable conservative ("comfort") vs. aggressive ("sporty") driving style. Or the option to drive yourself and only let the software intervene if it thinks what you're doing is unsafe. So, back to the question > We don't really see consumer-facing products that, even if used as directed, kill a fair number of people and we just go oops. The only very nebulous other case that comes to mind are unsafe computer systems in general. When a hospital or critical infrastructure gets hacked then this is treated almost like an unavoidable natural disaster rather than the responsibility of the operator or manufacturer.