6 ms·

This is why the public should never support self driving cars: the corporation will kill people without consequences.

gruez 6y ago
>the corporation will kill people without consequences. ...except the corporation being fined and/or sued in civil court, along with the executives/engineers responsible facing criminal charges.
- pacamara619 6y ago
  It's gonna be the same thing as it is now: "Tragic. Thoughts and prayers. Software problem. Nothing we could do."
  - gruez 6y ago
    That literally describes the situation now with human drivers. The only difference is that human drivers get more sympathy because most voters are also drivers.
- buran77 6y ago
  Except they rarely punish individuals, and as long as they are large enough or with plenty of government contracts companies rarely get a punishment that's more than "the cost of doing business". Look at the GM ignition switch scandal where executives knew explicitly the likely consequences of their decision and yet no real punishment was enacted even after repeatedly lying about the death toll (initially by at least one order of magnitude) that eventually officially reached 124 deaths and likely much higher in reality. Look at Boeing's 737MAX scandal where executives also knew the likely consequences and worked to go around rules, regulations, certification in order to pretend those consequences won't happen. Both Boeing and authorities either buried or turned a blind eye to reports that this happens. No real punishment here either. Autonomous cars or not, as long as corporations pay for your laws you will always be on the lower rungs of the ladder.
- babycake 6y ago
  Remember not long ago when Uber killed a pedestrian? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54175359 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54175359 > Ms Vasquez was charged on 27 August, and made her first appearance in court on 15 September. The trial is now set for February next year. > Despite the decision not to levy criminal charges against Uber itself, the company did not escape criticism. > Days before the crash, an employee had warned his superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely in accidents, and raised concerns about the training of operators. > Following the crash, authorities in Arizona suspended Uber's ability to test self-driving cars on the state's public roads, and Uber ended its tests in the state. It received permission to carry out tests in the state of California earlier this year. So despite all the safety failures by the company, just the hired driver was charged...
  - gruez 6y ago
    >> Days before the crash, an employee had warned his superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely in accidents, and raised concerns about the training of operators. >So despite all the safety failures by the company, just the hired driver was charged... A thought experiment: if a municipality was warned about safety failures about its streets (high speed limits, poor lighting/signage, lack of pedestrian crossings), and some kid got killed in a car accident, should the municipality be liable? What if everything that uber/the municipality did was within the law, and the only thing they're guilty of is not taking additional safety measures? eg. dropping the speed limit to 20mph in suburbs will probably eliminate all pedestrian deaths, should the municipality be liable if it set the speed limit to 30mph and the kid died?
Eridrus 6y ago
Drivers often do not face any consequences for killing people as it is. Unless the driver was intoxicated, it is generally written off as an accident. If only the people who get outraged about self-driving cars were as outraged by this fact and applied pressure to improve street design and speed limit enforcement.
- Eridrus 6y ago
  And to be clear, this largely makes sense: humans are not good at preventing long tail failures that require constant vigilance and are not responsive to unlikely punishments, no matter how severe. The thing we have to do is improve the systems in which people operate.
- unreal37 6y ago
  A lot of car fatalities are accidents that don't involve alcohol - around 70%. One time I lost control of my car while driving on the highway and hitting a patch of black ice. Luckily, nobody died. But that happens all the time. Presumably, a self-driving car will drive slower in adverse weather than a human might, as well as being able to control the car if it hits an ice patch better than an untrained human can. Also, the car can notify other cars on the same road of the ice patch, instantaneously.
andrewzah 6y ago
There are an insane amount of car accident-related deaths & injuries every year. At least 30,000 deaths/year in the USA alone. Because humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc, and sometimes just make mistakes. With fully automated driving the number of crashes (and therefore injuries & deaths) will go down -dramatically-. So you can argue all you want about the ethics & morality of the ~100 deaths/year or so from automated car crashes. But that's far preferable to the current situation. Even if we still have 10-20k deaths/year from automated driving systems, that's still a large improvement. This argument about the ethics of contrived car accident scenarios totally misses the boat. In my opinion the only ethical argument is to move over to fully automated driving systems as soon as -safely- possible.
- riffic 6y ago
  you've described crimes and bad decision making processes (humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc, and sometimes just make mistakes). The outcomes of those choices are known and have causes which are preventable; they are by definition not accidental in nature. I know it's not intentional but words matter. Crash is a better word 99% of the time than "accident".
  - chipgap98 6y ago
    An accident is just something that occurs without intention. In the cases you're describing people don't intend to hit another car or person. That makes accident a reasonable label.
    - riffic 6y ago
      Behaviors and design are themselves an intention. This post addresses "The Semantics of Intention": https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_violence_language.php https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_viol... excerpt: Drivers aren't out there aiming for pedestrians and cyclists, so how does intention factor in? UCLA's Madeline Brozen argues it can be traced back to both failure to follow road safety laws and a lack of understanding about how dangerous driving a car is — especially since unsafe speed is the top contributing factor in L.A. traffic deaths. Research shows that a pedestrian struck by a driver going 20 mph has an 80% chance of survival. If that driver accelerates to 40 mph and hits a pedestrian, the victim's chance of surviving drops to just 10%. "The act of going above the speed limit or going fast [in unsafe] road conditions...that is an intention," Brozen said. "When someone is driving in a way that can kill someone, they are creating a risk." According to John Yi, another "degree of intention" in traffic deaths falls on car-centric society and L.A.'s leaders, who are "intentional about what we're building and what we're not building." City officials have stated clearly that L.A.'s mission to eliminate traffic deaths is informed by the fact that "underserved communities are disproportionately killed in traffic crashes." But Yi argues that the historic neglect of those communities can be viewed as intentional. "To take that away, I think, is really not looking at some of the most disinvested communities and what they're going through," he said. "To put it squarely on the shoulders of drivers and say it's their fault and they're the ones who should be moderating behavior is overlooking the situation altogether."
triceratops 6y ago
Going by that logic transportation of any sort should never be provided by any corporation.
roywiggins 6y ago
Vehicular homicide is already rarely punished. I don't know if it would make that much practical difference.

>the corporation will kill people without consequences. ...except the corporation being fined and/or sued in civil court, along with the executives/engineers responsible facing criminal charges.

pacamara619 6y ago
It's gonna be the same thing as it is now: "Tragic. Thoughts and prayers. Software problem. Nothing we could do."
- gruez 6y ago
  That literally describes the situation now with human drivers. The only difference is that human drivers get more sympathy because most voters are also drivers.
buran77 6y ago
Except they rarely punish individuals, and as long as they are large enough or with plenty of government contracts companies rarely get a punishment that's more than "the cost of doing business". Look at the GM ignition switch scandal where executives knew explicitly the likely consequences of their decision and yet no real punishment was enacted even after repeatedly lying about the death toll (initially by at least one order of magnitude) that eventually officially reached 124 deaths and likely much higher in reality. Look at Boeing's 737MAX scandal where executives also knew the likely consequences and worked to go around rules, regulations, certification in order to pretend those consequences won't happen. Both Boeing and authorities either buried or turned a blind eye to reports that this happens. No real punishment here either. Autonomous cars or not, as long as corporations pay for your laws you will always be on the lower rungs of the ladder.
babycake 6y ago
Remember not long ago when Uber killed a pedestrian? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54175359 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54175359 > Ms Vasquez was charged on 27 August, and made her first appearance in court on 15 September. The trial is now set for February next year. > Despite the decision not to levy criminal charges against Uber itself, the company did not escape criticism. > Days before the crash, an employee had warned his superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely in accidents, and raised concerns about the training of operators. > Following the crash, authorities in Arizona suspended Uber's ability to test self-driving cars on the state's public roads, and Uber ended its tests in the state. It received permission to carry out tests in the state of California earlier this year. So despite all the safety failures by the company, just the hired driver was charged...
- gruez 6y ago
  >> Days before the crash, an employee had warned his superiors that the vehicles were unsafe, were routinely in accidents, and raised concerns about the training of operators. >So despite all the safety failures by the company, just the hired driver was charged... A thought experiment: if a municipality was warned about safety failures about its streets (high speed limits, poor lighting/signage, lack of pedestrian crossings), and some kid got killed in a car accident, should the municipality be liable? What if everything that uber/the municipality did was within the law, and the only thing they're guilty of is not taking additional safety measures? eg. dropping the speed limit to 20mph in suburbs will probably eliminate all pedestrian deaths, should the municipality be liable if it set the speed limit to 30mph and the kid died?

Eridrus 6y ago

Drivers often do not face any consequences for killing people as it is. Unless the driver was intoxicated, it is generally written off as an accident. If only the people who get outraged about self-driving cars were as outraged by this fact and applied pressure to improve street design and speed limit enforcement.

Eridrus 6y ago
And to be clear, this largely makes sense: humans are not good at preventing long tail failures that require constant vigilance and are not responsive to unlikely punishments, no matter how severe. The thing we have to do is improve the systems in which people operate.
unreal37 6y ago
A lot of car fatalities are accidents that don't involve alcohol - around 70%. One time I lost control of my car while driving on the highway and hitting a patch of black ice. Luckily, nobody died. But that happens all the time. Presumably, a self-driving car will drive slower in adverse weather than a human might, as well as being able to control the car if it hits an ice patch better than an untrained human can. Also, the car can notify other cars on the same road of the ice patch, instantaneously.

andrewzah 6y ago

There are an insane amount of car accident-related deaths & injuries every year. At least 30,000 deaths/year in the USA alone. Because humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc, and sometimes just make mistakes. With fully automated driving the number of crashes (and therefore injuries & deaths) will go down -dramatically-. So you can argue all you want about the ethics & morality of the ~100 deaths/year or so from automated car crashes. But that's far preferable to the current situation. Even if we still have 10-20k deaths/year from automated driving systems, that's still a large improvement. This argument about the ethics of contrived car accident scenarios totally misses the boat. In my opinion the only ethical argument is to move over to fully automated driving systems as soon as -safely- possible.

riffic 6y ago
you've described crimes and bad decision making processes (humans drive tired, drunk, while texting, etc, and sometimes just make mistakes). The outcomes of those choices are known and have causes which are preventable; they are by definition not accidental in nature. I know it's not intentional but words matter. Crash is a better word 99% of the time than "accident".
- chipgap98 6y ago
  An accident is just something that occurs without intention. In the cases you're describing people don't intend to hit another car or person. That makes accident a reasonable label.
  - riffic 6y ago
    Behaviors and design are themselves an intention. This post addresses "The Semantics of Intention": https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_violence_language.php https://laist.com/2020/01/03/car_crash_accident_traffic_viol... excerpt: Drivers aren't out there aiming for pedestrians and cyclists, so how does intention factor in? UCLA's Madeline Brozen argues it can be traced back to both failure to follow road safety laws and a lack of understanding about how dangerous driving a car is — especially since unsafe speed is the top contributing factor in L.A. traffic deaths. Research shows that a pedestrian struck by a driver going 20 mph has an 80% chance of survival. If that driver accelerates to 40 mph and hits a pedestrian, the victim's chance of surviving drops to just 10%. "The act of going above the speed limit or going fast [in unsafe] road conditions...that is an intention," Brozen said. "When someone is driving in a way that can kill someone, they are creating a risk." According to John Yi, another "degree of intention" in traffic deaths falls on car-centric society and L.A.'s leaders, who are "intentional about what we're building and what we're not building." City officials have stated clearly that L.A.'s mission to eliminate traffic deaths is informed by the fact that "underserved communities are disproportionately killed in traffic crashes." But Yi argues that the historic neglect of those communities can be viewed as intentional. "To take that away, I think, is really not looking at some of the most disinvested communities and what they're going through," he said. "To put it squarely on the shoulders of drivers and say it's their fault and they're the ones who should be moderating behavior is overlooking the situation altogether."

triceratops 6y ago

Going by that logic transportation of any sort should never be provided by any corporation.

roywiggins 6y ago

Vehicular homicide is already rarely punished. I don't know if it would make that much practical difference.