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They want to avoid thinking about non-engineering things like liability for as long as possible and focus on the engineering problem. It's a valid approach. A
by nzmsv 6y ago
They want to avoid thinking about non-engineering things like liability for as long as possible and focus on the engineering problem. It's a valid approach.
As for the "who has liability" question it's simple: the driver does. Or at least it's intended to be simple in the absence of lawyers twisting the wording around. Regular, non self driving cars have basic driving assists. For example, cruise control will happily ram your car into the back of another one. Adaptive cruise still has a chance of doing that, plus it has the additional risk of causing an accident by randomly slamming on the brakes for no reason at all. For all these failure modes the liability is understood to lie with the driver: it is up to them to be alert enough to override the automation when it malfunctions. However, if you do a long distance drive with and without cruise control you'll quickly admit that it has value, even with all the imperfections. Same for Comma.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 23iofj 6y ago> They want to avoid thinking about non-engineering things like liability for as long as possible and focus on the engineering problem. It's a valid approach. When you write software that can kill people, you don't get to roll your eyes at questions like "who is responsible when someone dies?". These sorts of questions ARE engineering questions, and answering these questions with thought and care is important! Why? Because if the answer is "this is alpha quality and we might be liable" then you wait to deploy the feature. Which is why comma.ai is "ahead" of its competitors -- because they aren't doing real engineering. Thinking about the real-world context into which your system is being deployed is the thing that separates real engineering from R&D/hacking. What you're describing is not engineering; it's R&D. Even comma.ai admits this. And, look, R&D is perfectly okay! Everyone else is also doing R&D on real roads! E.g., all of the major auto manufacturers are putting cars on real roads with full L5 (and safety driver backups where appropriate). In fact, the major auto manufacturers are all WAY ahead of comma.ai when it comes to R&D-quality systems! Compare Cruise or Argo or Uber ATG or Waymo to comma.ai. But it's a terrible idea to ship R&D to paying customers when lives are on the line. If comma.ai wants to drive their system with their own safety drivers, that's fine. This isn't even (just) a normative or ethical statement. It's simply a statement of fact, at least in the USA. For some reason Software never became a "real" engineering discipline. But automotive
- grekiki 6y agoAs long as the product demands a user to be looking at the road(and intends to keep it like that for a while), there is no reason to spend time figuring out how to solve legal issues in case the user isn't responsible.
- 23iofj 6y agoThis is only true for a tiny subset of possible flaws. Toyota was found legally responsible for its unintended acceleration bug from the mid 2000s when "the driver should pay attention 100% of the time" wasn't even something you would think to say because there were exactly zero driver assist features.
- cwhiz 6y agoI don't know. How is this fundamentally different than any other vehicle modification? Or even any other form of driver distraction. The driver is always responsible. This whole exercise feels like people trying to remove themselves from liability so that they can feel better about their absurd behavior. Why can't we keep this simple? The driver is responsible.