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I think a human is far more likely than a car to have a self-protection tendency. If a car is programmed that way, how does that benefit the car company (or th

I think a human is far more likely than a car to have a self-protection tendency. If a car is programmed that way, how does that benefit the car company (or the programmer)? It's just a different family that sues them if someone dies that didn't have to die. Are you thinking they could advertise it as "prioritizes your life more than random other people!" That's just begging for a lawsuit. And they especially wouldn't program the car to protect itself above a human life. Why would you think it would? The car is not nearly valuable enough to outweigh the cost of a lawsuit.

bluefirebrand 5y ago
A human is less likely to mistake a garbage can for an oncoming car and then make the choice to run me over out of self preservation, though. Comparing a car programmed for self preservation versus a human seeking their self preservation only really makes sense if the car and human are both equally capable of assessing threats. At the moment I don't think cars are at the same level. Maybe I'm wrong. Humans are fallible too of course.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  You are mixing competence with agenda. Which is it? If you are concerned it is not as competent as a human, fine, that's defensible. But that's not what you said. You said you were concerned about its agenda, that it would be intentionally prioritize the lives of its passengers over other lives (and even suggested it would prioritize the preservation of the vehicle itself more highly) you said.... >I think the real concern that the car is actually programmed explicitly to kill you if it has to, to ensure it's own safety or the safety of it's riders or something. My comment was about that....the "agenda" issue, which is 100% what your comment was about. To be clear (if I wasn't in a previous message) There is NO incentive for it to be explicitly programmed to do that, since the company could be equally sued by pedestrians as it could by passengers. There IS incentive for a human to behave that way, since natural selection built a self protection motivation deeply into the human brain. There is also very strong incentive AGAINST prioritizing protection of the vehicle itself over any human -- passenger or not. For both human drivers and driving software programmers. Anyway, you seem to be changing your argument to one of competence, which to me is a completely different discussion. (I think self driving cars are better at some things and humans are better at other things, but eventually cars will be better -- or at least equal -- for the vast majority)

bluefirebrand 5y ago

A human is less likely to mistake a garbage can for an oncoming car and then make the choice to run me over out of self preservation, though. Comparing a car programmed for self preservation versus a human seeking their self preservation only really makes sense if the car and human are both equally capable of assessing threats. At the moment I don't think cars are at the same level. Maybe I'm wrong. Humans are fallible too of course.

robbrown451 5y ago
You are mixing competence with agenda. Which is it? If you are concerned it is not as competent as a human, fine, that's defensible. But that's not what you said. You said you were concerned about its agenda, that it would be intentionally prioritize the lives of its passengers over other lives (and even suggested it would prioritize the preservation of the vehicle itself more highly) you said.... >I think the real concern that the car is actually programmed explicitly to kill you if it has to, to ensure it's own safety or the safety of it's riders or something. My comment was about that....the "agenda" issue, which is 100% what your comment was about. To be clear (if I wasn't in a previous message) There is NO incentive for it to be explicitly programmed to do that, since the company could be equally sued by pedestrians as it could by passengers. There IS incentive for a human to behave that way, since natural selection built a self protection motivation deeply into the human brain. There is also very strong incentive AGAINST prioritizing protection of the vehicle itself over any human -- passenger or not. For both human drivers and driving software programmers. Anyway, you seem to be changing your argument to one of competence, which to me is a completely different discussion. (I think self driving cars are better at some things and humans are better at other things, but eventually cars will be better -- or at least equal -- for the vast majority)