Ok there are concerns about self-driving cars, and clearly the tech is not quite there yet, but I fear the premises at the heart of this article is poor. Firs

Ok there are concerns about self-driving cars, and clearly the tech is not quite there yet, but I fear the premises at the heart of this article is poor. Firstly, the tech of the 70s and 80s which he's referring to is clearly irrelevant when talking about the state of the art today. Secondly, the penalty for failure for incorrectly launching nuclear missiles is, well, somewhat severe. You are pretty much ending the world. Granted driverless cars will kill people. I think one has to start there. I dontvthinkvthe standard can be, or should be, zero deaths. [1] The question is whether they'll kill fewer people than human drivers (currently around a million a year.) Self driving cars will get better. Each improvement will persist forever. Ultimately deaths will become newsworthy. Which is to be hoped for, because right now those million deaths a year are ignored. [1] every day (unpredictable) people are involved in and endless game of chicken - with other drivers, with pedestrians, cycles and so on. Most people err on the chicken side most of the time. Self driving cars are (and will become more) predictable. It's easy to play chicken with a computer that doesn't care about you - you yield early and quickly. Being predictable makes the game much healthier - for the other player.