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I used to agree with this, I no longer do. There was an interesting read on HN yesterday coincidentally that articulates a part of my reasoning, https://www.dev

I used to agree with this, I no longer do. There was an interesting read on HN yesterday coincidentally that articulates a part of my reasoning, https://www.devever.net/~hl/ruthlessness https://www.devever.net/~hl/ruthlessness The difference is that machines have no agency. Imagine a scenario where on roads with 100% human driving, the most of the people that are killed are PCP addled people running naked across freeways where they aren't expected to be, but with self driving you have 50% grandmas walking with babies in a stroller across crosswalks. We don't have to say that one life is more valuable than another to come to the conclusion that the latter is worse, all we have to do is acknowledge the pedestrian's portion of the responsibility for the outcome. With that in mind, your last sentence is false, the aggregate death count is not all that matters, what matters is the situations in which they occur. Now let's think about the link in this comment. We begin to form the rules of crossing a street around the behaviors of machines. Not unreasonable. But then it's just a small step from there to "you should've known how the machine was going to behave because it's behavior is simple and predictable." We wind up in a situation where we absolve the self driving car of all liability when an accident occurs because the only entity involved with agency was the pedestrian. We do this already with train tracks. So with that in mind, the machine systems killing less people is not enough, it has to be so good that the only deaths are suicides, unbelievably bad behavior by those killed, or freak accidents so unlikely that they genuinely shock everyone who learns of them. That's the only way to transition from humans to software operating the machines and be able to justify the ruthlessness with which machines operate themselves.

grecy 3y ago
> Imagine a scenario where on roads with 100% human driving, the most of the people that are killed are PCP addled people running naked across freeways where they aren't expected to be I don't think it's helpful to introduce this scenario that is entirely not true in the real world and therefore doesn't teach us anything. You're saying that a huge number of road deaths are people that were asking for it anyway. Dozens and dozens of people were killed on the road today who were not drunk, who were not on drugs and were not breaking a single road rule. This is the reality of the world. Good people are being killed every day by the way things are now. If we can do anything to reduce that number, we should. ... Another way I like to think about this is from the ad in Victoria where a guy has to pick which of his family members will be killed on the roads [1]. Obviously none of us want any of our family to be killed, we all choose zero. Closer to zero is better than not closer to zero. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  It's a thought experiment. A spherical cow that demonstrates that simply measuring the aggregate death count is lossy, it assumes that the proportion of pedestrian deaths where the pedestrian is at fault remains the same in both situations which is not true, so I draw a picture which makes that glaring distinction. We need to know the details of these deaths to know which scenario is preferable. Here, reverse my scenario, the autonomous vehicles only ever kill people who jump out in front of them. That's preferable, no? Then why is the inverse not worth addressing?
  - grecy 3y ago
    I strongly disagree with your premise. Current situation: 125 people are killed every single day Future autonomous situation: 100 people are killed every single day I don't care who they are, what they were doing or why they were killed. The details of their deaths are no important. Saving 25 lives per day is clearly the right thing to do. Hint: Imagine all of these people are your family and friends. Do you want to keep having 125 of them die every day, or only 100? Does it matter if they're being run over as pedestrians or slammed into by drunk drivers or simply sliding off the road on ice? Of course it doesn't, saving 25 of them every day is the only thing that matters.
    - kbenson 3y ago
      > The details of their deaths are no important. Saving 25 lives per day is clearly the right thing to do. I think it's clear that if we were talking about saving 125 people 90 years old or older or 100 children, the clear choice is to save the children, from almost any rational point of view. Even just from a societal health or utility standpoint, children are worth more than people that are statistically close to death anyway at a societal level. If that premise is acceptable, and if we accept that switching to self driving might change the demographics of who dies in accidents, then it's important to quantify not just whether it saves more people or not, but what people, in case that shifts matters. > Hint: Imagine all of these people are your family and friends. Do you want to keep having 125 of them die every day, or only 100? I would rather lose both my parents than one of my children. I don't know a single parent that would feel otherwise. Additionally, there's also the possibility that like adding extra lanes of traffic to a freeway can make traffic jams worse, self driving cars could increase deaths per capita while reducing deaths per trip, by promoting a lot more car travel (by either allowing current non drivers to drive or increasing time current drivers spend in the car).

grecy 3y ago

> Imagine a scenario where on roads with 100% human driving, the most of the people that are killed are PCP addled people running naked across freeways where they aren't expected to be I don't think it's helpful to introduce this scenario that is entirely not true in the real world and therefore doesn't teach us anything. You're saying that a huge number of road deaths are people that were asking for it anyway. Dozens and dozens of people were killed on the road today who were not drunk, who were not on drugs and were not breaking a single road rule. This is the reality of the world. Good people are being killed every day by the way things are now. If we can do anything to reduce that number, we should. ... Another way I like to think about this is from the ad in Victoria where a guy has to pick which of his family members will be killed on the roads [1]. Obviously none of us want any of our family to be killed, we all choose zero. Closer to zero is better than not closer to zero. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2tOye9DKdQ

friend_and_foe 3y ago
It's a thought experiment. A spherical cow that demonstrates that simply measuring the aggregate death count is lossy, it assumes that the proportion of pedestrian deaths where the pedestrian is at fault remains the same in both situations which is not true, so I draw a picture which makes that glaring distinction. We need to know the details of these deaths to know which scenario is preferable. Here, reverse my scenario, the autonomous vehicles only ever kill people who jump out in front of them. That's preferable, no? Then why is the inverse not worth addressing?
- grecy 3y ago
  I strongly disagree with your premise. Current situation: 125 people are killed every single day Future autonomous situation: 100 people are killed every single day I don't care who they are, what they were doing or why they were killed. The details of their deaths are no important. Saving 25 lives per day is clearly the right thing to do. Hint: Imagine all of these people are your family and friends. Do you want to keep having 125 of them die every day, or only 100? Does it matter if they're being run over as pedestrians or slammed into by drunk drivers or simply sliding off the road on ice? Of course it doesn't, saving 25 of them every day is the only thing that matters.
  - kbenson 3y ago
    > The details of their deaths are no important. Saving 25 lives per day is clearly the right thing to do. I think it's clear that if we were talking about saving 125 people 90 years old or older or 100 children, the clear choice is to save the children, from almost any rational point of view. Even just from a societal health or utility standpoint, children are worth more than people that are statistically close to death anyway at a societal level. If that premise is acceptable, and if we accept that switching to self driving might change the demographics of who dies in accidents, then it's important to quantify not just whether it saves more people or not, but what people, in case that shifts matters. > Hint: Imagine all of these people are your family and friends. Do you want to keep having 125 of them die every day, or only 100? I would rather lose both my parents than one of my children. I don't know a single parent that would feel otherwise. Additionally, there's also the possibility that like adding extra lanes of traffic to a freeway can make traffic jams worse, self driving cars could increase deaths per capita while reducing deaths per trip, by promoting a lot more car travel (by either allowing current non drivers to drive or increasing time current drivers spend in the car).