> In some ways, open source tries to solve some of this: everyone can still compete to make something better with the freedom to do so, but you can just take ot

> In some ways, open source tries to solve some of this: everyone can still compete to make something better with the freedom to do so, but you can just take other people's code so you don't have to duplicate efforts. Yes, open sourcing and sharing training data would likely get us to safer self-driving cars faster. > Of course, the problem there can be that companies don't want to share the pieces that are worth a lot of money. If self-driving tech is worth a trillion dollars, I might rather get that trillion dollars for myself and you can wait another 2, 5, 10, 20 years for it to be available. I guess I'm not sure it's a trillion dollar idea ultimately if it becomes widespread - is ABS a trillion dollar industry? Also, I wonder if auto companies will become wary of the liability issues. A full self-driving car (no steering wheel) likely won't generally be owned by consumers. You'd hail one like you do an Uber. Consider the liability issues: Who carries the insurance? Not the rider as they have no input (even if someone chose to buy one it's tough to see that they would be liable in the event of a crash since, again, they had no input). It would have to be the maker of the vehicle that carries the insurance. The other thing to consider is that ultimately in order for these systems to work most efficiently (and most safely) we need some communication between vehicles and with traffic signals. Another area where cooperation would be better than competition.