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This is a really hard and weird ethical problem IMHO, and one we'll have to deal with sooner or later. Imagine you have a self-driving AI that causes fatal acc

This is a really hard and weird ethical problem IMHO, and one we'll have to deal with sooner or later. Imagine you have a self-driving AI that causes fatal accidents 10 times less often than your average human driver, but when the accidents happen, nobody knows why. Should we switch to that AI, and have 10 times fewer accidents and no accountability for the accidents that do happen, or should we stay with humans, have 10x more road fatalities, but stay happy because the perpetrators end up in prison? Framed like that, it seems like the former solution is the only acceptable one, yet people call for CEOs to go to prison when an AI goes wrong. If that were the case, companies wouldn't dare use any AI, and that would basically degenerate to the latter solution.

okasaki 2y ago
Wait, why would we want 10x more traffic fatalities?
- stavros 2y ago
  We wouldn't, that's their point.
moritzwarhier 2y ago
I don't know about your country, but people going to prison for causing road fatalities is extremely rare here. Even temporary loss of the drivers license has a very high bar, and that's the main form of accountability for driver behavior in Germany, apart from fines. Badly injuring or killing someone who themselves did not violate traffic safety regulations is far from guaranteed to cause severe repercussions for the driver. By default, any such situation is an accident and at best people lose their license for a couple of months.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Drivers are the apex predators. My local BMV passed me after I badly failed the vision test. Thankfully I was shaken enough to immediately go to the eye doctor and get treatment.
chefandy 2y ago
Sadly, we live in a society where those executives would use that impunity as carte blanche to spend no money improving (in the best-case scenario,) or even more likely, keep cutting safety expenditures until the body counts get high enough for it to start damaging sales. If we’ve already given them a free pass, they will exploit it to the greatest possible extent to increase profit.
- ETH_start 2y ago
  What evidence exists for this characterization?
  - rgbrgb 2y ago
    The way health insurance companies optimize for denials in the US.
    - ETH_start 2y ago
      What evidence is there that they do that? That would be a very one-dimensional competitive strategy, given a competing insurance company could wipe them out by simply being more reasonable in handling insurance claims and taking all of their market share.
      - Mil0dV 2y ago
        If there is objective, complete data available to all consumers, who are not influenced by all sorts of other means to choose. Right now it's a race to the bottom - who can get away with the worst service. So they're motivated to be able to prevent bad press etc. The whole system is broken. Just take a look at the 41 countries with higher life expectancy.
        ETH_start 2y ago
        There is no evidence that this what's happening, and the famous RAND health insurance study showed that health outcomes have almost no relationship with the healthcare system, so you'll need to look elsewhere for explanations for the U.S.'s relatively poor standing in life expectancy rankings.
monkeynotes 2y ago
> nobody knows why But we do know the culpability rests on the shoulders of the humans who decided the tech was ready for work.
ethbr1 2y ago
Hey look, it's almost like we're back at the end of the First Industrial Revolution (~1850), as society grapples with how to create happiness in a rapidly shifting economy of supply and demand, especially for labor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#John_Stuart_Mill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#John_Stuart_M... Pretty bloody time for labor though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
deleted 2y ago
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fc417fc802 2y ago
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okasaki 2y ago

Wait, why would we want 10x more traffic fatalities?

stavros 2y ago
We wouldn't, that's their point.

moritzwarhier 2y ago

I don't know about your country, but people going to prison for causing road fatalities is extremely rare here. Even temporary loss of the drivers license has a very high bar, and that's the main form of accountability for driver behavior in Germany, apart from fines. Badly injuring or killing someone who themselves did not violate traffic safety regulations is far from guaranteed to cause severe repercussions for the driver. By default, any such situation is an accident and at best people lose their license for a couple of months.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Drivers are the apex predators. My local BMV passed me after I badly failed the vision test. Thankfully I was shaken enough to immediately go to the eye doctor and get treatment.

chefandy 2y ago

Sadly, we live in a society where those executives would use that impunity as carte blanche to spend no money improving (in the best-case scenario,) or even more likely, keep cutting safety expenditures until the body counts get high enough for it to start damaging sales. If we’ve already given them a free pass, they will exploit it to the greatest possible extent to increase profit.

ETH_start 2y ago
What evidence exists for this characterization?
- rgbrgb 2y ago
  The way health insurance companies optimize for denials in the US.
  - ETH_start 2y ago
    What evidence is there that they do that? That would be a very one-dimensional competitive strategy, given a competing insurance company could wipe them out by simply being more reasonable in handling insurance claims and taking all of their market share.
    - Mil0dV 2y ago
      If there is objective, complete data available to all consumers, who are not influenced by all sorts of other means to choose. Right now it's a race to the bottom - who can get away with the worst service. So they're motivated to be able to prevent bad press etc. The whole system is broken. Just take a look at the 41 countries with higher life expectancy.
      - ETH_start 2y ago
        There is no evidence that this what's happening, and the famous RAND health insurance study showed that health outcomes have almost no relationship with the healthcare system, so you'll need to look elsewhere for explanations for the U.S.'s relatively poor standing in life expectancy rankings.

monkeynotes 2y ago

> nobody knows why But we do know the culpability rests on the shoulders of the humans who decided the tech was ready for work.

ethbr1 2y ago

Hey look, it's almost like we're back at the end of the First Industrial Revolution (~1850), as society grapples with how to create happiness in a rapidly shifting economy of supply and demand, especially for labor. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#John_Stuart_Mill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#John_Stuart_M... Pretty bloody time for labor though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

deleted 2y ago

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fc417fc802 2y ago

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