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What about liability? Today if a driver makes a mistake and hurts someone, the driver is responsible. If a self-driving car makes a mistake, is the automaker re

by abalone 12y ago

What about liability? Today if a driver makes a mistake and hurts someone, the driver is responsible. If a self-driving car makes a mistake, is the automaker responsible? In 2013 auto insurance companies paid out $124 billion in liability and property damage claims.[1] Plus who knows how much courts awarded in tort trials for serious automobile accidents. Even if a self-driving car is 10X safer than a human driver, that's still equivalent to 10% of today's insurance and litigation burden being shifted to automakers. Won't this have a significant impact on the cost of autonomous cars? I can't see courts upholding the standard software license agreement that indemnifies software makers from bugs when it comes to autonomous vehicles. Injury & death are not the same as data loss, and in any event that would only cover the driver, not all victims. For this reason alone I think the future will be one of semi-autonomous driving, where humans are still required to be trained and in control and ultimately liable for decisions. "Cruise control on steroids." [1] http://www.iii.org/table-archive/21338 http://www.iii.org/table-archive/21338

dragonwriter 12y ago
> What about liability? Today if a driver makes a mistake and hurts someone, the driver is responsible. Most likely, liability will be addressed to some extent in statute authorizing general use of driverless vehicles, but there's been quite a lot of analysis of this issue just based on generally applicable liability principles. For one example, see http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/04/products-liability-driverless-cars-villasenor http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/04/products-li... > Even if a self-driving car is 10X safer than a human driver, that's still equivalent to 10% of today's insurance and litigation burden being shifted to automakers. Won't this have a significant impact on the cost of autonomous cars? At the numbers you give, not particularly. Let's use that 10% number, and assume that the $124 billion paid out in 2013 was spread out over just the new cars sold in the US 2013, rather than all cars sold in 2013, or all cars on the road in 2013. 15.6 million cars were sold in that year, and we've got to spread $12.4 billion in additional automaker liability across them -- that's less than $1,000 per car. (And, of course, if the automakers are taking all the liability, that means 100% of the cost of liability insurance to drivers goes away for driverless car purchasers, so the total cost to the consumer will be dramatically lower, even with the cost added to pay for the automaker's liability burden.)

by abalone 12y ago

dragonwriter 12y ago

> What about liability? Today if a driver makes a mistake and hurts someone, the driver is responsible. Most likely, liability will be addressed to some extent in statute authorizing general use of driverless vehicles, but there's been quite a lot of analysis of this issue just based on generally applicable liability principles. For one example, see http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/04/products-liability-driverless-cars-villasenor http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/04/products-li... > Even if a self-driving car is 10X safer than a human driver, that's still equivalent to 10% of today's insurance and litigation burden being shifted to automakers. Won't this have a significant impact on the cost of autonomous cars? At the numbers you give, not particularly. Let's use that 10% number, and assume that the $124 billion paid out in 2013 was spread out over just the new cars sold in the US 2013, rather than all cars sold in 2013, or all cars on the road in 2013. 15.6 million cars were sold in that year, and we've got to spread $12.4 billion in additional automaker liability across them -- that's less than $1,000 per car. (And, of course, if the automakers are taking all the liability, that means 100% of the cost of liability insurance to drivers goes away for driverless car purchasers, so the total cost to the consumer will be dramatically lower, even with the cost added to pay for the automaker's liability burden.)