Comment by criddell
Orders of magnitude? Something like 100 people die on the road in the US each day. If self-driving tech could save 10 lives per day, that’s wouldn’t be good enough?
Orders of magnitude? Something like 100 people die on the road in the US each day. If self-driving tech could save 10 lives per day, that’s wouldn’t be good enough?
People don't usually go to jail. Unless the driver is drunk or there's some other level of provable criminal negligence (or someone actively trying to kill people by e.g. driving into a crowd of protesters they disagree with), it's just chalked up as an accident.
Do they go to jail?
That is not my experience here in the Bay Area. In fact here is a pretty typical recent example https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/community-members-mour...
The driver cuts in front of one person on an e-bike so fast they can’t react and hit them. Then after being hit they step on the accelerator and go over the sidewalk on the other side of the road killing a 4 year old. No charges filed.
This driver will be back on the street right away.
In such situations it’s useful to put yourself in a hypothetical situation. Rules: you can’t pick who you will be: one of the dead or alive. It will be assigned randomly.
So would you pick situation 1 or 2?
I would personally pick 1.
"It depends". If 50 people die and 50 people go to jail, vs. 40 people die and their families are left wondering if someone will take responsibility? Then that's not immediately standing out as an improvement just because fewer died. We can do better I think. The problem is simply one of responsibility.