The same week that happened, a New York Police Department tow truck struck a 7-year old child in a crosswalk, walking to school, and dragged him 40 feet.[1] The child died. No other vehicle contributed to the accident. The tow truck driver was charged with failing to yield right of way to a pedestrian.
"Tyrana Carter, who witnessed the collision, said the boy was riding a bright green scooter next to his mother, who was pushing another child in a stroller, as they crossed the street. The driver of the tow truck, Ms. Carter said, appeared to be trying to beat a yellow light when she hit the boy.
“When she came around the corner, she hit the kid and she rolled over him,” said Ms. Carter, noting that many children, including the victim, were on their way to school."
I get your valid point here. I think most people would agree that they should not try to hide what happened.
But it's also undeniable that there is an impossible double standard in play here. Those who believe that no autonomous vehicles should be allowed to ever exist use every accident like this to try to blanket-ban them (or to make it impossible to develop and test them, even if their safety is factually no worse (in terms of $bad_thing per vehicle mile driven) than human drivers). Those people are being emotional and cherry-picking. If every car was self-driving, the incident in the article here would have happened, but that boy in NYC would still be alive because what AV would have gunned it to beat a yellow?
No one can say which life is worth more, however if they can demonstrate that there would be fewer deaths by developing and having AVs, vs eliminating them, it's a tough sell that AVs are evil, unless there is a viable alternative that somehow never ever kills or hurts anyone.
It’s not a double standard. AVs aren’t human. We can set whatever standard we want for them. There’s no logical reason it should be consistent with the standard for humans.
The logical reason is that if they reach the point of being safer than human drivers but we ban them for not being perfect then lives are being lost unnecessarily.
Self driving technology is much more scalable than a bad or negligent driver. So it is natural to be more concerned about it, even if you’re convinced that on average it has performed better than humans.
First, the companies involved in self driving need to stop lying about their records. Tesla has engaged in years of making extremely suspect claims about their safety that do not stand up to scrutiny at all.
Right, and why would it? The headline of the article you linked is:
"Driver of N.Y.P.D. Tow Truck Is Charged After Killing 7-Year-Old Boy"
Meanwhile, Cruise is a giant corporation who are performing research to fuel their for-profit business on public streets, which means they therefore answer to the authority of the state on the bounds of this research.
The state, seeing that the for-profit corporation is behaving in bad faith within the guidelines they've set up, are going to update policy / use the punitive actions outlined within that policy to answer to this bad faith behavior.
Can you explain to me why these seem to be comparable situations that should be treated identically to you?
The point being made is that we've got wildly different, possibly irrational so, expectations of safety in these two different contexts, but in the end, the consequence is the same, an innocent dead pedestrian.
I'd argue that _both_ should necessitate policy changes. The argument that there shouldn't be changes for one if there aren't changes for another is a flawed one.
It's always amazing to me that people are charged so little for causing the death of someone purely out of negligence.
If I swung a baseball bat out in public while not paying attention and it killed someone, surely I would be at least charged with manslaughter? It's not like we don't know that driving a tow truck could crush someone.
"Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said her company would "substantially" reduce its spending on Cruise after earlier pausing its production of Cruise-branded "Origin" autonomous vans. GM has invested around $2 billion in Cruise since it bought the company in 201."
Damn, didn't know autonomous vehicles have been around since the year 201.
They were popular for millenia, but feel out of fashion when the internal combustion engine was invented. Some say the autonomous operation was limited and esily distracted by oats.
No idea why this is removed from the frontpage, it's kind of an important aspect of how self-driving cars are tested in the US. If you rely mostly on self-reporting by the companies testing them for oversight, a company not reporting the crucial part of an accident that shows that the car did not behave properly is a huge deal.
Trying to get out of the way does make sense after a minor accident. Doing so after hitting a person is clearly dangerous as shown by this incident, and self-driving cars likely should not attempt it at all.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 61.7 ms ] thread"Tyrana Carter, who witnessed the collision, said the boy was riding a bright green scooter next to his mother, who was pushing another child in a stroller, as they crossed the street. The driver of the tow truck, Ms. Carter said, appeared to be trying to beat a yellow light when she hit the boy. “When she came around the corner, she hit the kid and she rolled over him,” said Ms. Carter, noting that many children, including the victim, were on their way to school."
This did not result in any policy changes.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/nyregion/nypd-tow-truck-b...
But it's also undeniable that there is an impossible double standard in play here. Those who believe that no autonomous vehicles should be allowed to ever exist use every accident like this to try to blanket-ban them (or to make it impossible to develop and test them, even if their safety is factually no worse (in terms of $bad_thing per vehicle mile driven) than human drivers). Those people are being emotional and cherry-picking. If every car was self-driving, the incident in the article here would have happened, but that boy in NYC would still be alive because what AV would have gunned it to beat a yellow?
No one can say which life is worth more, however if they can demonstrate that there would be fewer deaths by developing and having AVs, vs eliminating them, it's a tough sell that AVs are evil, unless there is a viable alternative that somehow never ever kills or hurts anyone.
Should our bar for acceptable behavior be the NYPD?
Right, and why would it? The headline of the article you linked is:
"Driver of N.Y.P.D. Tow Truck Is Charged After Killing 7-Year-Old Boy"
Meanwhile, Cruise is a giant corporation who are performing research to fuel their for-profit business on public streets, which means they therefore answer to the authority of the state on the bounds of this research.
The state, seeing that the for-profit corporation is behaving in bad faith within the guidelines they've set up, are going to update policy / use the punitive actions outlined within that policy to answer to this bad faith behavior.
Can you explain to me why these seem to be comparable situations that should be treated identically to you?
The point being made is that we've got wildly different, possibly irrational so, expectations of safety in these two different contexts, but in the end, the consequence is the same, an innocent dead pedestrian.
the other has...?
To my knowledge, the Cruise incident does not involve any deaths. The woman was taken to the ICU, but I haven't seen anything about her dying.
Only one involves covering up evidence in an attempt to deceive regulators.
the person is incentivized to view the events in that manner (ie works for or is associated with cruise/autopilot etc)...
what exactly is gonna happen if this happens?
if a car kills someone, what's the equivalent criminal procedure.
pretty simple logic.
if you go find the engineer who negligent code caused this, pretty sure you'd have an equivalence.
I don't see why the intelligence that was controlling the Cruise vehicle should also not be able to drive for many years?
If I swung a baseball bat out in public while not paying attention and it killed someone, surely I would be at least charged with manslaughter? It's not like we don't know that driving a tow truck could crush someone.
Damn, didn't know autonomous vehicles have been around since the year 201.
Trying to get out of the way does make sense after a minor accident. Doing so after hitting a person is clearly dangerous as shown by this incident, and self-driving cars likely should not attempt it at all.