“Society will accept deaths caused by vehicles, regardless of whether the driver is human, robot, dog, alien species, so that people with vehicles can go vroom vroom” - every car company since cars have existed.
The issues of vehicles and the risk they post to people outside the vehicles are straightforward externality problems which we could solve or optimize if we really wanted to.
Every vehicle driven above a certain speed for a unit of time, whether with an human or robot driver, imposes a risk on everyone around it. (whether they are inside or outside of a vehicle) Make a ballpark, even lowball, estimate for that risk, and simply require the people inside the vehicle to compensate others for the risk being imposed on them. Of course this is simplistic and not perfect, but it would be a lot more honest than what we are doing today, and would align incentives to a safe future a lot better than what we do today.
> The most interesting part of the interview arrived when Korosec brought on a thought experiment. What if self-driving vehicles like Waymo and others reduce the number of traffic fatalities in the United States, but a self-driving vehicle does eventually cause a fatal crash, Korosec pondered. Or as she put it to the executive: “Will society accept that? Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?”
Americans accept pedestrian deaths caused by huge monster truck F350s every single day. Not that an AI powered car running people over is nothing, but nobody in the US gives a shit about pedestrian deaths
It’s much easier to accept fatalities caused by other humans because there is someone to hold responsible. Will autonomous vehicle companies be held responsible when they cause fatalities?
It also goes beyond just the total number of fatalities. Just like we don’t accept DUIs, we shouldn’t accept negligence or laziness from autonomous vehicle developers even if their product is safer than human drivers.
We see with trains and jets that the public does not accept deaths with the same benign resignation as automobiles.
The question is: will turning all the cars into a collective Borg operated by Big Tech upend our indifference to auto fatalities?
Already we see that all the latest catastrophes from self-driving cars make much better press, so no, society will not give Waymo a “pass” for just killing a few people through a corporate cost-benefit analysis, particularly when those people never accepted the risk of dealing with Waymo in the first place. And you can substitute the name of any other car company there.
This is not a controversial take, the evidence already exists.
There's a website tracking deaths associated with Teslas, including 61 autopilot fatalities. This has not deterred people from continuing to use autopilot, because using autopilot is a sensible decision. Use of autopilot reduces accidents sixfold in a trend that has been improving over time.[1] Waymo has better statistics and even better performance.[2]
These technologies are going to change the world in a huge way. I'd wager that within 10 years, every luxury car will be outfitted with Waymo sensor kits. Nobody will care how it looks. Within 20, you won't be able to buy consumer insurance for a car you drive yourself.
We already accept 40,000 vehicle deaths a year, 7,500 pedestrian deaths a year, 1,100 by police, 260 by train, and almost 50,000 deaths from falls.
Nothing is completely safe, and it's just factually correct to say that there will be a fatal crash at some point that's the fault of an autonomous car (there actually have been already), but that Waymo's at least are already far safer than human drivers, and if that remains true, then society will "accept" it.
Also, the question was literally "Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?" which is not great, IMO. What does it mean for "society" to "accept" a death? There will be lawsuits, regulations, etc. Is the question whether self-driving cars will be banned everywhere after one fatality?
Lets hope not, if so, here is a theoretical scenario:
A person wants someone dead, so they hack into the system or hires someone to do so. Person is hit and dies. The heirs sue say "Waymo", but since death is "accepted", case tossed out and Insurance will cover it.
We already know, there is no serious punishment to companies that is cracked, this case will be accepted. Now punishment it is a slap on the hand, just a cost of doing business.
In this case, and others, we need these companies to be punished to the point where they are 1 step from bankruptcy and/or maybe the CEO and all their direct reports are jailed for a minimum of 7 years. And they can be sued in civil court.
Without that, it will be mayhem on the roads, just as it is for Personal Information being obtained.
Death caused by automated vehicle is not the controversial aspect, the difficulty comes when there is a choice that the vehicle must make between possible outcomes:
* avoid crashing into pedestrian(s) but kill occupant(s)
* crash into pedestrian(s) to save occupant(s)
Real life trolley problem at work and programmed by someone somewhere
What does this sentence even mean? A regular car crash basically always has someone at fault, a reckless or unattentive driver, a service employee or a manufacturer. What does "death by robotaxi" change by that? That responsibility should dissolve, and people would say "oh it was an Act of the Algorithm, move on, it's still worth it?"
I think a lot of it will depend on the type of death. Pedestrians doing something most people acknowledge was stupid? Sure. A robotaxi going into Mad Max mode and taking a shortcut through a sidewalk? Much less likely. And there is a whole world of degrees of fault between the two. Ultimately the creators of the taxi service must be able to be held liable when at fault. In the era of sane governance investigations would be performed. Who knows now though.
19 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 36.1 ms ] threadThe issues of vehicles and the risk they post to people outside the vehicles are straightforward externality problems which we could solve or optimize if we really wanted to.
Every vehicle driven above a certain speed for a unit of time, whether with an human or robot driver, imposes a risk on everyone around it. (whether they are inside or outside of a vehicle) Make a ballpark, even lowball, estimate for that risk, and simply require the people inside the vehicle to compensate others for the risk being imposed on them. Of course this is simplistic and not perfect, but it would be a lot more honest than what we are doing today, and would align incentives to a safe future a lot better than what we do today.
Sounds like "perfect is the enemy of good."
It also goes beyond just the total number of fatalities. Just like we don’t accept DUIs, we shouldn’t accept negligence or laziness from autonomous vehicle developers even if their product is safer than human drivers.
The question is: will turning all the cars into a collective Borg operated by Big Tech upend our indifference to auto fatalities?
Already we see that all the latest catastrophes from self-driving cars make much better press, so no, society will not give Waymo a “pass” for just killing a few people through a corporate cost-benefit analysis, particularly when those people never accepted the risk of dealing with Waymo in the first place. And you can substitute the name of any other car company there.
There's a website tracking deaths associated with Teslas, including 61 autopilot fatalities. This has not deterred people from continuing to use autopilot, because using autopilot is a sensible decision. Use of autopilot reduces accidents sixfold in a trend that has been improving over time.[1] Waymo has better statistics and even better performance.[2]
These technologies are going to change the world in a huge way. I'd wager that within 10 years, every luxury car will be outfitted with Waymo sensor kits. Nobody will care how it looks. Within 20, you won't be able to buy consumer insurance for a car you drive yourself.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport [2] https://waymo.com/safety/impact/
Nothing is completely safe, and it's just factually correct to say that there will be a fatal crash at some point that's the fault of an autonomous car (there actually have been already), but that Waymo's at least are already far safer than human drivers, and if that remains true, then society will "accept" it.
Also, the question was literally "Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?" which is not great, IMO. What does it mean for "society" to "accept" a death? There will be lawsuits, regulations, etc. Is the question whether self-driving cars will be banned everywhere after one fatality?
A person wants someone dead, so they hack into the system or hires someone to do so. Person is hit and dies. The heirs sue say "Waymo", but since death is "accepted", case tossed out and Insurance will cover it.
We already know, there is no serious punishment to companies that is cracked, this case will be accepted. Now punishment it is a slap on the hand, just a cost of doing business.
In this case, and others, we need these companies to be punished to the point where they are 1 step from bankruptcy and/or maybe the CEO and all their direct reports are jailed for a minimum of 7 years. And they can be sued in civil court.
Without that, it will be mayhem on the roads, just as it is for Personal Information being obtained.
* avoid crashing into pedestrian(s) but kill occupant(s)
* crash into pedestrian(s) to save occupant(s)
Real life trolley problem at work and programmed by someone somewhere