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Comment by justinlardinois | Hacker News Reader

This. The reality is that no one will buy a self driving car that leans towards killing them over pedestrians.

Especially because people, when driving, blame someone else for all of their problems; this plays into the whole "Why do I have to suffer because that asshole ran out in front of me in traffic?" concept most drivers have and want reinforced by their vehicle AI.

Never mind the fact that you were turning right on the no turn on red, and they had the crosswalk...

The hope being AI driven cars won't turn right on the no turn on red, so the remainder of cases will really come down to pedestrian "negligence"

Yes, but my point is that the consumers vilify the pedestrian. Let's not even get into the cyclist.

Don't remind me; yesterday's discussion[0] about dooring was among the biggest shitshows I've seen on Hacker News. There's something Godwin-esque about online discussions concerning the relationship between cars and bicycles.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12674533

What about the "swerve off the road into crowd to avoid oncoming truck" case?

The AI should be much better than a human at avoiding it, and the truck should be AI controlled too. In cases where something like a physical failure that is so sudden the truck can't warn nearby AI driven cars I doubt the car will be able to react, AI or not

This is just defining away the problem, though. You're not going to be able to orchestrate a flag day where every vehicle on the road changes from Level <= 3 to Level > 3, so Level 4 and 5 vehicles are going to be sharing the road with simpler vehicles.

While those cars share the road I expect the cars to protect their occupants. If a car was on a one way street with people on both sides and a truck barreling towards a head on collision I'd expect the car to try and swerve and possibly hit people on the way towards swerving, but stop as early as possible. I'd expect humans do that, not out of selfishness but out of reflex, and I'd imagine AI could perserve more life than a human doing the same (and not have to rely on reflex so that even in situations where the human might panic and hit someone on the sidewalk it would manage to stop if needed)

> The reality is that no one will buy a self driving car that leans towards killing them over pedestrians.

Ah, I was assuming OP was only calling Mercedes-Benz buyers heartless bastards, rather than all of humanity.

Also, I would, as would many other people. I think it's mostly a moot point, though: do you know of any trolly problem that's happened in real life? If something bad is happening, the car should probably just stop.

Ah but then the trolly problem is just behind you.

Laws and courts will of course vary throughout the world, but my understanding is that you're generally not responsible for getting hit from behind, unless you're reversing or something, so I'm not sure why this is any more of a problem for self-driving cars.

Unless of course the car behind you is also self-driving. But then we've really just recursed.

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