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Comment by akgerber | Hacker News Reader

The reason why consumer/enterprise software is so lightly regulated is that very few people die when mistakes are made. (Embedded, especially medical, is a different story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25)

Meanwhile, cars (and roadways designed for high speeds without proper pedestrian accommodations) have been the #1 cause of injury deaths for kids for generations: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses.html

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I would love to see the numbers you pulled out of thin air for your statement on deaths caused by software. I've met at least one developer who quit the profession because they were writing code that "would probably lead to someone's death."

> they were writing code that "would probably lead to someone's death"

Versus cars, where I'd be shocked if there's a single mass-produced model that hasn't killed someone.

As of 2015, there were 9 car models without recorded deaths - https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/record-9-models-have-...

I'm not sure how statistically significant the numbers are, but it's something!

If I'm reading this correctly, those cars nave no "driver deaths" that means, that no one has died while driving those cars. This is a bit like a shotgun, which has potentially killed many people, but has not killed its owner.

Imagine if everyone was only allowed to drive those 9 car models.

I'm a pedestrian. I don't drive. I'm sure the cars don't have air bags on their bumpers.

Actually some Volvos do have pedestrian air bags!

(But your point still stands, of course.)

Then there would be deaths. The stats are skewed significantly towards vehicles of which there are more of so you'd always have to discount this figure by how many vehicles there were of that type to begin with and to be even more accurate how many passenger miles were driven with those vehicles.

More complete driver death rate statistics can be found here.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates

> The reason why consumer/enterprise software is so lightly regulated is that very few people die when mistakes are made

So few people die because computers are nearly unregulated and mass manufactured. Computers are cheap and safe because we allow the market to function.

Based on what? What deaths is the lack of regulation preventing? How would they be more dangerous if they were regulated?

> How would they be more dangerous if they were regulated?

Not necessarily more dangerous, but more expensive. Medical tourism anyone?

There's lots of unintended, expected, negative outcomes from regulation.

The counter culture is unregulated experimentation like https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3298919/ An impetus to circumvent these regulations, in the extreme case to save lives (or just to be deviant). Regulation is like a wet blanket that can mold, but is effective at putting out a fire in a pinch, if it's big enough. Regulatory bodies never seem to have a path-to-dissolution process (the core of my problem with regulation) and are largely implemented in such a manner that they grow, self-perpetuate, morph and fester corruption for countless generations (e.g. FDA vs smoking tobacco).

Admittedly, I'm biased by my beliefs. Despite being heavily regulated, I think much of the cancer epidemic is caused by auto and oil/fuel, with some contribution by Monsanto Roundup-like products. The independent studies, in these heavily regulated industries, are consistently squelched, influenced, or made unavailable (trade secrets!).

Regulation is not a silver bullet.

Incorrect. Look at applied computing for medicine/healthcare, those things are strictly regulated and analyzed because of their potential to harm. A 0.001% overflow in your twitter app makes you restart your phone, a 0.001% overflow in your pacemaker means you die. Immediately.

I realize these regulations exist, my point is they come at a cost and that at some point the costs can become prohibitive. As I mentioned below the argument isn't just theoretical, it's why the term "medical tourism" exists.

I believe reasonable tradeoffs could be made in theory, but I also believe the appeal of regulatory capture is too alluring for wall street to pass up. And when the people who need these devices can't afford it - well, that's when operation Too Big To Fail goes into effect.

the argument isn't just theoretical, it's why the term "medical tourism" exists.

Can you explain that in more detail? What's the connection to regulations? Does medical tourism exclusively happen from countries with heavily regulated medicine to countries with light regulations?

I would have assumed it was more about the distinction between state-run same-care-for-all healthcare systems versus commercial pay-to-play systems. If you have the money and you need the care, of course you're going to pay for better service if possible. But that seems orthogonal to regulations.

Both arguments are valid at the same time. People do absolutely shop around to skip waiting lines in state-run systems or save money by getting private treatment cheaper (UK citizens getting cheaper IVF in Spain is a common one I'm familiar with), but it's also sometimes true that certain treatments or medications that have been made available in one State that might not yet be certified for clinical use in another. New stem cell based therapies (the merits of which I have no idea...) in some South American nations is one example of the latter.

That's true. I still don't see the connection to self-driving cars, though, and the idea that regulations "come at a cost and that at some point the costs can become prohibitive".

GP is concerned about "regulatory capture", but the UK/Spain example you gave is about states being faster or slower to allow access to certain medical techniques, not corporations exploiting the system to lock in their market dominance.

The point about regulatory capture is secondary to the increase in cost. But there are patients going from high cost to low cost countries (linked below). There's also "big pharma" that is using IP regulations to limit what choices consumers have. I realize IP is another can of worms but it's still an example of regulation that is having the exact opposite of the desired outcome.

I would totally be for "sane" regulation, where autonomous driving components can be inexpensively tested and certified. I fear the more likely outcome will involve keeping costs prohibitively high. Considering how many people die on the road each year it would make sense for the state to sponsor a non-proprietary solution. Off the top of your head, in terms of the number of lives that can be saved per dollar - can you think of a better investment?

My feelings about autonomous cars is largely influenced by how terrible humans are at driving. At this point I'd rather trust a decent self-driving car than the average human.

*https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=162941...

There is regulation based medical tourism. For example, the Czech Republic is the only country in the "westernish" world which allows a special kind of IVF in which the nucleus is taken out of a near menopausal woman's egg, and placed into the mitochondrial fluid of a young woman's egg, and then fertilized using sperm from the husband, making a baby with genes from 3 people. Women from more western countries pay good money for this treatment.

Whether it is a good thing that it is legal here is questionable. Doctors seem very skeptical of this 3 genetic parent baby approach, and I don't know if it is because it is inherently risky, or if they are just conservative regarding the ethicalness.

I think the UK allows this as well.

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