When capitalism encourages extraordinary levels of investment in technological advancement which will save millions of lives, I call that a win-win.
Unclean water killing millions of people a year is a compelling reason to encourage investment in more affordable solutions for cleaning water.
You know what else kills 1.25 million people per year? Human driven cars. That’s a pretty compelling reason to encourage investment in eliminating the steering wheel. The best way we accelerate the advancement of this technology is, generally, not to regulate it out of existence.
> People are primarily developing these technologies to make money, not prevent deaths, and the idea that society as a whole should shoulder the burden of additional risk to greatly enrich a few individuals seems morally indefensible.
They can’t make the money unless they can prevent the deaths. The benefits to society as a whole as the technology is perfected is worth trillions. The idea that we would want to perpetuate a system which kills 1.25 million people a year because an extraordinarily rapidly progressing technology isn’t yet perfected is what seems morally indefensible to me.
I don’t know what you’re on about society shouldering a burden to enrich a few individuals. Economically speaking we all become richer with self driving cars.
The way I see it the question is simple — increase regulation now and shift the adoption curve to the right - resulting in on the order of millions of net additional driving deaths... or eliminate roadblocks and stimulate investment in self-driving R&D and shift the adoption curve to the left - saving millions of lives.
The fact there are those calling for clamping down on regulation and stymieing self-driving development after exactly one singular fatality in which self-driving technology may have played a contributing factor (but where the police on the scene ruled that the car was not at fault) appears to me to be a fearful mob type of response.