And, wow, has that gotten tons of push back while people go to great lengths to frame me like I'm some extremist lunatic. Meanwhile, the person cavalierly brushing off training deaths is making rather extreme comments about how driverless vehicles can completely replace all human drivers, etc and most people are not arguing with that. No, I am the one being argued with.
It's starting to look to me like people are basically looking for some silly reason to argue with me in specific. Because I really did not assert a lot of the stuff being hung on me here.
Again, yes, if we can save 40k lives. That's a very big if. It assumes a 100% reduction in mortality. That implies that you expect driverless vehicles to not merely be better than human drivers, you expect them to be perfect and to have flawless performance.
And it's that sort of ridiculous unstated assumption that has me rolling my eyes and going "Wow, people on HN sure are just looking for crazy reasons to argue with me." Because I don't think that's a remotely defensible position.
This is a pretty big assumption without any evidence to support it.
There are many solutions that can potentially save even more lives, such as treatments and cures for heart disease and cancer.
However, I do not see anyone arguing to test these potentially life saving miracles on random people who happen to be walking down the street, like we are with autonomous vehicles.
Certainly, if we relaxed standards on testing cancer and heart disease treatments, we'd rapidly accelerate the development of life-saving cures. The more people we test them on, the better data we'll have to build better models, much like with autonomous driving.
If it can save 500k lives per year from cancer and heart disease, would revoking the need for informed consent to test these potential cures be a no-brainer?
Just saying that doesn't absolve you from making an actual argument.
> Ask all the millions of people that have a relative killed by a car if they would care at all.
How motherfucking dare you! My father did die in a car crash when I was a kid. But I also live in a country where totalitarianism actually happened. You should wash your mouth, and then you should sit down and make the argument.
Because to reply to all of it, including
> "If you are Black, gay or any number of other things, are you cool with giving up such control in an openly hostile social climate?"
with
> "If it can save 40k lives per year it’s in any case a no-brainer."
is absolutely not good enough. Would you be okay with that being quoted "out of context" like that (it wouldn't really be, it's the degree of seriousness you decided to muster) like that on billboards with your real name attached to it?