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Comment by bussierem | Hacker News Reader

>Self-driving cars need to be even better or people will die.

He is right - the problem with your response to this statement is that it doesn't identify the _actual_ reason behind why they need to be better, and it's a problem identified by the article in question: When a human driver swerves randomly and kills someone, we know EXACTLY who is to blame, and something can be done. If a driverless car, or even a car with "driverless technology" that also has a driver in it (like the Tesla driver mentioned in the article) hits someone and god forbid kills them, we still have no idea who is to blame for that problem, because it practically becomes a marketing argument in some cases.

Before we can be okay with driverless cars, ESPECIALLY if we don't plan on them being 100% accident free, we need to solve a lot of ethical and legal battles that don't seem to be even on the minds of the people that tout this as the future, or a necessity.

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You argument is basically that it is more important to figure out who to blame for deaths, than it is to get rid of those deaths in the first place.

That strikes me as weird.

Also, the people who will be paying out damages will be exactly the same as the people who are paying out for them today. The insurance companies.

The simple solution to these "ethical" issues is for everyone to have insurance, and for the insurance to pay out.

And I am sure that the insurance companies will be very happy with this arrangement, as reduced accident rates mean that they make more money.

Nobody will accept liability for actions outside of their control, and car manufacturers can not possibly afford to insure all cars they sell in perpetuity.

Insurance only works if the insuree bears the risk (and it has to be an actual risk with nonzero probability times cost, i'll leave why as an exercise to the reader) and in the case of car accidents, that risk is liability, which people have and computers don't. Can TSLA or Uber be charged and convicted of vehicular manslaughter?

Lower rate of accidents will just lower the market rate of insurance contracts.

> Nobody will accept liability for actions outside of their control, and car manufacturers can not possibly afford to insure all cars they sell in perpetuity.

Car manufacturers already, in the US, bear strict liability for damages resulting from manufacturing defects in perpetuity, and bear the cost of that liability either by self-insurance or some form of liability insurance contract.

> Can TSLA or Uber be charged and convicted of vehicular manslaughter?

Irrelevant to the insurance issue, since criminal penalties are uninsurable; more relevant is can they be held civilly liable for wrongful death resulting from a defect in a vehicle they make, to which the answer is clearly “yes”.

> Nobody will accept liability for actions outside of their control,

Sure they will. People pay for insurance now, and the insurance companies will give you a discounted price for your self driving car insurance.

Why wouldn't I want to accept liability in exchange for a cheaper policy? I would win as well as the insurance company.

The benefit is clear. And this is an exchange that many many people would be willing to make if it meant that their insurance prices were cut in half. It's free money to the consumers.

You are treating this as if this is some new problem. Your car can already have the wheel fall off, due to no fault of your own, and you'll crash, and the insurance company will pay for it.

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