2. I see no evidence that "massive, publicly-funded investment" would achieve this technological goal faster or better than via capitalistic means. Do you have any?
3. Lives will be lost regardless of how the tech is developed. Surely this is obvious. So what are you even talking about?
This technology is still evolving, though, and the law will need to be adjusted accordingly.
Not functionally, consistently, or meaningfully. Many of these companies have learned to how to ingratiate themselves to party machines in the markets where they operate, such that this decision-making is almost entirely excluded from public check or debate. Others, like Uber, willfully break laws with little consequence, for much of the same reason as the above.
>2. I see no evidence that "massive, publicly-funded investment" would achieve this technological goal faster or better than via capitalistic means. Do you have any?
As someone else pointed out, its not about faster but more safely. But the whole technology that these companies are building on top of was arrived at by this kind of public research to begin with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car#History
>3. Lives will be lost regardless of how the tech is developed. Surely this is obvious. So what are you even talking about?
That private companies not be the nearly sole arbiters of what lives are worth sacrificing.
It's an inherent characteristic of capitalism that the primary driver is profit. I mean, it's the whole point of the system. What is the value of one human life within this system? Historically that value has not been high.
Now, when people saying "publicly-funded investment" it's a popular conception that this means a vast amount of government waste, because everything the government does is wasteful, right? How is three or four companies spending huge amounts of money to pursue the exact same goal not wasteful?
Look at things like the internet itself. Public funding of technology can work.
* capitalistic automatic cars mean 2000 deaths per year, reducing linearly to zero after 10 years
* socialist automatic cars eventually mean 1200 deaths per year, reducing to zero after 30 years
* manual cars mean 1000 deaths per year, not reducing
Then after 11 years total deaths will be the same in all 3 cases (11,000), but after 30 years it will be 11k capital, 18k socialist, and 30k and growing with no changes.
However that's of no comfort to the families of who died in the start, especially the ones who didn't opt in (as was typical with flying when it was more dangerous).
> I don't think anyone is suggesting that publicly-funded investment would make this happen faster. Just safer.
The point is that while it could be safer per year, being slower means that it's not safer.
Putting those billions in removing the drunk or tired drivers from the roads, enforcing the laws and rules would save more people.