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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

Self driving cars will be as safe as the level of criminal liability faced by the makers.

Regulatory capture means it wont be high and the potential profits to be realized from first mover advantage here means there will be a significant incentive to "move fast and break things".

So to speak.

I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self driving cars for 20 more years then I am totally fine with that. That would simply mean that they werent safer as promised.

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I agree that there is a significant monetary incentive to "move fast and kill people". In the end, paying out a few $MM to random families is financially minimal compared to the $BBB that are up for grabs. We will never really have executives going to jail for things like this. We've built a system of profits > anything else.

This has been the status quo for the whole car industry for decades.

If executives were jailed for car accidents people we would have trains and trams in every corner.

Ordinary cars are testable, we understands quality of merials, corrosion, etc.

When it comes to AI droving, noone has a fucking clue what it will do in next 50 milliseconds. Teslas literally mis-classified a semi trailer for an underpass

The opportunity for shenanighans is endless

... and if makers of kitchen implements were jailed for knife accidents/crime then we'd be eating soup with plastic spoons for every meal.

It doesn't make sense to have universal product liability in that way: there are too many creative idiots.

In terms of complexity and security features a car is much closer to an airplane than a knife.

It's very disingenuous to compare it to a knife.

Not really; the fact is that sharp objects and heavy objects moving at speed are both inherently hazardous because of the basic nature of the physical world, but those same attributes make them extremely useful.

I don't object at all to holding manufacturers accountable for defective products; but it makes no sense to say "if your product is involved in an accident, you go to jail", which was the premise of the comment to which I responded.

> Not really

Citation needed.

> was the premise of the comment to which I responded.

It clearly wasn't.

> I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self driving cars for 20 more years then I am totally fine with that.

The status quo is 139 people dying every day in the US in traffic accidents.

If we replaced all cars with self-driving ones, an executive could approve a software update every single day that kills only 100 and it could very well still be a net benefit to society.

These discussions always seem to implicitly presume that we're currently at zero deaths. We're not--we just don't hear about them. Every year we delay self driving cars is more people dying, not fewer.

>These discussions always seem to implicitly presume that we're currently at zero deaths.

I never presumed that and never would.

I do presume that if we watered down criminal liability for reckless driving then we'd get way, way more than 139.

The current regulatory framework surrounding self driving cars is rather like making drink driving subject to a $30 fine. I would be surprised if it starts out safer than humans.

As if automakers haven't found plenty of ways to make human-piloted cars less safe in exchange for profit.

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