1. It's not the current production model.
2. The driver should have been paying attention.
3. We're not sure self-driving was on.
4. It's a beta version.
5. The correct measurement of hazard is some other metric that makes Tesla look better.
5. "No new technology has been fully accepted by society until it has killed someone".
Humans kill 1.35 million people while driving cars globally every year. We're terrible drivers. If I see data that a global fleet of self driving cars will only kill 1.30 million people instead of the current human driven standard of 1.35, then I'm going to continue to rabidly support the transition and heap shame on the heads of any luddites who resist with faulty emotional appeals, who therefore are indirectly supporting the status quo of unnecessary pain and suffering.
We absolutely should hold self driving cars to a standard higher than human drivers, but that's not a very high bar. And a handful of anecdotal cases don't give us any useful data to compare and contrast the two options.
How could we possibly do anything else?
I feel like we're living in very different democracies. My provincial government just offered to pay just over a third of a billion dollars for a hockey arena so they could have a better shot at winning an election. That's entirely playing to people's emotions.
That's great news for everyone who needs an organ transplant. You anonporridge are among 50,000 Americans who've been randomly selected as an organ donor. Your personal donation of all your organs will save at least 10 lives and cost only your own, leading to the best average outcome for everyone.
Morally, and in terms of our own personal opinions, it should be sufficient, even if emotionally and to broader society, it isn't. We as individuals should not be advocating for the modality that maximizes the number of deaths, regardless of other trivial factors like status quo bias.
I'm not sure it's that simple. Traffic deaths are not entirely random, they can but there are actions you can take to decrease risk for yourself and other people in your car. If the number of deaths only marginally decreases the chance of death for some people (those who don't drive while intoxicated, don't use their phones, are more attentive etc.) will increase?
Also the state will have to grant legal immunity to car manufacturers so that they couldn't be sued to bankruptcy. That shouldn't provide them too many incentives to make their cars safer..
> Also the state will have to grant legal immunity to car manufacturers so that they couldn't be sued to bankruptcy. That shouldn't provide them too many incentives to make their cars safer..
Indeed we would need to be careful not to make the wrong incentives.
For instance ban all cars made prior to 2008 or so. That combined with massive investments into public transport (would decrease average miles driven, .e.g many EU countries have way less traffic fatalities per 100k pop. but about the same when adjusted by distance driven). Should be about 30% if not more and we don't even need self-driving cars...
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8118...
I mean, you’re saying that he couldn’t have handled that any better?
Actually, if we were to simply euthanise all humans at birth then there would be no risk of them ever coming to harm.
The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled was 1.34 in 2020 in the US.
Would 0.134 be a significant improvement?
That said I agree it has to be more than "beats average", just how much so and why that is may be wildly different depending who you ask. I suppose that's the crux of the debate, not that there is just one obvious and well-known fact about acceptance some people are missing.
So no... a terrible suggestion.
> are indirectly supporting the status quo of unnecessary pain and suffering.
There are many measures which would result in a significant decrease in traffic deaths (globally) which we chose not to adopt (not to mention that newer cares are way safer than those 10-20+ years old). Those measures would overall be both cheaper and easier to achieve than self driving. They are not as cool and shinny though so we can just ignore them and still blame people for 'supporting the status quo of unnecessary pain and suffering'...
I for one agree though, if self-driving can reduce deaths on aggregate then that's a good thing. I hope that self-driving cars give better signals to pedestrians though (maybe emitting noises less startling the car honks) - I think this would vastly improve the safety when a self-driving car is navigating a parking lot or busy downtown roads.
Sure, if I see that then you are right! But: accidents are mostly caused by irresponsible human drivers, not by good drivers and self driving cars have trouble handling normal situations, let alone dangerous drivers.
So by replacing randomly from the pool of good+bad drivers you won’t meaningfully decrease accident rates, you might even increase it. Call me when we can selectively replace bad/irresponsible drivers! But then no need for self-driving as well. Especially when we incorporate the actually useful features like auto-emergency breaking, lane assist etc to “normal” cars will give you all the benefits of self driving, without the problems.
It is kind of mind boggling its against the rules to discuss that billion dollar companies might make accounts to drive sales/help their reputation. I've seen small companies doing it. I think its foolish to ignore that big companies can do it so well, its basically impossible to prove.
It's against the rules because it's boring and impossible to prove. Just downvote/flag and move on.
Now what is your excuse for the 4,285 human-driver caused fatalities that occurred in CA alone in 2021? How about the 1,370 caused by those driving under the influence?
But on a site like this? They must know.
I'm sure you've never said anything stupid
I’ve said stupid things I’ve never aided a fascist movement though but hey maybe it’s all the same thing in the end right.
How exactly is it solved by self-driving? Your self-driving car won’t suddenly turn reality into fast&furious or whatnot and won’t be able to prevent an accident caused by someone else being grossly irresponsible with their car, and unless you mandate literally everyone to switch cars I don’t see it helping at all.
The problem is those assholes that drive that way — unless you can selectively replace them (at which point we could just ban them from driving and be happy), you won’t be actually ahead.
They are owned by Intel and have their technology in BMWs Nissan, Geely, Toyota, Nio etc etc.
Your hate boner is showing.
Was HN echo-chamber killing on the road? Was it?
Did Tesla cut ties with them because they refused to share data? Did they!?
How exactly does one miss a 40' long, 10' tall truck that is emblazoned with flashing lights?
Wait, do you all have personal lawyers that you pay to review every (or any) EULA you accept? I clearly do not make enough money to hang out on this site.
What Tesla does is record every single accident and incident, with video and with Telemetry.
That means that we learn over time. We did that with airplanes, going from being the highest risk vehicles to travel with to being the safest.
Every time an accident happens we learn something that we can use to improve the system. Not just the car, but also the roads and procedures.
For example, This accident has a strange vehicle on the road: A firetruck, probably the firetruck could have done better.
In the accidents involving the median of the road, the maintenance people had also responsibility removing the signs that should be there.