[t2015_08_25]

This implies that self-driving cars will be programmed with a morality superior to that of evil humans. It may be possible to program them that way, but what gives us faith that the profit-seeking entities who control them will allow them to be programmed that way? And that they will be required options?

What about the recent self-parking Volvo that didn't include a pedestrian avoidance system [1] and clobbered a pedestrian? It could have just as easily mauled that kid on his scooter in your apartment complex if the owner didn't pay for the "kid on a scooter avoidance system" and how would there by justice?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8nnhUCtcO8

[Nicholas_C]

>This implies that self-driving cars will be programmed with a morality superior to that of evil humans.

No, he implied that computers are faster acting and probably wouldn't have hit the kid in the first place.

[t2015_08_25]

And i'm saying they will hit kids, just like the Volvo hit the pedestrian.

[Nicholas_C]

I think the idea is that they will hit less kids.

[t2015_08_25]

Kindly consider my words - I'm not insulting technology, I'm pointing out corporate greed: The proportion of self-driving cars that have hit people is already greater than the proportion of human-driven cars that have hit people.

The fact that the Volvo hit someone is not because it was programmed incorrectly. It was because it was responding correctly to its configuration as its producers envisioned it:

It ignores and runs over pedestrians unless the owner pays Volvo extra.

In the future everyone's dreaming of, cars won't hit people, but they will continue to hit people unless owners pay extra to corporations. That's not progress, that's extortion.