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by treis 3021 days ago
In those 10 years ~350,000 people will die in car accidents in the US alone.

Let's say that halving the death rate is what we can reasonably expect from the first generation of self driving cars. Every year we delay that is 15,000 people dead. This woman dying is a personal tragedy for her and those that knew her. However, as society we should be willing to accept thousands of deaths like hers if it gets us closer to safer self driving cars.
2 comments
grumdan 3021 days ago
> Let's say that halving the death rate is what we can reasonably expect from the first generation of self driving cars.

What's your evidence for why this is a reasonable expectation? The fatalities compared to the amount of miles driven by autonomous vehicles so far shows that this is not possible at the moment. What evidence is there that this will radically improve soon?

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c22 3021 days ago
Why should we accept those deaths? This is like saying we should let doctors try out surprise untested and possibly fatal therapies on patients during routine check ups if their research might lead to a cure for cancer.
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