[dspillett]

You original statement is that they are "no better". If the automated solution is just as good as humans with regard to safety, then there is no trade-off being made.

Given how many things we do that make us unsafe drivers (being distracted by music/passengers/anger/other, driving while tired or otherwise inattentive, ...) I don't see it being long before we can claim automated cars are as safe as those driven by humans, especially in some conditions. I can't say we are there yet, but things are getting pretty good.

I don't understand why people call it unsafe because there are more than zero accidents. By the same measure humans should not be allowed to drive either. Even when people have slightly more reasonable expectations they compare the automation to the best drivers, not any average or bad driver.

Perhaps there are conditions where the automated systems are still going to be worse than the average human, perhaps night conditions like this are included in that. The solution there is to make the automation refuse to continue (refuse to start if not yet en-route, ask the user to take over if so, find a safe place to park if the user can't or doesn't take over when requested) in conditions where that might be an issue. This still allows automation in the majority of driving conditions.

[simion314]

I think we should try finding solutions for the bad drivers that text, drive drunk or speed on the roads, is not impossible to fix that and it will not cost lives.

Do we have any proof that with our current hardware and software we can make a self driving car that is better then the average driver (also this score should be adjusted for the location where the car is used, I do not want the claim to be that this car drives better then average drivers from X where X is a location with tons of bad drivers)

I think we are too optimists that we can train this cars on the roads and by the magic of neural networks and computer vision we get better then average driver. The human brain has evolved to detect moving objects very well, add on top of that intuition where you can anticipate some situation and the capability to adapt to new things.

So we would need some numbers to measure this AIs, but I do not see anyone trying to do this measurements, creating tests courses, checking the sensors quality for this cars, checking the reaction times of this cars, politicians just approved them to test before making any minimal checks.

[cryptoz]

> I think we should try finding solutions for the bad drivers that text, drive drunk or speed on the roads, is not impossible to fix that and it will not cost lives.

In the time it took you to write that, some drunk person statistically has already killed an innocent person while driving. "It will not cost lives" is incorrect because even the time it takes to discuss this has cost us lives in the drunk driving debate.

It is impossible to fix, in my opinion. People will drive drunk no matter what. They love to do it and there is absolutely nothing that we can do to make them stop, except from eventually eliminating all human drivers licenses.

The punishments/consequences for drunk driving are already very high and they do not stop people from driving drunk and killing someone.

[simion314]

Do you know what "Is impossible means? It is possible to eliminate most of the drunk drivers, but here are some ideas: 1 put an AI with sensors and cameras pointed at the driver, do not allow the car to start if driver is drunk, if he starts texting or sleeping turn of the car, you can add a bypass for emergency,

If you put self driving cars on the road you still have many years until everyone is forced to use this cars so you still have drunk drivers.

So are not companies working on a similar idea like I suggested, because there are not money to be made, cars would be expensive, drivers would not like it, but similar with the airbags, helmets if it will be mandatory to have such a system in the car the safety will increase.

Btw there is a very improbable solution but not an impossible one that would eliminate all drunk drivers, don't allow alcohol production, qed is not impossible