[mantap]

You cannot have false negatives. Ever. You cannot have a situation where the system doesn't see a pedestrian and runs over them at without noticing. So you need to make a very convincing argument that it can't happen.

With cameras and computer vision there's no way to prove it. There is always a chance that it will glitch out for a second and kill someone.

[pfundstein]

Autonomous vehicles don't need to be perfect drivers -- from it, they just need to be better than humans.

[alkonaut]

No, we accept humans as being imperfect but we do not accept machines as being imperfect. Yes this means that companies that have autonomous vehicles that have a lower accident rate than humans may still be completely unable to sell them because of legal issues and market perception.

We don’t know yet what the acceptance rate is for autonomous accidents - but I can guarantee it’s not the rational value of 1:1 or “as safe as humans”. They’ll need to do a lot better.

[mantap]

Yes and there's also a kind of lying with statistics that goes on. That human accident rate includes drunk drivers, very young drivers, very old drivers, etc.

The average accident rate is not your expected accident rate, if you are an average person who is not in those categories.

[josephagoss]

A million people die per year due to road deaths, about 40,000 of those in the USA.

If what you say is true then a future where robot cars kill 500,000 per year and 20,000 in the USA would be considered acceptable.

Yet we know this is absolutely not the case, no society will ever stand for such a massive death toll due to robot usage. Are there any industries today where robots are allowed to kill so many?

We accept deaths because of human failing as there is no other way, the alternative is no cars.

So for us to hand over the reins to robots they need to be near perfect, think the accident rates of the airline industry as the only acceptable goal.