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by alkonaut 2212 days ago
We hold machines to much higher standards. We accept human imperfection and human error. People killing people on the road because they are sleepy or not paying attention is a risk we are willing to accept. The reason is that people have a skin in the game themselves. Being in a accident means they risk injury, fines, jail time.

I think few are willing to accept autopilots that are only as bad as (or as good as) humans. They must be significantly better than human drivers, simply because we don't accept their errors like we do human errors.

This is completely irrational when looked at purely from a safety point of view (Who doesn't want safer roads?), but this obstacle is very real.

Worse: that autonomous cars are better in many scenarios or aspects (they don't get sleepy, they are never drunk) doesn't mean we accept that they are ever worse in any other aspect, despite the total safety being better.

That is: autonomous vehicles must not just be as good as human drivers, they must be significantly better (or at least safer) than human drivers. And not only that, they must be significatly better in every aspect of driving, for them to gain acceptance.
2 comments
a_imho 2212 days ago
It is not irrational because self driving cars are not interchangeable with human drivers 1-1. If autonomous cars are put on roads it is very likely net traffic increases. We put up with bad driving because we have to, this is absolutely not the case for machines. I, personally, don't want more average drivers on the roads.
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Jasper_ 2212 days ago
The problem is that the flaws of humans tend to be random and stochastic, while the flaws of machines tend to be consistent and systematic. This is the at least the fifth example of Tesla missing stationary objects on the road.

Humans might have a judgment failure every so often, but they might realize how unsafe they are and change their behavior, or drive less, or get their license taken away. A machine consistently crashing cars has no self correction protocol, and will consistently make the same mistake over and over.

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