[syshum]

Modern society has become incapable of proper Risk Analysis

COVID has really highlighted this rather well. People do believe there should be zero risk, they will only accept risk when it has already been assimilated into their lives, but as a society we seem incapable of assimilating of new risk.

I use to think we would get fully autonomous cars, but now I am pretty sure we will never see this technology on the public roadways, not because it is infeasible, but because it can never ELIMINATE all risk to human life, as such it will be rejected by society.

Just like the "2 weeks to flatten the curve" transformed to "everyone self isolate until covid is no more" Automated driving is no longer about being "safer" in an objective way, it has to preventing all death, and if an automated car even causes one death then we must continue with human drivers, at least that is the view of many in society. We can not allow an algorithm to resolve a trolley problem, it is better a human do that.

As a society, we have become very very very risk adverse.

[altcognito]

It was a specific US administration that said two weeks, whom employed the "right" experts to get this conclusion. They argued with him that it wasn't long enough, furthermore, without widespread PPE and compliance from the population, it was bound to fail. The curve did flatten even in spite of these difficulties.

All that being said, you're absolutely right, we could have just accepted that life comes with risk and allowed millions within the US to die within a couple months.

[syshum]

>>The curve did flatten even in spite of these difficulties.

yes it did, then the goal posts were moved, it was no longer about hospital resources it became about death rates, then when death rates did not support the lock down narrative it become about infection rates

In reality (for many regions) it was always about political and economic control not public health

>>we could have just accepted that life comes with risk and allowed millions within the US to die within a couple months.

There are hundreds of different ways the pandemic could have been handled to believe the only 2 options where complete economic shutdown or death is moronic is in no way supported by the evidence, it sounds like you want have a fact based discussion but are leading off with emotional rhetoric, I am happy to debate facts, but I have no time or need for emotional responses or red herring fallacies

[AnthonyMouse]

It's not even a question of risk. Every risk is a trade off against another one. Losing one life to an autonomous vehicle is unacceptable but losing ten to drunk drivers is fine? That's not a risk assessment at all. It's really politics masquerading as risk.

As soon as autonomous vehicles are approved you're going to have driverless Amazon delivery trucks ejecting packages in your driveway and emailing you that they've arrived.

All the truck drivers and their unions know that, so they do everything they can to inject fear mongering stories into the media every time there is a driverless car accident, because politics.

And the media eats it up because it's clickbait. If they provided a reasoned risk assessment then the conclusion wouldn't be "fear for your lives" which wouldn't drive as much traffic.

[syshum]

>>As soon as autonomous vehicles are approved you're going to have driverless Amazon delivery trucks ejecting packages in your driveway and emailing you that they've arrived.

That is unlikely, the population has a huge problem right now with package theft, even if it does not "cost" the customer anything when i order something I need the product it if stolen from me even if I get another one a few days later it makes me less likely to buy online for things. Amazon's market dominance is directly tied to 1-2 days delivery times.

Having a bunch of robots just toss packages 5 feet from the road might seem like a good idea to an MBA, but in reality it will make package delivery less reliable if I have to have 30% of my amazon packages redelivered because of theft, damange etc, amazon will lose its market share.

Already they are losing in many way in price, i am often times finding things for lower prices than on amazon, largely because of their INSANE platform charges (i.e the 30% "fulfilled by amazon" surcharge)

Amazon Retail business is still either break even or losing money, AWS supports the company. I am not sure they can withstand the hit that would come from fully autonomous package delivery.

>All the truck drivers and their unions know that,

I can assure you it is not Truck Drivers or the Truck Driver unions (which really have almost no power these days) that are at the heart of anti-automation reporting.

Insurance and Local governments have alot more at stake, hell most local governments have huge amounts of revenue that come from parking and other road related fines that would disappear entirely with fully automated cars.

[AnthonyMouse]

> That is unlikely, the population has a huge problem right now with package theft

You're making the case that it won't matter because the problem is already present.

The human drivers already do this. How strong a case can you make that they won't be able to get away with something they already get away with?

> Already they are losing in many way in price, i am often times finding things for lower prices than on amazon, largely because of their INSANE platform charges (i.e the 30% "fulfilled by amazon" surcharge)

Complaint unrelated to driverless trucks.

> Insurance and Local governments have alot more at stake, hell most local governments have huge amounts of revenue that come from parking and other road related fines that would disappear entirely with fully automated cars.

By most accounts self-driving cars are going to reduce insurance liability because they don't drive drunk or text and drive or get tired or angry or distracted. But also, insurance companies don't really care about claims when they're predictable except to the extent that the corresponding premiums are so high they discourage people from buying insurance, which is a high bar when car insurance is required by law.

And listing additional groups who have the incentive to throw shade on self-driving cars for underhanded political reasons rather than legitimate risks is just more to the point.

[pnutjam]

I've seen how software is developed. If we have automated systems doing the same thing, they will all make the same mistake. It will be astounding to see it happen, and disastrous.

[AnthonyMouse]

The existing non-driverless cars are already full of software.

[pnutjam]

Yes, but it won't drive you into a wall.

[AnthonyMouse]

https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-...