[JoeAltmaier]

Surely that is true. The legal landscape will have to be settled before self-driving becomes common.

E.g. should a self-driving car leave the road to avoid sudden accident? What if it then hits a pedestrian?

One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road.

[tiahura]

The law dealt with these issues a long time ago. McPherson v Buick was 100 years ago and 402A is from the 60s.

[ghaff]

It's logical that the manufacturer would bear the liability--assuming the car has been properly maintained, software is current, etc. The driver (passenger really) doesn't have any real agency while the vehicle is driving itself.

It's also a sort of unusual situation in that we can reasonably expect an AI that is a far safer driver than humans will still kill people. That's not a normal expectation for products sold to consumers and used/maintained as directed.

[notahacker]

> One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road.

Rigid adherence to a law like that is a pretty major disadvantage to saving lives though...

[digitallyfree]

It's one of those things where it's not ideal, but it's the only way to prevent legal liability. Basically if the AI acts in accordance to the law governing such behavior then the manufacturers are not at fault. Else you'll have different vehicle manufacturers doing what they believe is right (think of all the debate over the "trolley" problem), and each case will have to go through the courts.

[ghaff]

There are all sorts of subtle ways you need to "break the law" while driving though. Right now, one sees tons of delivery vehicles pulled over to make deliveries and you have to carefully go over the double yellow line in the middle to get around.

[joxel]

Well, they could try not to leave the road. Just like humans the software can and will have errors. Then you still have the issue of who to charge for breaking the leaving the road law.