[schabernakk]

You're right, but the software of an autonomous car will be held to much higher standard than just 'has be to better or equal to a human driver'.

The whole thing gets interesting when you look at the judicial side of it: Who is responsible in the case of an accident? The car manufacturer (if it was a software failure)? Then even one accident triggered by it is too much.

[turtle4]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Hopefully society sees the benefits and gets out of the mindset you mention above (which I understand you are pointing out, not advocating).

The idea that 'even one accident is too many' is a joke when you consider how many accidents there are with human drivers, and yet we accept them willingly. If there are 30,000 deaths per year from human driven accidents, then surely the real answer to how many accidents by computer driven cars is acceptable should have an upper bound of 29,999, right? Why isn't it acceptable if it saves even one human life, rather than being unacceptable if it costs one?

Unfortunately, we as a group don't tend to be very logical, and love to spread blame, so I am afraid we'll take a long time to start saving lives. The data on the self-driven cars on the road is pretty overwhelming that they are safer than human drivers, but unfortunately there will be those (as in this thread) who believe that is true of everyone but themselves.

Its going to be a long road to acceptance.

[mtinkerhess]

For autonomous cars or not, whoever is liable in the case of an accident will acquire insurance to cover the cost of accidents. Currently, that's the driver. With autonomous cars, that may be the manufacturer, in which case 1) The cost to the manufacturer of insurance will be factored into the retail price of the vehicle and 2) The total cost of insurance will be lower because the accident rate will be lower.