[rayiner]

> Much of the enthusiasm for driverless cars assumes that the automated systems will work perfectly

Because the software industry has such a sterling reputation for delivering complex systems that are nonetheless extremely reliable!

[maxerickson]

The automobile industry does.

Or at least, they should. Even the very newsworthy recalls of recent years have only had consequences for very small numbers of people, across millions/tens of millions of vehicles (which still needs addressing, but the amount of problem being mitigated per recall dollar is growing smaller over time).

[rayiner]

The automobile industry doesn't have a great record with software, though. And a self-driving car is orders of magnitude more complex than a single bit of logic sitting in a throttle or engine controller.

[maxerickson]

Well, with the drive assist stuff that is already on the road, we get to see how they do with an in between problem.

(The early evidence is that they treat it as a serious engineering problem, but I'm sure no hands on the wheel needs a lot more complexity to fail safe than anything that is shipping)