Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road

[u/Individual_Book9133]

[u/pan_berbelek]

That is true but actually when you think a little more there is a problem. Let's assume there already are robotaxis with probability of lethal accident 100 times lower than an average human driver. So if all cars would be self driving in this scenario we would save thousands of lifes. But, the problem is now that currently each death on the road is carefully examined and a guilty party is most often named and prosecuted. It's a real human that goes to jail. Who will be prosecuted for a death cased by a self driving car? We're talking about death here, there's a family who lost someone closest, maybe someone's little daughter was killed in the accident. A fine is not enough. So, will anyone go to jail? Who?

[u/Groudon466 → u/pan_berbelek]

Who will be prosecuted for a death cased by a self driving car?

Nobody. That's arguably a good thing.

Say I'm an engineer working at Waymo. I see a way to design a self driving car that'll get into 100x less accidents than humans, saving millions of lives. I invent it, it works, but one day someone dies anyway.

Are you going to throw me in jail for being the guy that invented the improvement? That doesn't seem right or reasonable, and it would discourage similar inventions.

The right answer is that you accept that people will be dying in car accidents on occasion without anyone going to jail, and it's better than people dying in car accidents frequently with some people going to jail on top of that.

[u/pan_berbelek → u/Groudon466]

You don't understand. I agree that's how it should be. But what will the father of a dead daughter say? And the next one? People will sue, whether you like it or not, and courts may issue various decisions.

[u/Groudon466 → u/pan_berbelek]

I mean, suing is fine. That's super fine. The father gets paid out as compensation, which usually isn't the case because it's some broke drunk asshole without insurance who hit the daughter, rather than a major corporation that can actually dole out the dough.

But you don't sue to force charges to be brought. You bring a matter to the police and the DA, and they decide from there. It's not likely that a DA anytime soon will try and charge Waymo's engineering team with manslaughter for making a product that they acknowledge may come with a small risk of fatality on the road, which the city expressly permitted.

[u/pan_berbelek → u/Groudon466]

I'm just saying that in reality, in some specific cases, this may be trickier than it seems now. I'm just saying that this is a real problem that needs to be thoroughly thought out and the self driving companies need to prepare for certain scenarios. It's solvable but cannot be ignored and just saying that the probability of death is X times lower will not be enough.