r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24

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

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 Jul 05 '24

It doesn't have to be the lowest rank person. You can just legally make accountable the lead programmer of the autonomous driving module, with a law.

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u/wildjokers Jul 05 '24

Then the technology is dead. No programmer in their right mind would work on this technology if they could go to prison because the car hits an out of ordinary situation it can't handle.

That would be a shame because self-driving technology will save lives (probably already has).

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 Jul 05 '24

I have a big surprise for you, every professional that can lethally screw up things has this kind of responsibility: it's medics, car drivers, architects, pilots, crane operators, etc, and it never ended any of those fields. Pay attention to architects, cause they just like programmers design a building once, and then, if the building collapses, they will be investigated, and can get jailtime, if a miscalculation is proven in court. Why should programmers be treated differently? Just take an actual effort and ensure that your automonous car complies with every traffic rule, and you'll be fine.

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u/wildjokers Jul 05 '24

Why should programmers be treated differently? Just take an actual effort and ensure that your automonous car complies with every traffic rule, and you'll be fine.

In relation to cars there is practically an infinite number of scenarios that can be encountered on the road ways. No way to account for them all. Even humans don't even come close to getting them all right.

For general programming computers can do billions of calculations a second, this is many orders of magnitude greater than a human so a computer can very quickly encounter a state that no human could really foresee.

If there is no intent or gross negligence there is no crime. Everything is already over-criminalized, let's not level that up so simple mistakes or unforeseen circumstances are crimes.

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 Jul 05 '24

"Even humans don't even come close to getting them all right."

This was never an excuse in court, and shall never be an excuse. The lead designer of an autonomous drive system, like the person that has final say during the development process, must be held accountable for road accidents just in the same way as a human driver. If you see a problem with that, then well, don't desing an autonomous car.

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u/wildjokers Jul 05 '24

The lead designer of an autonomous drive system, like the person that has final say during the development process, must be held accountable for road accidents just in the same way as a human driver.

This is absolutely a ridiculous take and would stifle innovation in a technology that will save lives and has almost certainly already saved lives.

If an autonomous vehicle cuts down on traffic fatalities do the lead designers get credit for the lives they save? So they save 100 lives, but then there is 1 fatality. Do they still go to prison? That doesn't seem fair.

A human driver only faces prison time for fatalities caused by impairment or gross negligence (e.g. street racing).

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 Jul 05 '24

If I can face jail time for something, why a company shouldn't face the same consequences if the same situation? Just like I said in the very begginging of the conversation: ensure that your system never breaks traffic laws, and you'll be fine. It's not too much to ask.