11 ms·

I agree the manufacturer would not necessarily take on the bulk of the risk. However, there is supposed to be less risk once this technology is perfected. If th

I agree the manufacturer would not necessarily take on the bulk of the risk. However, there is supposed to be less risk once this technology is perfected. If the technology is indeed superior to human drivers, auto insurers will offer discounts to self-driving car owners. Furthermore, autonomous cars make more sense economically if they are part of a fleet service like a robotic taxi service. The future subscription-based Zipcar or ad-based Google Cars service would carry the insurance. The human is just a passenger no more responsible for an accident than a human-driven-taxi passenger.

JabavuAdams 15y ago
> auto insurers will offer discounts to self-driving car owners No, the market doesn't work like that. Auto insurers will raise the price for human-driven car owners.
- jemfinch 15y ago
  You mis-parsed his statement. It's ((self-driving car) owners), not (self-driving (car owners)).
  - a_m0d 15y ago
    I don't think that was mis-parsed - I think that JabavuAdams is (rightfully ?) cynical that the insurance companies will lower prices. Rather, they will make the current price the standard for (self-driving cars), and increase the price for (human-driven cars), thereby ensuring more money for themselves.
    - jemfinch 15y ago
      Ah, then I misunderstood JabavuAdams's post. That's a good point.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    if car.self_driving.safe? car.human_driven.price_to_insure.raise elsif 1==0 car.any.price_to_insure.lower end
einhverfr 15y ago
But in the US, one is not held to be responsible just because something bad happens. It has to be negligence at least. So the idea here is that if the car crashes, people find out that an algorithm didn't handle a situation very well, and they sue the manufacturer over negligence regarding product safety.
- oelewapperke 15y ago
  The same, btw, is true in Germany. Germany has western law, which means that before you are responsible 3 things have to be true : 1) you must have violated the law 2) someone must have actually lost money, life or property. Trespassing is perfectly A-OK in undeveloped desert. 3) there must be some direct causal connection between 1 and 2 (this is in practice the trickiest part) This means that the parent poster is not right. There are tons of cases where nobody is responsible in German road accidents. For instance, an emergency vehicle somehow causes 2 other vehicles to collide. Result: nobody responsible, government pays (even if the emergency vehicle was not part of the government, e.g. an ambulance of a catholic hospital) The problem with these laws is a little further down the road : who is responsible for algorithms that get lost under perfectly predictable conditions that are forbidden by law ? An example would be an autonomous car driving off a cliff because a road led straight to the ledge without the government having planted the legally required indicator on the road (same for road works ...). Or autonomous cars having unavoidable accidents, which are due more to the state of the road (doubly complicated on private roads) than to any property of the car or driver. And what if an autonomous car is accepted into society, and after a few years every type of accident except one is almost unheard of. The one that is heard of ? Human error, of course (and human malice). Probable result, in a machine-human collision 99.99% of the time, judges will simply blame the human (as will everybody else btw. "Why were you even driving ?"). Eventually imho this will lead to outlawing controlling your own vehicle (just look at what is considered safe driving in "I, Robot". Wouldn't you agree that it's extremely irresponsible to drive yourself under those circumstances ?) What with autonomous cars with hacked algorithms ? Hacked by the owner, or worse, a third party. Worse even, an unknown third party.

JabavuAdams 15y ago

> auto insurers will offer discounts to self-driving car owners No, the market doesn't work like that. Auto insurers will raise the price for human-driven car owners.

jemfinch 15y ago
You mis-parsed his statement. It's ((self-driving car) owners), not (self-driving (car owners)).
- a_m0d 15y ago
  I don't think that was mis-parsed - I think that JabavuAdams is (rightfully ?) cynical that the insurance companies will lower prices. Rather, they will make the current price the standard for (self-driving cars), and increase the price for (human-driven cars), thereby ensuring more money for themselves.
  - jemfinch 15y ago
    Ah, then I misunderstood JabavuAdams's post. That's a good point.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  if car.self_driving.safe? car.human_driven.price_to_insure.raise elsif 1==0 car.any.price_to_insure.lower end

einhverfr 15y ago

But in the US, one is not held to be responsible just because something bad happens. It has to be negligence at least. So the idea here is that if the car crashes, people find out that an algorithm didn't handle a situation very well, and they sue the manufacturer over negligence regarding product safety.

oelewapperke 15y ago
The same, btw, is true in Germany. Germany has western law, which means that before you are responsible 3 things have to be true : 1) you must have violated the law 2) someone must have actually lost money, life or property. Trespassing is perfectly A-OK in undeveloped desert. 3) there must be some direct causal connection between 1 and 2 (this is in practice the trickiest part) This means that the parent poster is not right. There are tons of cases where nobody is responsible in German road accidents. For instance, an emergency vehicle somehow causes 2 other vehicles to collide. Result: nobody responsible, government pays (even if the emergency vehicle was not part of the government, e.g. an ambulance of a catholic hospital) The problem with these laws is a little further down the road : who is responsible for algorithms that get lost under perfectly predictable conditions that are forbidden by law ? An example would be an autonomous car driving off a cliff because a road led straight to the ledge without the government having planted the legally required indicator on the road (same for road works ...). Or autonomous cars having unavoidable accidents, which are due more to the state of the road (doubly complicated on private roads) than to any property of the car or driver. And what if an autonomous car is accepted into society, and after a few years every type of accident except one is almost unheard of. The one that is heard of ? Human error, of course (and human malice). Probable result, in a machine-human collision 99.99% of the time, judges will simply blame the human (as will everybody else btw. "Why were you even driving ?"). Eventually imho this will lead to outlawing controlling your own vehicle (just look at what is considered safe driving in "I, Robot". Wouldn't you agree that it's extremely irresponsible to drive yourself under those circumstances ?) What with autonomous cars with hacked algorithms ? Hacked by the owner, or worse, a third party. Worse even, an unknown third party.