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Yes but in practice the pushback is more about the shift on who is held responsible and who has the control to prevent a crash. People understandably prefer to

Yes but in practice the pushback is more about the shift on who is held responsible and who has the control to prevent a crash. People understandably prefer to keep control of their own safety, even if on average they are worse at it. Because individuals that do care about safety can actually do many things to lower the risks well below the statistics, and likely remain much better than self-driving. There’s also the question of responsibility and liability. In society we have such pressures so that there’s an incentive to continually reduce risks. It is dangerous to shift the responsibility to fast-growth tech companies that will care much less about individual accidents than the drivers involved, and are more capable of absorbing liability without substantive remediation. Safety is outsourced in many contexts (aviation, police, military…), but it has to be substantially better than what the individual can achieve on their own. For instance, due to the expertise required, or because you can achieve more through coordinated collective action. And there has to be very high trust in the companies involved, the regulatory systems around them, and the technologies employed.

My_Name 8d ago
I completely agree. I feel a lot of pushback is likely to be coming from insurance companies who very much like being able to hike up your premium because they have decided that you as a person are a bad risk. When the entity that had the accident is some software and sensors made by a company, they can't do that. I disagree that the safety concerns have to be on an individual basis, no other driving regulation works on that basis. They are based on the statistical likelihood of an overall reduction in damages or risk. You as an individual might be safe driving 10-20mph over the limit, but the limit is there to cover a variety of road conditions and road users. The self driving system just has to fulfil those criteria, being that overall having it is safer for the average road user than not. It, also, is not the fast-growth tech companies that decide that.
- oersted 8d ago
  These are good points. I still think that, even if in principle it should be enough for self-driving to be a bit more safe on average, in practice there’s a much larger barrier of acceptance. Individuals are unlikely to give up their control unless the alternative is clearly substantially better. And, as you say, there are other larger interests beyond individual preferences that need to be overcome too. Regardless, as we have seen many times with other technologies, I think that convenience will be a much stronger driver of self-driving acceptance than the safety benefit.

My_Name 8d ago

I completely agree. I feel a lot of pushback is likely to be coming from insurance companies who very much like being able to hike up your premium because they have decided that you as a person are a bad risk. When the entity that had the accident is some software and sensors made by a company, they can't do that. I disagree that the safety concerns have to be on an individual basis, no other driving regulation works on that basis. They are based on the statistical likelihood of an overall reduction in damages or risk. You as an individual might be safe driving 10-20mph over the limit, but the limit is there to cover a variety of road conditions and road users. The self driving system just has to fulfil those criteria, being that overall having it is safer for the average road user than not. It, also, is not the fast-growth tech companies that decide that.

oersted 8d ago
These are good points. I still think that, even if in principle it should be enough for self-driving to be a bit more safe on average, in practice there’s a much larger barrier of acceptance. Individuals are unlikely to give up their control unless the alternative is clearly substantially better. And, as you say, there are other larger interests beyond individual preferences that need to be overcome too. Regardless, as we have seen many times with other technologies, I think that convenience will be a much stronger driver of self-driving acceptance than the safety benefit.