[ScalaFan]

Certain items just have a danger level that requires an elevated sense of responsibility and awareness and I don't just mean firearms. Workshop tools like power saws or table saws need to be handled with respect and care and those that cannot provide it should just not use them. Those that have worked in some kinds of environments know what I mean. Some factories or manufacturing places have lots of extra safety regulations. Those that have been in the military also know of dynamic and changing circumstances of their operating environment with all the specific equipment they use.

Even on a sailboat you need to be aware of the boom.

[puzzledobserver]

As do cars. Which is why people need licenses to drive them. The question being asked is whether it is ethical for a company to market auto-pilot low-awareness chainsaws, designed to give the user only a half-second heads-up, and then disclaim responsibility when accidents happen.

Maybe the solution is for licensing authorities to call these auto-manual chimeras unlicenseable.

[dredmorbius]

There are numerous devices for which the typical individual can function well in society without making direct use of them.

Skillsaws, 737-MAX airliners, full Linux server distros, and home flourine refining labs among them.

Automobiles, after a century-plus of integration and mutual reinforcement of the built infrastructure and virtually all aspects of life, commerce, government, employment, recreation, education, etc., are not amongst these.

It is possible, usually within narrow environments and/or with considerable compromise, to survive without owning, using, or access to one. It is exceedingly difficult, and the net household ownership rates within the US and most other Western / Industrialised countries, reveals this.

The standards are different.

Incidentally: I agree with your premise regarding the unacceptability of manufacuters' apparent self-driving cutout behaviours. No, this is not remotely acceptable.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

You could even make the question more precise. If you market a product where you know it could be safe, but also know X% of the users will accidentally kill themselves (and maybe others), then for what X is it unethical? I think there are probably values on each end where it's clearly either. 100-epsilon is bad. epsilon is fine. Somewhere in between it gets fuzzy.

Another interesting question is that when accidents come up, do you get to blame those X% of users for failing, even though at the design stage you already knew and decided they would fail and be killed.

It's really more of a trolley problem, in that it's interesting to think about, but in reality there's more context and circumstances that make specific cases clearer.