[fallous]

Everything? How about legal liability for the car killing someone? Are all the self-driving vendors stepping up and accepting full legal liability for the outcomes of their non-deterministic software?

[atleastoptimal]

Thousands have died directly due to known defects in manufactured cars. Those companies (Ford, others) still are operating today.

Even if driverless cars killed more people than humans they would see mass adoption eventually. However they are subject to farr higher scrutiny than human drivers and even so make fewer mistakes, avoid accidents more frequently and can't get drunk, tired, angry, or distracted.

[mejutoco]

There is a fetish for technology that sometimes we are not aware of. On average there might be less accidents, but if specific accidents were preventable and now they happen, people will sue. And who will take the blame? The day the company takes the blame is the day self-driving exists IMO.

[notyourav]

A faulty break pad or an engine doesn’t take decisions that might endanger people. Self-driving cars do. They might also get hacked pretty thoroughly.

For the same reason, I’d probably never buy a home robot with more capabilities then a vacuum cleaner.

[d1sxeyes]

In the bluntest possible sense, who cares if we can make roads safer?

Solving liability in traffic collisions is basically a solved problem through the courts, and at least in the UK, liability is assigned in law to the vendor (more accurately, there’s a list of who’s responsible for stuff, I’m not certain if it’s possible to assume legal responsibility without being the vendor).