US probes Tesla's Full Self-Driving software after fatal crash

The interesting question is how good self-driving has to be before people tolerate it.

It's clear that having half the casualty rate per distance traveled of the median human driver isn't acceptable. How about a quarter? Or a tenth? Accidents caused by human drivers are one of the largest causes of injury and death, but they're not newsworthy the way an accident involving automated driving is. It's all too easy to see a potential future where many people die needlessly because technology that could save lives is regulated into a greatly reduced role.

>>. How about a quarter? Or a tenth?

The answer is zero. An airplane autopilot has increased the overall safety of airplanes by several orders of magnitude compared to human pilots, but literally no errors in its operation are tolerated, whether they are deadly or not. The exact same standard has to apply to cars or any automated machine for that matter. If there is any issue discovered in any car with this tech then it should be disabled worldwide until the root cause is found and eliminated.

>> It's all too easy to see a potential future where many people die needlessly because technology that could save lives is regulated into a greatly reduced role.

I really don't like this argument, because we could already prevent literally all automotive deaths tomorrow through existing technology and legislation and yet we are choosing not to do this for economic and social reasons.

> The answer is zero

If autopilot is 10x safer then preventing its use would lead to more preventable deaths and injuries than allowing it.

I agree that it should be regulated and incidents thoroughly investigated, however letting perfect be the enemy of good leads to stagnation and lack of practical improvement and greater injury to the population as a whole.

>>If autopilot is 10x safer then preventing its use would lead to more preventable deaths and injuries than allowing it.

And yet whenever there is a problem with any plane autopilot it's preemptively disabled fleet wide and pilots have to fly manually even though we absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt know that it's less safe.

If an automated system makes a wrong decision and it contributes to harm/death then it cannot be allowed on public roads full stop, no matter how many lives it saves otherwise.

> And yet whenever there is a problem with any plane autopilot it's preemptively disabled fleet wide and pilots have to fly manually even though we absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt know that it's less safe.

just because we do something dumb in one scenario isn't a very persuasive reason to do the same in another.

> then it cannot be allowed on public roads full stop, no matter how many lives it saves otherwise.

ambulances sometimes get into accidents - we should ban all ambulances, no matter how many lives they save otherwise.