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Autonomous Vehicle Thought Experiment

Test Case By Charlie Stross by Charlie Stross

Firstly, it's apparent that the current legal framework privileges corporations over individuals with respect to moral hazard. So I'm going to stick my neck out and predict that there's going to be a lot of lobbying money spent to ensure that this situation continues ... and that in the radiant Randian libertarian future, all self-driving cars will be owned by limited liability shell companies. Their "owners" will merely lease their services, and thus evade liability for any crash when they're not directly operating the controls. Indeed, the cars will probably sue any puny meatsack who has the temerity to vandalize their paint job with a gout of arterial blood, or traumatize their customers by screaming and crunching under their wheels.

Autonomous Vehicle Thought Experiment

Test Case By Charlie Stross by Charlie Stross

Firstly, it's apparent that the current legal framework privileges corporations over individuals with respect to moral hazard. So I'm going to stick my neck out and predict that there's going to be a lot of lobbying money spent to ensure that this situation continues ... and that in the radiant Randian libertarian future, all self-driving cars will be owned by limited liability shell companies. Their "owners" will merely lease their services, and thus evade liability for any crash when they're not directly operating the controls. Indeed, the cars will probably sue any puny meatsack who has the temerity to vandalize their paint job with a gout of arterial blood, or traumatize their customers by screaming and crunching under their wheels.

Sadly, I think the reasoning on liability for failures of autonomous vehicles will be driven by law and corporate risk avoidance and not on moral or ethics.

Brad Templeton writes about all the ways the fatal Uber autonomous crash in Tempe was bad

It certainly looks bad for Uber | Brad Ideas (ideas.4brad.com)

Passengers who have ridden in Uber's vehicles get to look at a display where the software shows its perception output, ie. a view of the world where it identifies its environment and things in it. They report that the display has generally operated as expected detecting pedestrians, including along the very road in question, where they have seen the vehicle slow or brake for pedestrians entering the road outside crosswalks. Something about that failed.

All the things that went wrong?