this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
195 points (94.9% liked)
Technology
77090 readers
2316 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's odd that the thing that terrifies you is that nobody is able to be punished. Grandma and her dog are dead in both scenarios. We want whatever will cause that scenario to happen the least.
I'd rather 1 grandma is run over without a clearly responsible party than 10 grandmothers be killed while 10 drivers are sent to prison.
A person who's not paying attention or drunk is always going to exist no matter how many grandmas are flattened. The software bug can be fixed and sensors can be improved.
Self-driving cars are the worst they will ever be and they will only get better. Human drivers are not going to improve.
The problem isn't that nobody is able to be punished, its that the punishment isn't anywhere near severe enough to incentivize fixing the issues that caused grandma to get hit.
When negligence is a small fine and a finger wag of "make sure this doesn't happen again", they aren't going to do more than lip service claiming they will fix the issue, maybe fire someone at the bottom of the ladder to prove their sincerity.
I think you're both right. What's really important is the lives at stake, and only the software can really meaningfully improve, but the incentives aren't there right now to make those improvements happen.
One thing to consider though, is the incentives can always be tweaked. Maybe the robo taxi company barely blinks at a $100,000 fine, they chuckle about a $1 million fine, do they still laugh about a $50 million fine? They may really start to sweat over a $200 million fine. And hey, I can think of larger numbers, we can always provide them a better incentive (while financing the state).
Until it’s no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, companies will make their cars safer, I agree. That’s the summation of my reasoning. As companies attempt to relieve themselves of their need for humans, the math becomes murkier. “Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
Until it's no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, or regulation requires they make their cars safer, or a competitor decides to take market share by making their cars safer.
That's fine because that's not what I said.
Which of these do you disagree with?:
Human driving capability has shown no indication of improving.
Autonomous vehicle capabilities are showing indications of improving.
It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to recognize that these measures of performance will eventually intersect (unless you think there's something fundamentally special about human driving that is impossible to replicate).
In the specific locations and conditions that waymo is allowed to operate, they are absolutely safer! And I expect self driving cars to improve up to the point that they are economically incentivized to do so.
I’ll say again, I don’t disagree with you, I just need personal accountability to feel assured of the trend not being bucked, and I do not expect that to ever be on offer in the United States where money is equivalent to your voice
The punishment (or the threat of punishment) is supposed to be part of the motivation to not drive into pedestrians.
If the decision makers behind the fully automatic vehicles don't fear that punishment, the concern is that they'll make choices that are motivated more by profits and efficiencies and less by safe driving and preventing harms.
And given the abuses of profit seeking executives we have seen in the past, it is a valid concern.
Punishment as a deterrent? Lol what human race are you thinking of.
Ah yes, people slow down near cops for the love of the game, not because they're afraid of a ticket or jail time.
Fear of punishment.
So it's just the fear of vengeance that stops you from robbing, raping, and murdering?
Of course not. Most people are motivated to doing the right thing simplybecauseitbis the right thing to do.
But some people seem to need the threat of personal consequences to keep them from being selfish assholes. And it often appears that those are the same type of people who manage to get themselves into decision making positions in the business world.