liability issues are going to kill the self-driving car. which is not to say that those liability issues are wrong, just that they're too much for one, or a few companies to bear.

today when two cars collide the liability can be on either of the drivers, or the car manufacturer if it's shown to be a malfunction. that spreads the liability amongst hundreds of thousands of entities per year. but what if there's three or four self driving car companies (or one or two self-driving AI producers) accounting for, say, half the market for them, suddenly a small number of entities are responsible for a huge number of deaths. even if the technology drives the overall casualty rate down. they would, then, have to carry an insurance burden that would not make it cost effective to them, or they would have to chip away a the public's access to seek damages and recompense through legislation and immunity from lawsuit/prosecution. one's really bad for them, the other is really bad for us.

even leaving the difficult legal matters out of it, there's still the ethical and philosophical questions. say the death rate on roads drops from 1.3 million annually to half that. do you, as a Google of a Ford, etc, want to be responsible for 650,000 deaths a year (or whatever your share of that may be), even knowing if you didn't assume that responsibility it would be higher? and what happens when it drifts from the public memory and perception that it ever was higher? given enough time people simply aren't going to accept the net savings of lives when all they can see are the gross statistics.

right or wrong, and not casting judgement on any party in this scenario, nobody wants that amount of blood on their hands. I mean, unless Remington gets into the self-driving car business.

Have you met Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley is less accustomed than most industries their size to being responsible for deaths.

I doubt they feel responsible for anything, because they would simply put their hands up and say we just do software. Or i make the car but i don't own the fleet. Or i own the flee but i don't control the roads or weather. Silicon valley is very comfortable ignoring their own collateral damage.

So, 2-3 companies "own" all the liability? Economies of scale and oligopolies; liability will just go away.

not as long as the deceased have families that miss them.

I disagree with most of what you said here.

If I own a car that I drive or a self driving car, I will be paying the insurance. The liability doesn't shift to someone else. This will be regulated, as it's easy to implement. If collisions drop by 50%, my insurance rate can drop, so I will pay less money.

When I buy auto insurance today, my liability is shifted to the insurance broker. My insurance broker is also buying reinsurance from a larger player. There are only a few very large reinsurance players, so if you really think about it, the liability is already in the hands of a few people.

When someone builds a auto, a road, a street sign, they create ethical and philosophical questions. If I build a road, someone could die on it. If I build a car, someone could die in it. This idea that bad code could kill someone is no different. if I build a safer road and a safer car, my actions were well intentioned and beneficial to society.

What I expect of the future is that primarily, we will no longer own cars. Cars will own themselves. Banks will give cars loans to finance themselves and they will repay the loans by driving people around. The car will also be responsible for paying their own insurance and maintenance costs. Successful cars can afford upgrades, while unsuccessful cars will enjoy a trip to the junkyard.

You're in a Johnny Cab!

I just want the Tesla Pickup.

I want it so bad.

My main concern is durability for frequent dirt road travel. My house is about 5 miles from the nearest paved road. Which just so happens to have a Tesla charge station at the corner.

USMC has just what you need:
US Marines' Self-driving Off-roading 'Jeep': Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate (GUSS)

Walmart has already ordered 5 of the Tesla Semis for testing.

Edit: 15. 5 for US Walmart, 10 for Canada Walmart.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services has reserved some as well.

Not just physical robots for physical tasks. Introduction to Blue Prism Robotic Automation software platform

It’s funny because this guy totally could be replaced by a robot/software. Useless cunt.

It's always been true that self-driving cars are way, way easier with dedicated infrastructure. Interested to see if this goes anywhere.

Elon Musk Reveals the Dream Truck: Tesla Semi.


I've only made it about 2/3rds of the way through but it's very impressive. And yeah, it's got the Enhanced Autopilot as standard which makes future Full Driverless seem very likely.

They also announced a new $200,000 roadster with a 620 mile range.

Yeah, but that stuff doesn't interest me too much. It was an awkward presentation too. Crowd is too kool-aid for my tastes.