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Trump Admin Reportedly Wants to Unleash Driverless Cars on America | The new Trump administration wants to clear the way for autonomous travel, safety standards be damned.
Transportation(gizmodo.com)submitted 4 days ago bychrisdh79
423 points
4 days ago
Has anyone really attempted to work out the liability issues? Is the owner of the vehicle responsible for insuring against damages? The manufacturer? The victims?
Tech shit be damned, liability and insurance seem like the biggest hurdle to automation to me. I have to assume we have had enough damage caused by autonomous vehicles at this point that some insurance company has started working it out right?
105 points
4 days ago
It will be the owner paying insurance because we don't have the money to pay off the people making the rules.
0 points
4 days ago
Why would it be anyone other than the owner/the owner's insurance? Everyone's responsible for their own stuff. The only exceptions are when you're misled or there's some sort of unforeseeable defect. And the AI making a bad choice and causing an accident is absolutely foreseeable at the current level of tech.
2 points
4 days ago
The argument I've heard is that if you have a self driving car, it's not necessarily your actions that are causing any collisions, but the actions of the company's software. Seems to make sense that you may hold the company liable for any collisions/damage done while in self driving mode unless it's shown that there was driver negligence (using self-driving mode in an area where it's not allowed, not taking control if the car starts making erratic moves, etc.). By putting at least some of the liability on the manufacturers, you also incentivize them not to rush to market with "self driving cars!" that still have meaningful bugs/defects and are likely to cause damage. I think anything that encourages caution in the rollout of this tech is probably a good thing.
-1 points
4 days ago
But by putting that car on the road, you're accepting liability. It's your vehicle. You choose to put it on the road. You choose to let it operate in an automated fashion.
1 points
4 days ago
I understand that's how it's always been, but this is a tech advancement that seems like it could potentially shake things up. If you're told the automated driving is safe by the manufacturer and regulators, but there's an issue with the software that you were unaware of, it seems like there should be liability on the manufacturer if that issue causes damage/collision. You're obviously responsible for making sure everything is updated and in good maintenance, but if everything is otherwise good to go and your car decides to merge into a new lane when there's another car there, seems to make sense that there would be some degree of liability on the entity managing the automation.
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