>I really think data driven analysys is the way to go. If we can get US car fatalities from 30000 a year to 29000 a year by adopting self-driving cars, that's 1000 lives saved a year.
What this ignores is that self-driving cars will by and large massively reduce the number of 'stupid' drivers dying (the ones who are texting and driving, drinking and driving, or just simply bad drivers) but may cause the death of more 'good' drivers/innocent pedestrians.
So the total number could go down, but the people who are dying instead didn't necessarily do anything deserving of an accident or death.
I say this as someone who believes self driving cars will eventually take over and we need to pass laws allowing a certain percentage of deaths (so that one at case of the software being at fault doesn't cause a company to go under), but undeserved deaths are something people will likely have to deal with somewhere down the line with self driving cars. At the very least, since they're run by software they should never make the same mistake twice, while with humans you see the same deadly mistakes being made every day.
What this ignores is that self-driving cars will by and large massively reduce the number of 'stupid' drivers dying (the ones who are texting and driving, drinking and driving, or just simply bad drivers) but may cause the death of more 'good' drivers/innocent pedestrians.
So the total number could go down, but the people who are dying instead didn't necessarily do anything deserving of an accident or death.
I say this as someone who believes self driving cars will eventually take over and we need to pass laws allowing a certain percentage of deaths (so that one at case of the software being at fault doesn't cause a company to go under), but undeserved deaths are something people will likely have to deal with somewhere down the line with self driving cars. At the very least, since they're run by software they should never make the same mistake twice, while with humans you see the same deadly mistakes being made every day.