It's OK when dumb people kill, smart cars not so much

5 January 2017 by Steve Blum
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Not even with the best intentions.

“Would we accept thirty-five thousand deaths at the hands of a machine?” That’s the question Gil Pratt, the CEO of the Toyota Research Institute posed as he discussed the challenges of designing autonomous vehicles at CES yesterday. U.S. society does accept 35,000 traffic deaths a year at the hands of human drivers. Might not like it, but humans are allowed to drive nevertheless.

Pratt doesn’t believe the same casualty rate, or even half that rate, would be acceptable if cars drove themselves.… More

Manufacturers willing to accept some liability for driverless cars

10 October 2015 by Steve Blum
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Taking the blame, up to a point.

Self-driving cars might be less than five years away. Toyota is planning to put one on the road in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and Elon Musk has said that Tesla might have one even earlier than that. In fact, Musk has said that some existing Teslas could soon get a software update that will let them go driverless – or at least do the driving while a human watches – on highways and parallel park themselves.… More