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Can you be absolutely certain that self driving can deal safely with every possible road irregularities, obstacles, bad, incomplete, damaged or tampered road signs, and other unpredictable events? Self driving on public roads done right is damn hard; probably harder than sending a manned but completely automated spaceship to Mars and back.


That's not the right question to ask. The right question to ask is, "Can self-driving tech kill fewer than 30,000 people a year, as humans do now?"

If you kill the R&D goose or smother it in overregulation, more people will die.


Or if the R&D phase kills so many people the public loses faith in the whole idea ... then you get to wait a generation for people to forget


Why don't we see if anything like that happens before just assuming it will? The precautionary principle is a recipe for eternal stagnation.


R&D would have to be killing 30,000*%oftheirvehicles per year.


We're talking about perception. Regardless, Tesla won't release the data per mile driven and seems to be dodging reporting regulations -- if not daring regulators to respond.

Feels to me like amateurs (backed by a small army) confidently building bridges and daring the community to try and stop them. (Except Tesla's army are fan boys, lobbyists, and lawyers.) So basically speed running a millennium of civil engineering, except ignoring the more expensive safety controls; like LIDAR.


Yeah, it's a hard problem, but researchers are smart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdUjrOnKdw

and human drivers do not set an infinitely high bar.




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