> I don't think you can just look at the statistics though. What I mean is that, the main issue is that the category of mistakes they make are going to be inherently different from the category of mistakes that humans make

Would you rather have a X% chance of a loved one dying from a human-category mistake? Or a 0.5X% chance of a loved one dying from a ML-category mistake? I would take the latter in a heartbeat. Why waste time optimizing for "categories" when you can optimize for your loved ones not dying

> humans are more likely to make emotional mistakes, but self driving is probably more likely to make perceptual mistakes or fail to respond to novel situations

Humans fail chaotically. AVs, at least Waymos, fail safely. In urban environments, there is a case to be made within a few years for banning (or making it massively cumbersome) to manually pilot a private vehicle.

Statistics is still the most reliable indicator, because you can’t really tell if a situation is “novel”. How novel is novel? I doubt even Waymo knows for sure.

People will trust them by familiarity, not by any objective measures. Their trust grow as they see them more often, without bad accidents.

My understanding is that they only operate in areas they’ve had approved and pre-mapped out for them though. Practically I don’t think the scenario you’ve described would ever happen, but I too would like to see it (I suspect they wouldn’t handle it well).

I live East of DTLA and twice I’ve seen people driving them around, presumably to map those areas out. It’s pretty annoying that I can’t use them for my late night commutes yet, but I’m eagerly looking forward to when I can!

IDK, I've been in the car with someone when they just up and up drove off the road because they failed to notice that there was a corner - and that's a sober human. Another time, someone else, they rounded a corner, saw a tractor in the other lane, and were so surprised that they hit a tree. My mother has totalled six cars - she insists it was someone else's fault every time, but the statistics are somewhat damning. My wife's driving has given me haemmorhoids, I clench so fucking hard. Blind corners at twice the speed limit, looks over her shoulder to talk to passengers, and I constantly find myself buying wing mirrors, fenders, headlights, body panels, hubcaps, and anything else she can break off on traffic, rocks, or street furniture. Well, I did until someone finally took her license away from her for a year.

So... not so sure. Every AV I've ever been in has driven incredibly cautiously compared to a human driver.

Why don't you think waymo is liable? Who else would be responsible for an accident in one of their cars?

While we hold humans financially responsible for all accidents, we don’t hold them personally responsible in every case. Most accidents end with no arrests or even tickets. If your hand slips on the steering wheel, you don’t go to jail.

Robot cars would be the same. Insurance is financially responsible, and if the accident is deemed caused by a flaw, it would be the company that made them that is held responsible for fixing it.

Don't we have automated systems all around the world with the same element at play? Elevators? Trains/Subways that are autonomous, robotic lawn mowers, self-driving little delivery vehicles on sidewalks, all kinds of automated machines in factories that kill people, etc...

I feel like you could come up with long lists of cases where there is no direct human to blame. Someone may be at fault down the chain, but nobody who was directly controlling the machine. Just like if a mechanic screws up my brakes and I end up crashing, it wasn't directly me who caused the crash, even though I was sitting in the seat.

Why would it work any differently than any other category of product or service? If you’re rich you can sue them, if not you’re fucked.

Unless there’s a very bad and widespread issue. Then you join a class action and get $24 on a visa giftcard you can’t figure out how to redeem and then forget about.

Mistakes aren’t glitches when the environment is so dynamic. I imagine they are making errors constantly, and constantly learning from them.

When a robot car makes a mistake, all robot cars learn from the experience. When a human messes up, only that human learns from it.

> When a robot car messes up, who is held responsible?

The company owning and operating the robot?

I use Old Glory Robot Insurance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Gh_IcK8UM

> autonomous vehicles (especially if something like automated package delivery becomes an offered service) allow car bombs without the suicide bomber inside

Every city has courier services, including Uber.

We have a much higher level of tolerance for things that benefit us while posing a risk to others ("should my own car have FSD") than we do for things that benefit others while posing a risk to us ("should Waymos be allowed in my neighborhood").

Lawyers are salivating at the possibility of suing Waymo if they ever make a mistake. Much better to be hit by a Waymo (or a Tesla Robotaxi) than the typical uninsured, "judgement proof", human driver.

Good point because massive insurance companies can't afford lawyers and no one ever sues large companies.

Tesla, in particular, has given those skeptics so much ammunition to be mad at. The delay isn't purely due to luddites but also somewhat driven by prior obvious bad actions by self-driving car companies.

It's also likely that if a switchover is aggressively pursued it'll cause a massive social backlash and likely evolve into a culture war issue.