Rich Galen
From an email chat with Myles last night:
Hey, Myles. Self-driving cars have progressed far faster than anyone – even industry experts – every conceived possible.
I understand that the first question raised by some is: Should the cars’ computers be programmed to swerve out of harms way to save your life, even if it swerves (to make the starkest possible comparison) into the path of a young mother walking her twins in a stroller on the sidewalk outside a kidney dialysis clinic?
We can ask that same question of the pilot of a loaded 737 who has the choice of attempting to save his 135 passengers by crash landing on a farm that is adjacent to a small town in Iowa or steering into a tree-covered hillside that will surely kill everyone on board.
Both are over my paygrade.
The technology is certainly available to put into a massive amount of cars today. That technology (to include hardware, software, cameras, mapping capabilities, GPS improvements, etc) will be upon us by the end of this week, relatively speaking.
That said, we needn’t apply every available technology to every conceivable project just because we can.
Very few auto accidents are cause by a mechanical failure. 30,000 people are killed in auto accidents every year (10,000 of which involve alcohol).
I just found one site that claimed mechanical failures were the cause of 12-13% of accidents. It didn’t mention how many fatalities that involved.
Add to alcohol-fueled fatalities, talking (or worse yet, texting) in a cell phone while driving, driving outside safe limits of snow, ice, rain, etc, or just general driver error and you can probably make a pretty good case that for every woman-with-her-twins fatality, thousands of lives would be saved by having a car drive itself – or NOT drive itself is weather conditions are too bad.
Not sure that’s what your looking for, Myles, but that’s what I’ve got.
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