One problem is that even if there are far fewer road casualties with driverless cars, there will still almost certainly be some casualties, perhaps many. Who do we hold responsible for those?
If we blame the car makers, there may not be any car makers because nobody will want to take on the liability.
If we don't blame anyone then there is no incentive to improve the situation and no way to hold people accountable for sincere negligence.
We would have to accept that a consumer product will occasionally kill us, and come up with some standard to judge whether the manufacturer "tried hard enough" to prevent it.
I can't think of any precedent for that. There are plenty of products that can kill us, but only if we misuse them. A driverless car will have a few deadly design flaws that we only learn about from experience.
Maybe this should be publicly acknowledged up front and a legal framework established. That seems better than pretending it's completely safe, causing a shitstorm when something inevitably goes wrong.
Perhaps a new entity is needed? Think of a zipcar like service which is accountable for the vehicle. Large enough to absorb the occasional accident, and pressure automakers for safety/efficiency improvements.
If we blame the car makers, there may not be any car makers because nobody will want to take on the liability.
If we don't blame anyone then there is no incentive to improve the situation and no way to hold people accountable for sincere negligence.
We would have to accept that a consumer product will occasionally kill us, and come up with some standard to judge whether the manufacturer "tried hard enough" to prevent it.
I can't think of any precedent for that. There are plenty of products that can kill us, but only if we misuse them. A driverless car will have a few deadly design flaws that we only learn about from experience.
Maybe this should be publicly acknowledged up front and a legal framework established. That seems better than pretending it's completely safe, causing a shitstorm when something inevitably goes wrong.