Self driving Uber vehicle kills pedestrian

[Anomalocaris]

Artificial intelligence may be no match for human stupidity, but I think artificial stupidity will give human stupidity a run for its money.

[Sal]

With 3.2 million kilometers tracked and with 1 fatality, that's quite a good track record given it's early in development.

[polymath257]

Self driving cars are actually very good. They have been around for a while now, this is the first case of a death.

What I really want to know is why the human driver didn’t brake. The whole reason there’s still a human behind the wheel is to act when the car fails. There’s clearly still work to do, but we also shouldn’t overreact to one case.

Precisely. Just think of the number of pedestrians that are killed *every day* by cars operated by humans.

The main questions, as far as I can see them, is whether self-driven cars will kill *fewer* people and where the *blame* will be located. For a human-driven car, the blame can be paced on a human (whether or not that is air), but who pays the bills for a self-driven car when there is an accident?

[SteelCurtain]

As much as I am in love with this new technology and really really want it for the future, I hope there is typical severe human overreaction to this, and it delays the onset of this, promoting driving aids over automation.

Autonomous vehicles, when they do arrive in force, are going to put millions of people out of work.

I truly believe that in the next 20 years, the creep of technology into more and more industries is going to be a national crisis of unemployment. When it hits the service industry, we're fucked. When you go to the restaurant and there is an iPad on your table, when you go to the fast food restaurants and there are only 1-2 people working instead of 10, when those Boston Dynamics (buy stock now) robots become packer/pickers for Amazon and every other major logistics company and retailer, when the lowest common denominator can't find work....

Get your kids interested in medicine or computers..... all I'm saying.

[Fireball]

As much as I am in love with this new technology and really really want it for the future, I hope there is typical severe human overreaction to this, and it delays the onset of this, promoting driving aids over automation.

Autonomous vehicles, when they do arrive in force, are going to put millions of people out of work.

I truly believe that in the next 20 years, the creep of technology into more and more industries is going to be a national crisis of unemployment. When it hits the service industry, we're fucked. When you go to the restaurant and there is an iPad on your table, when you go to the fast food restaurants and there are only 1-2 people working instead of 10, when those Boston Dynamics (buy stock now) robots become packer/pickers for Amazon and every other major logistics company and retailer, when the lowest common denominator can't find work....

Get your kids interested in medicine or computers..... all I'm saying.

I'd never eat an iPad.   There's a lot of truth in what you are saying, though. I'll bet it will be a longer while before plumbers and carpenters, etc., are replaced by machines.

[Neo-Scholastic]

NPR reported this morning that the pedestrian tried to cross in the middle for the street coming from between cars. The Uber agent said that he didn't even see the person until the moment of impact. It sounded to me like the pedestrian was extremely reckless and inattentive.

[Silver]

It sounded to me like the pedestrian was extremely reckless and inattentive.

I'm guilty of reckless pedestrianism, as well. Jaywalking instead of using the crosswalk just a few yards away.

Not that the crosswalk is any safer, mind you. I've witnessed far too many impatient drivers almost hit pedestrians trying to cross.

[Angrboda]

On the news today.  Car was in automatic mode with a human overseer, still managed to kill a pedestrian, apparently in a crosswalk.

I heard otherwise, that the pedestrian was not in a crosswalk.

[vorlon13]

Yes, not in a crosswalk.

[Anomalocaris]

Yes, not in a crosswalk.

I wonder weather the self driving facility is capable of honking the horn.