Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

If a careless driver crashes into me, I've been wronged by an individual who made some bad decisions. If a self-driving car hits me, I've been wronged by a corporation that probably cut corners and sold a shitty product for profit. I have some sliver of sympathy for the culprit in the first case, but zero sympathy in the second.


10-15% of car accidents are cause by mechanical failure. Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners, so my question still stands.


> Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners

I think most of them are probably caused by deferred maintenance, which may either be the result of the owner making poor decisions, or a circumstance forced on them by poverty. In cases where the car is defective as manufactured, I have no sympathy for the company that made it. If that happens, I want the car company to pay for it. Which I believe generally happens. Car airbags blow up in your face because of a detective design? The car company has to pay to fix that. So your question has a false premise; we don't ignore deaths caused by faulty manufacturing. Usually anyway, some car companies seem to get away with more than others..


How do you figure the self-driving car was built by cutting corners? Just to be devil's advocate... usually its a small team of people that genuinely care about making self driving better. What prevents it from simply being an accident?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: