Here is the big thing - the driverless truck has to operate in a uncontrolled environment that can result in human death. Who is the responsible party? The trucking company? The software developer?

Additionally we are talking situations where a computer can't have any reaction interruptions for hours and hours. No reboots. No garbage collection pauses. No panics.

Can this be done? Maybe. But at what cost? It might be that the best role for the computer is helping a truck driver be safer -- not to replace the truck driver.

You mean, just like existing ones? It's not like we're still driving purely mechanical cars. Current production vehicles already have plenty of software managing stuff.

You do have a point on liability, and I don't have an answer better than a centralised pool of money that everyone pays in or out of.

Some times we get so fascinated by technology, that we forget that the technology has to fit within human society.

Remember the whole concept of product/market fit - if the market rejects the product: it doesn't matter how "cool" the technology is.

Nope. Short of gross negligence in design, that seldom happens in any engineering field.

How many people were criminally charged in the Challenger disaster? None.

Additionally, going up on a rocket is a fundamentally risking proposition done by adults.

Having a driverless vehicle that glitches, applies power instead of brakes, and kills a bunch of pretty young girls.... well that makes the 5 oclock news and 11 oclock for many, many days.

People get charged with crimes.

You're illustrating my point for me quite nicely. Frankly, I can't think of a criminal conviction, even at the corporate level, for design flaws in the auto industry without going all the way back to the Ford Pinto.