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Re:A Tragic Loss by snowwrestler on Thursday June 30, 2016 @10:30PM (#12013520)
Ok but what about the limitations of technology?

Yes, self-driving cars will save lives if we assume that the self-driving technology is superior to humans in every way. That's almost a tautology though.

Self-driving cars don't get bored, but they don't seem to see white tractor trailers either. Technology has different shortcomings than people do. Whether tech shortcomings result in fewer lives lost than human shortcomings remains to be seen.

It's astounding to me that HN stories about self-driving cars sit right next to stories about iPhones and anti-virus software, and tone of the comments are diametrically opposed. If you read the comments on self-driving car stories, you'd think that technology can do everything better than people. If you read the comments on stories about iPhones and anti-virus, you'd think that everything has terrible bugs, vulnerabilities, and shortcomings.

Re:A Tragic Loss by lkbm on Friday July 01, 2016 @12:52AM (#12013949)
> but they don't seem to see white tractor trailers either

Isn't Tesla using pure vision? Google also uses lidar, which fixes the problem. EDIT: Looks like I'm wrong and Tesla uses radar.

> Technology has different shortcomings than people do. Whether tech shortcomings result in fewer lives lost than human shortcomings remains to be seen.

Technology also gets better. Ten years ago, people were as bad at driving as they are today. Ten years from now, they'll be as bad as they are today.

Now compare self driving cars ten years ago to self driving cars today. And ten years from now.

> If you read the comments on self-driving car stories, you'd think that technology can do everything better than people. If you read the comments on stories about iPhones and anti-virus, you'd think that everything has terrible bugs, vulnerabilities, and shortcomings.

Those aren't contradictory.