Driverless cars run by a company protecting itself from reputational and legal risk seems less dystopian than the status quo.

>> that's cool. until it's not...same with code updates that will make cyclist life worse...you're not really their main concern

I agree and expect that the wide safety tolerances driverless cars currently have will become tighter as they gain more experience, and that this will make them more efficient but potentially less pleasant to be around than they used to be.

But even if pedestrian and cyclists lives are not a main concern for self-driving car companies, some concern is better than none. For some human drivers their concerns seem to be things like not getting arrested, getting to their destination as quickly as possible, checking social media to satisfy their boredom, and not scratching the paint on their vehicle. Some drivers consider vulnerable road users like cyclists to be sub-human [1].

My point is that the bar in the US has been set so incredibly low that even if the code updates make their products worse for cyclists than they used to be or even killing some vulnerable road users that may still be safer and preferable to the incompetence and complete indifference on the part of human drivers.

Having said that, the same calculus may not apply in countries that don't issue drivers a license to kill people, so the bar for driverless cars is likely to be much higher in such places.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136984782...

If Waymo hits a cyclist which leads to death, and Waymo is found to be at fault, that's definitely going to make headlines and potentially lead to a pause of the entire operation.

These regulators should be supported and kept clear of regulatory capture. Other countries can do this, so should the US.

And not sure why you think running stop signs or any anti safety measures would increase profits.

Like banning them altogether following a public outcry? That is the mechanism to hold them accountable.

Also in individual cases it will be very easy to sue them for accidents they caused or contributed to. Already is.

Where does this “no mechanism to hold them accountable” comes from?

Because this big companies like Google are actually evil. As an example the mobile YouTube app does not let you use it if you turn off the screen. So Google decided that wasting energy and killing batteries is an acceptable thing to do, this is pure evil - I would accept they adding more advertising or whatever but killing the life span of a device and wasting energy is truly evil shit.

> The car went onto a freeway, where it travelled past an on-ramp. According to people with knowledge of events that day, the Prius accidentally boxed in another vehicle, a Camry. A human driver could easily have handled the situation by slowing down and letting the Camry merge into traffic, but Google’s software wasn’t prepared for this scenario. The cars continued speeding down the freeway side by side. The Camry’s driver jerked his car onto the right shoulder. Then, apparently trying to avoid a guardrail, he veered to the left; the Camry pinwheeled across the freeway and into the median. Levandowski, who was acting as the safety driver, swerved hard to avoid colliding with the Camry, causing Taylor to injure his spine so severely that he eventually required multiple surgeries.

> Levandowski and Taylor didn’t know how badly damaged the Camry was. They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt. Neither they nor other Google executives made inquiries with the authorities. The police were not informed that a self-driving algorithm had contributed to the accident.

> According to former Google executives, in Project Chauffeur’s early years there were more than a dozen accidents, at least three of which were serious. One of Google’s first test cars, nicknamed kitt, was rear-ended by a pickup truck after it braked suddenly, because it couldn’t distinguish between a yellow and a red traffic light. Two of the Google employees who were in the car later sought medical treatment.

It was a long time ago, but Larry Page was well aware of it, and imagine if that incident received fair coverage and investigation.

> They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt

They should have made sure the driver was okay.

The safety driver was Anthony Levandowski, who left Google for Uber, taking with him a bunch of stolen IP, at Uber ran a cowboy self-driving car division that got pedestrians killed, Levandowski got sued by Google, ended up in prison and Uber laid off the entire division. Later he was pardoned by Trump.

So good news - the callous and uncaring safety driver has been fired, sued, and imprisoned.

I am unfamiliar with the details of this incident and my reading based on the facts presented is similar.

Could someone provide more information?

A good piece by an ex-Googler on his 2-year journey toward recognizing the scale of institutional thought at Google: https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/

I recognize accident lawyer work when I see one :) They charged Waymo’s insurance to the max.