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Waymo Pulled Its Cars From the Freeway After One Fled Police With Horrified Couple on Board (futurism.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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"This is it. We're dead. We're going to die right here in the Waymo."

This combined with another recent article from some insiders at Tesla saying, along the lines, "You couldn't pay me to let one of these things drive me somewhere."

And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about "never having to drive again."

EDIT: Comments have pointed out that this story is, at best, overblown and semi-fabricated otherwise. Take it with a massive grain of salt. But feel free to discuss self-driving, waymo, etc in the comments!

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[–] 111 points 5 months ago (12 children)

Permit me to reiterate an idea I had the last time a self-driving car did something illegal:

All of these cars are being driven by the same software "driver". That driver is in contempt of the law. Thus it needs to be punished like any other driver in contempt of the law. All fines to be paid by its representative human or company. All incarceration to be for as long as is necessary for the driver to be rehabilitated. If no such rehabilitation is possible, the driver is permanently banned from driving.

By which I mean, all Waymos need to be taken off the road until they're provably rehabilitated and it is certain that this won't happen again.

And if Waymo the company thinks that would be detrimental to their business, tough. Take some responsibility and fix your damn cars.

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  • [–] 39 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    CEOs should be held liable for the products their company produces.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I'm sure Waymo's lawyers would argue that a simple software update would make the "driver" an entirely new entity, and thus free from the fines and incarceration. You're raising some interesting legal questions that we'd have to figure out

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  • [–] 22 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    By that logic, I would not legally be the same person as I would be tomorrow since my brain would not have an identical cellular structure as it does today.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago*

    The software? Sure let it not be liable. What does the software own? Now, should the c suite be held responsible? Hell yes. Liability belongs to the corporation and don't let them off the hook for their actions.

    Unfortunately the legal theory behind holding executives responsible (is valid and) has never really been tried. They passed a law, hoped everyone would forget about it, everyone did, and business went back to usual.

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Also when a human takes remote control, does that person have a driving licence valid in the place they are driving. Because last i heard they were in Indonesia or something. Presumably a taxi drivers licence as they are carrying passing passengers.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago

    That would make too much sense. They are operating a vehicle, regardless of whether or not said vehicle has a “human driver” there is a person who is allowing said vehicle onto the road and is the person at the top of the chain of authority which sent those vehicles out.

    Like, if I sent out a swarm of killer drones no one would argue that it was me who killed people. Of course, in today’s world, you can have insurance companies supercede medical instruction, leading to the deaths of thousands, and that’s not even a news story.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Imo all of the "self driving " features that car makers advertise should really be called driver assist if the marketing matched how the real world works. Until a car company is willing to take legal liability for accidents while using their self driving feature, what is the point?

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