On Google's self-driving car acident rates
What about manufacturer liability? That's the critical question here.<p>It can't just be 2X or even 10X safer than humans if the manufacturer is liable for the accident. That would EXPLODE the cost of these cars and bankrupt companies -- even if just a small fraction of today's fatal accidents due to driver error became Google's liability.<p>Consider that even single-vehicle accidents, which today might be the driver's fault, could result in a manufacturer lawsuit.<p>This is why I think <i>fully</i> autonomous without any human to intervene is a pipe dream, because the safety level required for that is pretty close to perfectly bugfree in an almost infinitely complex world of roads and conditions. Just for liability reasons.<p>These test cars of course have human copilots. But it remains to be seen if that really will grant manufacturers immunity for accidents. If the car is perfect 99.999% of the time, wouldn't that train the human to trust it and not pay as close attention? And then miss that 0.001% of the time when it hurts someone? Would a judge find it reasonable for a human to stay vigilant and responsible for that fatal corner case bug that cropped up after two years of perfect autonomous driving?<p>Liability is The. Critical. Question.