The problem with mandatory compensation programs (aside from granting legal immunity to private sector entities, which I disagree with), is that they tend to break the discovery process via way of circumvention.<p>The discovery phase of a case is how truly damning evidence often comes to light. A fantastic example of this would be the Toyota unintended acceleration debacle.[0] If it weren&#x27;t for the discovery process in those cases, nobody would really know what a total mess Toyota&#x27;s code was.<p>As far as self-driving cars are concerned, I&#x27;ve no doubt top tier companies like Google and Tesla are going to do the best job they can, but eventually everyone is going to be in the space, and when a company with an institutional disdain for proper safety-critical software engineering practices ends up killing people, I want their feet held to the fire.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10437117" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10437117</a>