According to IIHS, in 2021 Arizona ranked 11th on deaths per vehicle miles traveled -- as in 11th worst (https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state), with about 1200 crash deaths in the year. And the pandemic rise in pedestrian deaths on the roads is more newsworthy, I think, than Elmo's toys.
So, safety experts say there are clear flaws in the technology of self-driving cars, but dude bro CEO Elon Musk says, "Safety's for sissies." It's that what the Titan CEO said before he was blown to bits by bad design and lack of regulation?
More coverage on the crashes of the present is needed. What this somewhat old news article tells us is that our streets are dangerous regardless of how someone gets around. Let's talk about the road design and what Valley cities are doing, by not really doing, to address road safety. I mean, there's municipal VisionZero cmtes popping up but no real coverage on this topic. Why? Do the privilege that read the news just don't care?
We definitely need heightened attention (and access to better data) in order to properly assess autonomous driving problems, and to force for-profit companies to work on them.That being said, the potential is good. My own informal experience is that many humans are terrible at this task - I see red-light runners every day in Phoenix, and my wife and I have both almost been hit while crossing the street on a Walk signal. Long term, AI will cause fewer problems, and the fact that we are more bothered by news of driverless crashes than the entirely human kind is probably a good thing if it leads to more transparency re the information that is needed to improve things.
A brief anecdote about reaction to imperfect machine performance: about 40 years ago I worked in a brain research lab that had tested an AI program that predicted the subsequent success or failure of a particular kind of neurosurgery. The program did better than expert neurosurgeons did. It was never deployed, because, while better than human experts, it still sometimes made errors. No one wanted to be responsible for any of those mistakes ...
I know the technology needs work. But I’m going to pick a self-driving car over the one driven by an 80-year old awaiting cataract surgery or a 19-year old staring at a phone. 🤷🏼♀️
It's the Trolley Problem–nobody is going to allow a computer to decide to throw the switch or not. It may make utter and complete sense to send my car off into the ditch to save a bus load of children, but what if it's a bus load of lawyers, or better yet, a bus load of Republicans/Democrats?
And I love the ads on tv that showcase how bad ass the new cars are performance-wise, without telling you that there's no way you can go even one mile-per-hour over the speed limit.
According to IIHS, in 2021 Arizona ranked 11th on deaths per vehicle miles traveled -- as in 11th worst (https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state), with about 1200 crash deaths in the year. And the pandemic rise in pedestrian deaths on the roads is more newsworthy, I think, than Elmo's toys.
So, safety experts say there are clear flaws in the technology of self-driving cars, but dude bro CEO Elon Musk says, "Safety's for sissies." It's that what the Titan CEO said before he was blown to bits by bad design and lack of regulation?
More coverage on the crashes of the present is needed. What this somewhat old news article tells us is that our streets are dangerous regardless of how someone gets around. Let's talk about the road design and what Valley cities are doing, by not really doing, to address road safety. I mean, there's municipal VisionZero cmtes popping up but no real coverage on this topic. Why? Do the privilege that read the news just don't care?
We definitely need heightened attention (and access to better data) in order to properly assess autonomous driving problems, and to force for-profit companies to work on them.That being said, the potential is good. My own informal experience is that many humans are terrible at this task - I see red-light runners every day in Phoenix, and my wife and I have both almost been hit while crossing the street on a Walk signal. Long term, AI will cause fewer problems, and the fact that we are more bothered by news of driverless crashes than the entirely human kind is probably a good thing if it leads to more transparency re the information that is needed to improve things.
A brief anecdote about reaction to imperfect machine performance: about 40 years ago I worked in a brain research lab that had tested an AI program that predicted the subsequent success or failure of a particular kind of neurosurgery. The program did better than expert neurosurgeons did. It was never deployed, because, while better than human experts, it still sometimes made errors. No one wanted to be responsible for any of those mistakes ...
I know the technology needs work. But I’m going to pick a self-driving car over the one driven by an 80-year old awaiting cataract surgery or a 19-year old staring at a phone. 🤷🏼♀️
It's the Trolley Problem–nobody is going to allow a computer to decide to throw the switch or not. It may make utter and complete sense to send my car off into the ditch to save a bus load of children, but what if it's a bus load of lawyers, or better yet, a bus load of Republicans/Democrats?
And I love the ads on tv that showcase how bad ass the new cars are performance-wise, without telling you that there's no way you can go even one mile-per-hour over the speed limit.