Comment by asa400

It's a question of incentives.

For safety regulators, the incentives are all on the side of limiting acute downside (e.g. a plane crashing), not maximizing potential aggregate upside (e.g. millions of tons of fuel saved per year and millions of tons of C02 not in the atmosphere).

Society punishes regulators that approve products that kill people, so regulators adapt to this and as a result tend to be very conservative.

Regulators don't capture any of the upside (reputational or otherwise) when a new product enters the market and cures disease, makes cars more efficient, helps planes land on their own in an emergency, etc.

I don't know what "right" should be here, but you've hit on a good point. It's complicated.