Comment by tempest_
18 hours ago
> They put R&D resources toward not getting as many tickets and eventually fix their software to not get tickets?
Why would you assume they would do that?
What if the autonomous vehicle only blows a red and kills someone every once and a while and the lawyers to tie the family up in court are cheaper than the software dev and ai training to fix it?
Are you willing to wait until the number of dead people exceeds the cost of the fix?
Its an extreme example I know but to just assume they would fix it also assumes they are caught and ticketed 100% of the time.
There are tons of examples of corporate America weighting the pros and cons of things like this.
> Why would you assume they would do that?
Because they exist to make money?
> kills someone every once and a while
Every time an AV is liable for a death the company will face a high 8 digit legal settlement. Wont even go to trial. Again, the AV companies will avoid this because their goal is to make money and paying 8 digit legal settlements does not make them money. You are right that if this only happens once a year and they have a million cars it wont be a high priority, but if thats the case AVs are much safer than the current driving environment. If AVs caused death at anything close to current rates the companies would lose tons of money.
> assumes they are caught and ticketed 100% of the time.
No it doesnt. It assumes they are caught often enough for it to be worth it for them to fix. When politicians start telling traffic enforcement to focus on AVs Im betting that will happen. AVs will be known as incredibly conservative drivers because the companies really dont want tickets and there will be memes about how waymo drives like grandma.