ducktoller

"It is widely known that it's extremely difficult for humans to remain vigilant when monitoring systems for rare events."

It may be difficult to remain vigilant, but it's not difficult to stay off of your phone while you're at the wheel.

There are signs all over the road and commercials on tv telling people that texting and driving kills. Being on your phone while you're driving is illegal for that reason.

Having a self-driving car on the road with a car operator is legal. There are many companies with self-driving cars on the road that have higher intervention rates than Uber.

We'll never know whether that woman would've been saved if the car operator wasn't on their phone. We do know that what the car operator did was illegal.

It's a descriptor, the same way "man" or "woman" is a descriptor. Descriptors help you picture a situation more clearly.

A fully autonomous car is different, too.

The person at the wheel when that woman was killed was responsible for stepping on the brakes if necessary. And when I have cruise control on, I'm also responsible for stepping on the brakes if necessary.

There was a person at the wheel.

That person wasn't paying full attention to the road. From the video of the crash, it looks like the woman at the wheel was looking at their phone.

Why is no one acknowledging that this woman was responsible for taking over the wheel if necessary for any reason. When I have cruise control on, I take my feet off of the pedals and rest them on the floor. But if, say, a homeless person with a bicycle walks out into the middle of the road at night with a black sweatshirt on in front of my car, then I step on the brakes.

And why is no one acknowledging that a homeless person walked out into the middle of the street at night in a black sweatshirt. I definitely don't know whether I, even if I wasn't on my phone like the car operator was, would've seen the person in the road with enough time to slam on the brakes. I might've killed that person walking across the road by mistake, too.

Like millions of other people on the road every single day, the car operator was on their smartphone while they were at the wheel. And like 3-5 million other people a year, the homeless person walking across the street was killed in a car accident.

The woman walking across the street and the woman at the wheel of the car broke the law. Uber didn't break any laws as far as I can tell. They were as responsible as any other company building self-driving cars as far as I can tell, too. I don't think it's fair to put the fault on Uber here.