[ExI] Tesla autopilot

Sat Jan 22 16:00:34 UTC 2022

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 1:13 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Tesla autopilot

On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 8:35 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

Having a PE license makes me the world's foremost expert on what projects I will personally work for.  I wouldn't go anywhere near the place unless there was some kind of blanket indemnity for that particular activity, where courts or our legal system declared self-driving cars a kind of special case where normal tort law doesn't apply.  Should self-driving car companies somehow be given blanket immunity, then stock buyers will come and controls engineers will come.  I don't expect the lawsuit industry or the US legal system to offer such immunity.

### But why would you insist on immunity? If you are insured none of this is your headache. 

It's probably impossible for courts to nullify tort law for FSD and why would they, anyway?

The only situation where the lawsuit industry could substantially affect FSD cars would be if juries started awarding large punitive damages in cases involving FSD. Otherwise, because of the assumed superior safety record of FSD, the relevant insurance premiums would stay well below liability premiums for regular driving.

Rafal

Rafal, we need some kind of large scale demonstration project before insurance companies will bet on this technology.  I am in complete agreement that self-drivers can be built using current technology which is vastly superior to human drivers.  We already have self-drivers, but they also have steering wheels and the requirement for a licensed human sitting behind the wheel taking the liability for the machine.

What we need is a place where we can demonstrate the kind of self-driver which does not offer the option of a human operator.  It occurred to me we have a few such places: military bases.  The rules really are a bit different there.  In places like China Lake Naval Weapons Center, there is a base where you must have ID to get inside the gate, must have government issued photo ID on you at all times, including children, the MPs troll around constantly, there are no homeless people, no dopers, none of the usual modern urban ills.  

Civilians live on that base if they qualify.  The enlisted service members are not required to live on that base, for the town of Ridgecrest is right next door, but it is an option for them to live there.  It is understood that the Captain is god.  He says what is law there.  OK China Lake naval base, something like that might work for a test bed to gather enough real-world data so that insurance companies will stand behind this (depending on how one defines the term “real.”)  China Lake NWC has streets and houses like any small town anywhere, pedestrians, pets, children, it is pretty much like anywhere else in America except every home has firearms and it is perfectly safe from crime there.  You will not be shot or mugged there, your car will not be stolen, your home will not be burglarized.  But other than that, it’s like any American small town.  Perhaps we could test self-drivers there.

spike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20220122/ece73367/attachment.htm>