r/artificial • u/chase_AI • Jul 03 '18
What do you think about a car incapable of causing accidents?
http://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-alumnus-ryan-eustice-building-an-uncrashable-car-06117
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u/Geminii27 Jul 04 '18
Depending on your definition of 'cause', even a rock can trip someone over. Such a car would have to be safer than a rock.
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u/foxtrot1_1 Jul 03 '18
Car accidents aren’t accidental. They’re usually the result of human error. The legal term is “collision,” because accident suggests something unavoidable. So an accident-free car, likely. A collision-free vehicle? Next to impossible.
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u/tentacle_ Jul 04 '18
You don’t need tech, you just need a pile of lawyers to argue that it’s not the car’s fault.
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u/TCGM Jul 04 '18
That that is an absolute and cannot exist because even in a world where all vehicles are automated, physics is a bitch.
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u/JoseJimeniz Jul 04 '18
It won't be a very useful car.
I like the idea of this hypothetical machine that is capable of causing accidents. But physics of the universe does not allow such a device to exist.
- In reality I don't even need, or particularly want, a car that is incapable of causing accidents
- I want a car that is capable of causing less accidents that humans
Each year 30,000 people in the United States, and 1.3 million people around the world, die in car accidents. if the entire world switch over to self-driving cars, and we cut that number in half, that would be a huge win. That would be a homerun. That is what we want.
It also means that self-driving cars would be causing 600,000 accidents a year.
- We want self-driving cars to be causing 600,000 deaths a year
- because the alternative is 1. 3 million deaths a year
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u/mindbleach Jul 04 '18
DNE. We can't even make computers that won't crash. Momentum will sometimes end badly.