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A pedestrian was pinned under a Cruise robotaxi after another car’s hit-and-run (narwhal.city)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The woman is reportedly in critical condition.

https://www.engadget.com/a-pedestrian-was-pinned-under-a-cruise-robotaxi-after-another-cars-hit-and-run-180404816.html

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If the weight of the car stopped her from breathing she’d be dead.

The facts of the matter are:

The car is programmed to stop and turn on its hazard lights when it detects an obstruction underneath it.
That is good policy, overall, for when a person is trapped under a vehicle
As exemplified by this situation, where moving off her leg could endanger her life

A larger narrative was attempted to be extrapolated from the smaller narrative here of a car endangering someone’s life.

However as has been described already, this car did not endanger anyone’s life any more than a human-driven car would have. In fact, given then scenario of a pedestrian literally flying into its path, it behaved optimally for that scenario. Something a human driver may not have done.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I like how you just keep on talking about what we all agree on.

Would you like to imagine how you would argue if the first sentence you wrote was true?

That’s when the interesting scenarios start showing up, including how humans are ready to grab the pitchforks when an automated system kills someone, but when humans do it 10x more it’s perfectly fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

NO, a human driving a car and hitting another person is NOT perfectly fine.

People just didn't make a big fuse about them because our society already have the institutions to deal with this kind of situation.

The driver would be punished according to the legal institution. If it is a deliberate murder they would go to court and be trailed.

Local media will also make sure the culprit would be punished socially. Everyone in town will know who hit our neighbor.

On the other hand, the responsibility of driver-less vehicles are not well defined yet. Is the engineer responsible? Is the programmer responsible? Is the CEO of the manufacturer responsible?

This is why these incidents receive so much outcry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Just needed to be sure, but thanks for confirming.