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Comment by Jeriko | Hacker News Reader

"Internet-connected smart vehicles aren't a mature technology. Not in the sense of this being the win2k era of that tech, but that our assumptions about how to build these systems might be fundamentally wrong. I don't know if it will ever be safe enough to trust human lives to it."

I often hear this kind of thing and am really surprised by it. Specifically for the tech in vehicles example, it seems like a real double standard. Around 37,000 people in the US die in car accidents every year[1]. That's 100 people a DAY. There is a huge cost to not adopting new safety measures, even if it depends on immature tech, and that needs to be factored against the potential new unknown risks.

Driving to work is almost certainly the riskiest thing you do most days. I find it plausible that people 50 years from now will think that the cars we drove before 2010 were unconscionable death traps.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

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You're comparing apples and oranges. It can both be true that security (and overall software) quality is poor, and that automated buggy cars are better than erratic people.

However, when you are considering system risk (e.g. that a bad actor could crash 100k cars at the same time) the worst case outcome could be much worse than the mean outcome.

>There is a huge cost to not adopting new safety measures

That statement doesn't seem meaningful to me in a vacuum, without further qualification. It's not at all guaranteed that safety features have net benefits, either measured financially or in estimated human welfare. Have you noticed there are a lot of high tech safety features in modern cars, but insurance companies are selective about which ones receive discounts?

If self-driving cars are substantially safer, insurance companies will be able to give substantial discounts. I vaguely remember Tesla making noises about providing insurance to their own customers, but I don't know if it came to anything.

Hopefully in 50 years the whole idea of single-occupancy vehicles will be considered a quaint relic of a much more decadent time, especially vehicles which were allowed such extravagant externalities in terms of pollution and endangerment to vulnerable road users.

> Specifically for the tech in vehicles example, it seems like a real double standard. Around 37,000 people in the US die in car accidents every year

Depends on the feature you're talking about. With self-driving cars, for example, there is no evidence that they are any safer than human drivers. In fact, it is possible that they are more dangerous than human drivers.

Maybe it's maturity in the sense of relationships.

An immature relationship might be based on selfish interests, compounded with power struggles, boundary issues, jealousy, spying, and a little rage and stockholm syndrome thrown in for fun.

A mature relationship is based on trust and mutual respect. It does not concern itself with knowing every detail or trepidation regarding other suitors. The relationship is there because it is valued and there are willing participants.

Now... internet connected devices.

In a couple decades I suspect getting a license will be as common as people getting motorcycle licenses today. Might happen.

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