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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

Yeah that was this one, the camera doesn't do the actual visibility justice. If it was proven the cyclist wasn't visible, AND the driver was proven to be paying attention, I'm sure she would've been exonerated.

But the driver wasn't paying attention. They were watching stuff on their phone and killed someone. They were responsible for the car, not Uber and its self-driving systems - that she was responsible for testing and overseeing.

I'm kinda happy for her that her punishment is fairly mild - I mean after all she'll have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life - but she's definitely responsible for it.

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And this is the very reason I am not interested at all in anything self-driving below a _proven_ level 5. I either drive or I don't, it's as simple as that. Expecting people to watch over the driver's shoulder is b$ both from the expecting side and from the promising side and I'm actually angry that it is the accepted premise nowadays. It's easy to punish the failing supervisor, and ignore a system built on out-of-touch premises - because ask any psychologist and they will confirm that constant attention cannot be expected from regular humans (and no, calling you supervisor driver won't make you superhuman). On the anecdote side, I disabled my cruise control after I've been told - more than once - that I drive more reckless with it active, trying to keep the cruise speed and not touch any pedal/button in moments where it was rather dangerous to do so. And they were right, I had to recognize - turns out I'm human too.

> They were responsible for the car, not Uber and its self-driving systems - that she was responsible for testing and overseeing.

I agree with your point about the driver but disagree with this. Tesla is testing it's product on people without their consent. In this case, their technology failed and it resulted in the death of someone who did not consent to being part of a autonomous vehicle test.

> I'm kinda happy for her that her punishment is fairly mild - I mean after all she'll have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life - but she's definitely responsible for it.

This is an odd statement. She killed someone. Feeling bad about it is irrelevant imo. And living with guilt is not the equivalent of time served.

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