[SystemSafety] AI in self-driving cars? What are they thinking?

Les Chambers Les at chambers.com.au
Wed Feb 9 06:50:58 CET 2022


Re: US tolerance of road deaths

As an Australian living in the bay area of San Francisco in the 1970s I was intrigued by the local 
laissez-faire attitude to road accidents. Reports would come over drive radio, “Hey there’s been a 
wreck on the Nimitz freeway it’s going to be a lousy commute.” No details on injuries or deaths. 
Later on, the classic clearance news item would go, “Hey the wreck on the Nimitz has been 
sanitised. It’s gonna be a great commute!” Commendable stoicism.
I segue to Antarctica where penguins gather on ice flows in great numbers. Before they dive into 
the water they inspect their environment for leopard seals. Leopard seals eat penguins. They 
have also been observed pushing one or two of their number into the water to validate their test 
by inspection.
The USA, with its stoic acceptance of a high road toll, provides the perfect incubator for driverless 
cars. The demise of the odd experimental penguin is lost in the weeds.

OR
You could look at this another way 


>From 1580 to 1630 during the European wars of religion an estimated 40,000 witches were burnt 
at the stake. In the UK Prior to 1967 you could be arrested for being a homosexual. An ancient 
Arab poet said, ‘It is your manners that determine how civilised you are.’ Our civility has evolved to 
the point where we no longer torture and kill people whose behaviour lies a few standard 
deviations east or west of some traditional norm. Neither do we throw virgins into volcanoes to 
appease the gods OR SACRIFICE HUMAN LIFE ON THE ALTAR OF INNOVATION. It’s 
considered bad manners.
Today’s engineers are equipped with improved tools (I.e. simulators) and analysis methods to 
push the probably of dangerous failure out into the 10^-6 never never long before we hand our 
work products to the public. All the public has to do is make sure they are used. 
And here lies the problem. 
In 1580 burning witches was the right thing to do because the priest told us so. He was always 
right because he had a direct line to 
 you know who 
 Besides, he was the only guy in the 
village who could read. Today the same massive ignorance in the general public allows equally 
medieval practices to prosper. 
The tech giants are the new age priests. But who’d want to be an experimental penguin?

> One thing which it only now occurs to me to mention is differing national tolerance for road 
> fatalities. Britain had a population of 67.22m and 1460 road fatalities in 2020; Germany 83.24m 
and 
> 2724 fatalities, and the US 329.5m and 38,680 fatalities.
> 
> That comes to about 1 death per 46K people in GB, 1 per 30K in D, and 1 per 8.5K in USA. The 
rate in 
> the US is thus 5.7 times that in the UK, and 3.5 times that in D.
> 
> I do think that makes a difference, just as we have learnt that there are large differences 
between 
> these countries in the way they deal with Covid-19. But I don't know what difference.
> 
> If GB had the rate of the US, there would be 8000 road deaths per year. And that is with seat 
belts 
> and airbags. There have never been that in GB except in 1941, with just over 9,000, although 
1966 
> came close with just under 8,000. Notice that seat belt wearing only became mandatory in 1983.
> 
> PBL
> 
> Prof. i.R. Dr. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
> Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de



--
Les Chambers
les at chambers.com.au
+61 (0)412 648 992




More information about the systemsafety mailing list