My opinion is that we will come to a point where self-driving cars are demonstrably, but only marginally, safer road users than humans.
From an ethical standpoint the interesting phase will only start then. It‘s one thing to bring a small fleet of high tech (e.g. having LIDAR) vehicles to the road. It‘s another to bring that technology to a saturated mass market which is primarily cost driven. Yes, I assume self-driving cars will eventually compete with human driven ones.
Will we, as a society, accept some increase in traffic fatalities in return for considerable savings that self-driving cars will bring?
Will you or me as an individual accept a slightly higher risk in exchange for tangible time savings?
> demonstrably, but only marginally, safer road users than humans.
I believe the claim is 38 multitudes better than humans, significantly better than marginally.
> accept some increase in traffic fatalities
No. And the question is more about "some" than "some increase"
> accept a slightly higher risk in exchange for tangible time savings?
Texting while driving and even hands free talking were becoming laws in many states before smart phones -- and my experience is that many people readily accept this risk and the legal risk just to communicate faster. The same can be said for the risk of drunk driving -- it's a risk that thousands of Americans take all of the time.
Indeed, history gives us ample examples, but I would‘t call humanity stupid because of that. Each and every such example is a ethical question that we have to solve one way or the other. Burying our heads in the sand will not make technologically and expensive self-driving vehicles go away. Neither will it prevent cheap self-driving clunker.
From an ethical standpoint the interesting phase will only start then. It‘s one thing to bring a small fleet of high tech (e.g. having LIDAR) vehicles to the road. It‘s another to bring that technology to a saturated mass market which is primarily cost driven. Yes, I assume self-driving cars will eventually compete with human driven ones.
Will we, as a society, accept some increase in traffic fatalities in return for considerable savings that self-driving cars will bring?
Will you or me as an individual accept a slightly higher risk in exchange for tangible time savings?