Over the past few weeks, we have been conducting a side survey on whether our electrek Readers who should be held responsible when AI fails and people get hurt. After almost 3,000 responses, this is what he told us.
In case you missed the survey, the question read: “Several fatal Tesla crashes are making headlines, while Waymo racks up thousands of parking tickets, and the sheer volume of self-driving taxis means those numbers will continue to rise, but when an AI-powered taxi fails, who should be held responsible?”
The survey coincided with both the new unveiling of the Tesla Cybercab earlier this month in Austin, Texas, and the news that the long-delayed Tesla Semi had begun series production in Nevada. Therefore, it should not be surprising that there were many responses. What was surprising (at least to me) was how many people were willing to absolve the person behind the wheel of any wrongdoing when things went wrong.
By the numbers
Only 102 votes (about 3.5%) were cast in favor of the personal responsibility option which read: “Whoever is sitting in the driver’s seat: Even if YOU called the taxi, it is common sense that sometimes human intervention will be necessary, and YOU are the human.” And, for what it’s worth, in least two of those votes were mine (sue me).
This seemed really obvious to me, but that’s what interacting with other humans is all about: listening, learning, and growing. And what I heard, learned and finally came to believe, myself, is that it was the owner of the vehicle who should bear the burden of responsibility; that belief was fueled by commentators like Ian…
This is obvious. Whether the driver is an AI or a human, the responsible person is the car owner. If I lend you my car and you take it to a coffee shop, I’ll pay for the damages. The car is insured, not the driver. I don’t know why people ask this question. It is well established in current legislation.
Ian
…and pushbyvolts, who (I thought) said it best…
Whoever owns the vehicle should be to blame. Every car ever built is capable of breaking the law and the driver is to blame when this happens. If there is no driver, the registered owner is responsible for placing an offending vehicle on the road. If that ruins someone’s self-driving taxi business model, so be it.
PUSHED BY VOLTS
…by pointing out the fact that, yes, every car ever built is capable of breaking the law, whether by speeding, illegal parking, or being intentionally used as a weapon against another person. And in each of those cases, it seems crazy to even consider holding a technology manufacturer or provider liable.
That said, almost 90% of the votes placed the blame squarely on the AI developers driving the car. I think Stephen Fields’ comment made the most compelling argument for this:
What action could the owner have taken to avoid an accident? They buy a black box that drives the vehicle. If the owner did not follow the manufacturer’s recommendations (i.e. keep the software updated, stay in this geofence), they could be liable, but they could not be held liable if they could not have taken steps to prevent an accident.
STEPHEN FIELDS
That argument also makes a lot of sense, although I would argue that calling out a vehicle that offered no means of saving yourself when there were other options available is, in itself, an assumption of responsibility, but when there are no other options available? That’s a different story, and there are a lot of nuances to analyze that blame both the AI manufacturer and the AI developer, to varying degrees.
However, no matter who is ultimately to blame, regular commenter BCGeiger delivered what I considered the coup de grace in this case:
I think the responsibility should be divided equally between the car manufacturer and the AI manufacturer. It’s not one thing or another. They are working hand in hand to achieve this hell.
BCGEIGER
“Hellscape” is what sold me, but then I turned around and asked a different AI to create the featured image (at the top) and help me beautify the graphic above, so what do I know? Let us know if you agree with the almost 9/10 electric tractors who responded to the original survey, or if we were all wrong, in the comments.
Original content from electrek.
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