Warren Buffett says Self-Driving Cars will Decide Whether Humans Live or Die

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That's a good point, hadn't thought about HIPAA. This also brings in another HUGE topic, that I think will become more and more important over the next few decades as AI becomes more integrated with our society: legal/accountability issues for these "driverless cars" and other non-person parties that have an impact on people. Would the manufacturers be held liable for a tragedy that may have resulted from a design flaw? Robot Law, coming to a law school near you (soon) ha

a reply to: FamCore

What utter nonsense.
He's formulated a ridiculous notion of artificial intelligence and moral decision making to something that would not require such a thing (even if it were possible), when the scenario is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Clearly, he's a Luddite grasping at straws.

Any system of self-driving cars would operate on a computer model of the surroundings, meaning that they work together to manage traffic flow, speed, distance and so on. He seems to think we'll all be reclining in the back of an evil robot traveling at 100 mph.

How about this scenario... two self-driving cars are moving at 40 mph each, somehow on the same road, somehow about to have a head-on collision... and they BOTH STOP!

Shocker!

The man is a fool who clearly doesn't understand the first thing about this technology.

Why would the self driving cars be on a collision course?

originally posted by: Rocker2013
He's formulated a ridiculous notion of artificial intelligence and moral decision making to something that would not require such a thing (even if it were possible), when the scenario is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Clearly, he's a Luddite grasping at straws.

He owns an insurance company and has advisers that explain to him EXACTLY how the system will work. He likely has MORE information on how it will be implemented, than most of the people working on the actual designs.

The scenario he laid out WILL eventually happen on roads occupied by Self-Driving Cars. How will the programing react to the scenario? You and I cetainly don't know, but be assured it was THOROUGHLY explained to Warren behind closed doors at the C-level.

Its very safe to assume that he's already proposed this scenario to a Self-driving Car design team somewhere and received an answer that makes him unwilling to allow HIS insurance companies to cover such vehicles.

Do you really think he's going to make a public statement along the lines of, "A Google Executive and lead engineer told me that Self-driving Cars will..."

People like Warren Buffett don't tell the public what they are really thinking. He's likely more worried about paying claims or being involved in class action lawsuits, due to AI mishaps. There is also the looming issue of public backlash from soaring premiums for human driven cars that will be forced to share roads with Self-Driving Cars. The whole thing is a PR nightmare, that will cost him money, so it makes sense why he'd want to stay as far away as possible.

Do you not understand how people like him make business decisions?