A Dangerous Self-Driving Car Is Still Better Than a Human Driver

The death of a Tesla Model S rider in May 2016, which occurred while the car was operating on autopilot, was a jarring resurrection of the debate behind the safety of autonomous vehicles. The death represented the only fatality in the history of the world from an autonomous vehicle—for comparison’s sake, there were 40,200 car-related fatalities in 2016 in the U.S alone. Nevertheless, the public and policymakers alike have made it clear that they demand an extremely high threshold of tested safety before self-driving cars can be let loose en masse.

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