Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine if algorithmic accidents had biases. For example, let's say a car tended to crash into children (maybe they are harder to detect with cameras), more often than adults. This type of algorithmic bias would be unacceptable no matter how safe FSD were on aggregate. So you're right, the only bar to reach is perfection (which is impossible), because algorithmic errors have biases that will likely deviate from human…
> let's say a car tended to crash into children (maybe they are harder to detect with cameras), more often than adults This is already true today of human drivers because of the tall SUVs that are so popular. Do you think matching biases will be acceptable?
First, the vast majority of pedestrian deaths are adults. In 2018, a total of 206 age 15 or younger were killed by cars. Compare that to 5,965 killed who were age 16 or older.[1] Both in absolute numbers and relative to population, children are far less likely to be run over and killed than adults.
Second, while light trucks (vans, SUVs, & pickups) are 1.45x more deadly to pedestrians than cars, buses are far more dangerous than either. Motorcycles (which have excellent visibility) are particularly deadly to child pedestrians. From United States pedestrian fatality rates by vehicle type[2]:
> Compared with cars, the RR of killing a pedestrian per vehicle mile was 7.97 (95% CI 6.33 to 10.04) for buses; 1.93 (95% CI 1.30 to 2.86) for motorcycles; 1.45 (95% CI 1.37 to 1.55) for light trucks, and 0.96 (95% CI 0.79 to 1.18) for heavy trucks. Compared with cars, buses were 11.85 times (95% CI 6.07 to 23.12) and motorcycles were 3.77 times (95% CI 1.40 to 10.20) more likely per mile to kill children 0–14 years old. Buses were 16.70 times (95% CI 7.30 to 38.19) more likely to kill adults age 85 or older than were cars. The risk of killing a pedestrian per vehicle mile traveled in an urban area was 1.57 times (95% CI 1.47 to 1.67) the risk in a rural area.
All else equal, being hit by a larger vehicle does increase the risk of severe injury or death, but all else isn't equal. Larger vehicles tend to be more visible, louder, and slower than their smaller counterparts. Different types of vehicles are driven in different environments with different propensities for mingling with pedestrians. If vehicle mass and blind spots were the main factors in pedestrian deaths, we should have seen deaths skyrocket over the past 40 years (as cars got bigger and bulkier for greater passenger safety). Instead we saw pedestrian deaths decrease.
1. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRqGqodKkWkS...