Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

Voluntary fire brigades, et al:

My bad on the miscommunication, I was talking about "throughout history": As a result what I meant was: I can't think of any [morally exceptional people] which [past their own lifetimes] continue to improve our current day-to-day lives.

You are correct though that morally exceptional people do have a (slight) positive impact to my day-to-day. I just haven't seen a case where their contributions transcended time. Similar to the contributions of say: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Bell, person who first repeatedly sparked fire, etc.

The contributions of religious figures transcend time. But you could argue either way about their contributions being beneficial to our day-to-day. Again it would be debatable if it was in the best interest of these religious figures to spread their personal ideology. Either of these debates would be inherently biased towards your take on religion.

Are you suggesting that the 'something' it claims to be capable of doing is, explicitly, "driving 100% without human intervention"?

because you seem to be pushing "it claims to be able to drive without human intervention and cannot", which would be misleading and probably grounds for lawsuits about fitness for purpose.

but ... I don't think that's what it claims to be able to do.

In that case, you are understood to be in control of the vehicle. In fact, you are actively giving minor corrective inputs at all times. It's nowhere near the same as the car saying, "here, let me do that for you", but, you are supposed to sit at the ready, hands hovering slightly over the wheel and foot over the brake, ever scanning and ready to take over? That's asinine, and it's a flawed model.

You, as the human driver, are responsible for control of the vehicle. If you find the terms of some assistive device 'assinine' because you won't be able to be in control, then do not figuratively click 'I agree to the terms and conditions'.

You, the responsible driver, would never believe a child telling you they were capable of driving safely, it would be dumb, you know it's not true - and you're not legally allowed to hand over responsibility for vehicle control to them anyway.

Like you're not allowed to hand over responsibility to a piece of software, no matter how enticing or convincing the marketing blurb seems. And if you do hand over control to it, and then fail to take back control and an accident happens, you should be responsible.

Look, it's simple: the car needs to either be fully ready and safe, or it's not.

Look, it's black and white thinking which doesn't reflect reality. But if you want to force it to binary then it always casts false. The car is never 100% ready, you never hand over control, problem avoided, case closed.

Saying "it has to be 100% ready, I don't believe it's 100% ready, but I'm still going to hand over control, even though I think what I'm doing is asinine because I can't respond quickly enough - and then it crashes which is totally not my fault because I knew I couldn't take over in time!" is have-cake-and-eat-it nonsense logic.

That's exactly what it's attempting to do at a given point in time. It's just disclaiming fitness and holding the human driver responsible for ensuring that it doesn't screw up.

>find the terms of some assistive device

You've been had. You're buying into the alternative terminology scheme that oscillates between disclaimer words like "assistive" and sexy PR words like "Autopilot". And, the reality is that the car is not "assisting". It is taking full control from the driver and completely operating the vehicle at significant intervals; leaving the driver only to monitor it. I don't know how to make it any simpler.

Beyond that, it's no secret that these companies are trying to achieve full autonomy, and they are already making claims that they are safer than humans, even denigrating human drivers in the process. But, they want those same fallible human drivers to be responsible for taking over when their tech fails. That's what's asinine.

>You, the responsible driver, would never believe a child

>you're not allowed to hand over responsibility to a piece of software

Huh? I'm not sure if you're completely missing the point on purpose, but there's really not much more I can add.