The goal is not to achieve perfection, just demonstrably more safe than an average driver.
I'm curious how we will evaluate average driver. Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.
In utilitarian terms, self-driving cars just need to be better than the drivers they replace. (Or even stronger: not much worse, because the added convenience is worth something.) Ie we should start to replace the worst drivers already.
In practice, the target seems to be not just the average driver, but the best human driver (or at least the 99%th percentile.) Given the trajectory of improvement we often see with AI, surpassing the average human and surpassing all humans shouldn't be too far apart.
You're imagining a scenario where everyone has a self-driving car and completely ignoring cost and social factors.
Who among us would admit, "yes, I am a bad driver, I need this more expensive thing to take control in the event of an accident"? Very few is my guess. In 2019, people use these for convenience, not because they think the system is a better driver. I bet that's true even for Waymo's taxis.
As for getting drunk drivers to use self-driving, that's as easy as asking them to either stop drinking or not drive. Then there is the cost. I wouldn't be surprised if the unemployed drink and drive more often.
If self driving cars exist courts will be more likely to take away drivers licenses from those who drive while drunk. Thus I'd expect 10% of the cars being self driving to result in something like 20% less drunk drivers because such drivers are more likely to get the self driving cars - not that they want them more than anyone else but because they are not given any choice.
> If 10% of the cars are self-driving, to a first approximation there will be 10% less drunk drivers.
It seems unlikely that people who buy/use early self-driving cars have the same percentage of drunk driving as the general population. Surely employment rates would be a factor, for example.
I'm not sure whether or not there is a correlation here. Anecdotally, it seems to me there are plenty of wealthy, employed people who buy new cars and crash them after drinking.
But even if it is true that those who drive cheaper, older cars are more likely to drive drunk? Today's new cars with high-tech self driving features are tomorrow's affordable used cars. You have to start somewhere.
The goal is not to achieve perfection, just demonstrably more safe than an average driver.
I'm curious how we will evaluate average driver. Clearly, including drunk driving accidents in the mix is not a helpful metric for safety-conscious drivers.