Re: Autonomous driving is months, years, or decades away
You don't seem to understand the legal situation very much.
Firstly, if you kill somone in a car accident you could be even be charged with murder: several cases working their way through the German court system like this already and other countries looking on interestingly. However, as to whether the current system is an effective deterrent, I'd be beg to differ. We have more RTAs than ever before but fewer fatalities due to the improved safety features of modern cars.
At least in the US, the principle of unlimited liability and potential class action suits hang over any company offering these services. Which is why they're so keen to get the telemetry to demonstate that their cars are safer. They're also looking for test cases.
It doesn't happen often but companies do occasionally go bankrupt when they put the safety of the customers on the line.
But regulation is also crucial: only idiots will let their cars drive in situations which are not expressly approved, as regulatory approval is their best weapon in a court case. Insurers will also weigh in relying on the data they've been collecting for years to set insurance premiums for computer-driven cars in regulated areas. If the numbers go the righr way. it could soon become prohibitively expensive to insure yourself as a driver.
Your own assessment of your own behaviour and extrapolation for others is a clear case of bias (Kahnemann). We all tend to think we're good drivers when we're only average. My own take is that an awful lot of drivers are already overtaxed by many road situations and increasingly rely on other drivers doing the thinking for them. This is why computer-driven cars are programmed to drive defensively: they know that the other driver is an idiot. Taking a drive in another country, whether it's Italy or Afghanistan, can be a real eye-opener.
The comparison with the Boeing 737 Max also fails here because, as others have explained, Boeing developed a system for the new plane to make it handle as much like the old plane as possible, despite it being mechanically and aerodynamically a completely different beast. The aim was to avoid expensive and lengthy full certification. And now they're grounded and won't get a fasttrack FAA certfication for the rest of the world.
Now, there will no doubt be companies that are prepared to cut corners, sometimes literally, in order to get to market first or cut costs or whatever and there will be casualties as a result. But, at the end of the day, the decision will be about whether there are fewer casualties with self-driving cars as there would have been otherwise because cars stlll kill far too many people.