[NotInControl]

Originally Posted by JohnFogarty

Man I'd hate to be the guy who has to write an insurance policy clause for an autonomous vehicle collision. Who would be at fault...the car company...the programmer...the AI...

So many things to consider.

Thats if you keep assuming people own their own cars. There are many different models for the autonomous car network.

Look at Dubai, they currently employ an autonomous vehicle network where each car operates like a taxi, you go to a location, enter your destination, and a car picks you up and takes you there.

There are many models that prove people do not need to own their own cars if the primary reason is transportation to and from places. Today 80% of a normal vehicles life is parked and the owner travels within a 50 mile radius of their home, to go to school, work, errands etc. Imagine how many resources we can save if we made less total vehicles, and made them available to more people, increasing their use time. Similar to an autonomous taxi service, that will pick you up and take you where you want to go.

In cases like this, the service provider is responsible, similar to an airline company when the airline crashes.

The autonomous car, affects every aspect of driving as we understand it today. It makes no sense to try to solve one off questions, while still thinking unilaterally about the topic.

Driving needs major reform. There are many other models which yield drastically different results, but have benefits and shortcomings as well.

Anytime someone talks about insurance with regards to an autonomous car the converstation will get derailed. Autonomous cars are being made to reduce accidenets and the loss of life and property damage among other things. These are all reasons why insurance companies exist. If those things don't happen or the likelyhood of that event occuring is reduced significantly, then consumer insurance companies can sease to exist altogether and commercial insurance companies take over.

The way napster removed the need for record stores, autonomous cars can be the end of insurance for consumers... one additional benefit to atonomous cars, in addition to reduced traffic, smarter road construction, etc.

Regards,
Kevin