If human error can be attributed to scenes like this, where do proponents of the 94% statistic think the blame should go for accidents that are no longer caused by drivers?
A headline on the BBC last month read: “Computer problems in the NHS lead to harm to patients”. But it’s not the computers that are the problem, it’s the people who designed and use them.
You can’t blame computer systems for the Post Office Horizon IT scandal: it was the people who were behind it, and many of them have still never apologized.
And what worries me is that as automation increases, responsibility decreases. If I hit you, the law can easily hold me responsible, you can look me in the eye, I can look back at you and I can say, ‘I’m sorry.’
If my car hits you, even if automation makes that event much, much less likely, it will still ultimately be someone’s fault, but who knows who? Who apologizes? Who holds the system responsible?
We are talking about potential injury, life changing physical and mental damage, death and grief. Too much of it right now.
Automation should reduce the number of collisions (and it already does thanks to stability control, ABS, airbags and more), but as personal responsibility inevitably decreases, it is very difficult to achieve an ‘acceptable’ level of automated collisions – and casualties. find.
Currently, people are in the driver’s seat and ultimately responsible. If we don’t do that, even the wrongly advocated 94% reduction in collisions would not be enough.
We tolerate people making mistakes because we are human. We have the capacity for repentance and forgiveness. Without that, the bar is zero harm.