Like, I've seen both The Atlantic and disappointingly, Ars Technica write fawning "self-driving cars are so safe!" articles recently, and I feel like I'm seeing the ripples on the surface that indicate a monster PR campaign has begun swimming in the deep.
The main thing that both of them say that I HATE is "we have to give them access to public roads in order to improve, because these could be so much safer than human drivers", and first off, no we don't, we do not have any obligation to any private company to provide access to a public good so they can monetize it. We do not have to do that.
And second, this is a false binary. The choice is not exclusively between "human driven cars" and "robot driven cars". You are foreclosing so many better, more interesting futures by narrowing your imagination in that way. Please be mildly curious about things being Different.
as someone still hanging on for dear life in one of the cities that is being used as a petri dish for this heinous bullshit i want to echo these points and add one, that "the tech will surely improve" is going to be humanity's fucking epitaph if we keep accepting this basic claim from tech companies in all the forms it takes in the next few decades. it makes me feel absolutely crazy seeing it everywhere, from the relatively responsible and good local news site i donate to yearly, to places like ars that should absolutely know better. ffffffffuuck this
