Technology

Highlighting individual cases like this is a good way to capture human emotions but the focus should be on the big picture. The moment a self driving car is statistically safer than a human driver it becomes the objectively better alternative. The fact that accidents will still keep happening nevertheless isn't a reason to revert back to human drivers.

This same "trick" is used in charity advertisements: starving kid will capture the attention of people but a starving village will not despite the fact that it contains that same kid.

There is probably an elevated risk of killing cats in any electric vehicle because there are fewer signs that the car is "on" and about to drive.

How many cars driven by humans run over cats each day? Do these outraged people think robotaxis are somehow worse than human drivers? If the humans in the car didn't see the cat, then it doesn't matter if it was a robot or a human driving at the time.

TLDR: cat gets hit by AI car and dies

A friendly reminder that cars are still highly destructive, whether powered by petrol, battery, or hydrogen, and whether driven by a human or automation. The only real environmentally, economically, and socially responsible solution is to drastically reduce the amount of trips made by car, by introducing road diets and modal filters, by having mixed-use medium or higher density zoning, by building high quality safe separated bike paths, and good quality, frequent, affordable public transport.

Also, keep your pets on your property. If there's no way to keep them from leaving your yard, keep them inside. It's better for them (they live longer on average, even if you control for the increased likelihood of getting run over) and for the environment.

Some days ago:

Waymo's co-CEO has made a bold assertion that society is prepared to accept a death caused by one of the company's autonomous vehicles.