“Self driving” means that it is far more likely for a human driver to override the car in panic and hit the children than it is for the car to hit the children autonomously.
IF the car does hit the children even while driving autonomously the driver will be held responsible regardless of overrides. If someone dies, someone is going to jail until the justice system works through it.
Did you read the article? There is literally no steering wheel in an autonomous car. There is no "driver", only passengers. Even then, the car could drive itself without any passengers.
Presumably you mean "no responsibility for the owner", and the responsibility should be borne by the manufacturer. I'm not sure if that's the right set of incentives for society, though.
If the owner is responsible for any deaths caused by their car, the owner will have an incentive to choose a car that has a good safety record, and to keep that car in proper working order.
Conversely, if a corporation is responsible, they can only be punished with fines for causing a fatal accident, and those fines will be considered a cost of doing business. Also, the corporation will have a lot more money to invest in lobbying for laws (and judges) to make those fines as small as possible.
Well, I meant “no responsibility for the passengers”.
The owner should have some limited liability as you say, but primarily liability should be with the manufacturer. The way I view it AVs should have similar liability as an elevator. The manufacturer and the maintainer should have liability, but never the passengers.
Ideally, the manufacturer keeps enough sensors on the thing such that the car doesn’t move without the proper maintenance. But at that point is it truly ownership?
My preference is to just have many services competing that make them relatively cheap.
