this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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Permit me to reiterate an idea I had the last time a self-driving car did something illegal:
All of these cars are being driven by the same software "driver". That driver is in contempt of the law. Thus it needs to be punished like any other driver in contempt of the law. All fines to be paid by its representative human or company. All incarceration to be for as long as is necessary for the driver to be rehabilitated. If no such rehabilitation is possible, the driver is permanently banned from driving.
By which I mean, all Waymos need to be taken off the road until they're provably rehabilitated and it is certain that this won't happen again.
And if Waymo the company thinks that would be detrimental to their business, tough. Take some responsibility and fix your damn cars.
Imo all of the "self driving " features that car makers advertise should really be called driver assist if the marketing matched how the real world works. Until a car company is willing to take legal liability for accidents while using their self driving feature, what is the point?
CEOs should be held liable for the products their company produces.
I mean... If they are "people" for the purposes of buying our democracy from us, right?
They can vote now, as well--as long as they live in that one state where all the corporations reside. This shit is so stupid
Also when a human takes remote control, does that person have a driving licence valid in the place they are driving. Because last i heard they were in Indonesia or something. Presumably a taxi drivers licence as they are carrying passing passengers.
International treaty does not require that
I'm sure Waymo's lawyers would argue that a simple software update would make the "driver" an entirely new entity, and thus free from the fines and incarceration. You're raising some interesting legal questions that we'd have to figure out
In that case, make it wait 16 years
The software? Sure let it not be liable. What does the software own? Now, should the c suite be held responsible? Hell yes. Liability belongs to the corporation and don't let them off the hook for their actions.
Unfortunately the legal theory behind holding executives responsible (is valid and) has never really been tried. They passed a law, hoped everyone would forget about it, everyone did, and business went back to usual.
By that logic, I would not legally be the same person as I would be tomorrow since my brain would not have an identical cellular structure as it does today.
Your honor, my client's largest organ has completely different cells compared to when they were arrested a few weeks ago, and so I move to dismiss the case.
That would make too much sense. They are operating a vehicle, regardless of whether or not said vehicle has a “human driver” there is a person who is allowing said vehicle onto the road and is the person at the top of the chain of authority which sent those vehicles out.
Like, if I sent out a swarm of killer drones no one would argue that it was me who killed people. Of course, in today’s world, you can have insurance companies supercede medical instruction, leading to the deaths of thousands, and that’s not even a news story.