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.
Good call out of the identifiable victim effect and the affect heuristic, where decisions are driven by emotional responses rather than objective analysis of risks or benefits.
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.
Good call out of the identifiable victim effect and the affect heuristic, where decisions are driven by emotional responses rather than objective analysis of risks or benefits.