Is This a First in the Autonomous Industry?

4min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

This case is a first in many ways, with a crash by an autonymous vehicle and ultimately taking some one's life. And so i imagine that a case like this will shape how we then and how the justice system thinks about how to approach these cases in the future. This case has shown that when the rubber hits the road here, the criminal justice system is still looking at the human behind the wheel in these cases for liability. In the united states, there's 38 thousand people killed on the roads every year, and the vast majority of those are from human air of the driver.

Paris Marx is joined by Lauren Smiley to discuss what we’ve learned about the Uber crash since in happened in March 2018, what that’s meant for the vehicle operator who’s been charged, and whether the justice system made the right call in blaming her instead of Uber.

Lauren Smiley is a WIRED contributor and freelance journalist based in San Francisco. Follow Laren on Twitter at @laurensmiley.

🎉 This month is the show’s second birthday. To celebrate, we want to get 100 new supporters at $5/month or above to bring on a producer to help make the show. Help us hit our goal by joining on Patreon. You can also follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Lauren interviewed Rafaela Vasquez and dug into the substance of the past four years of information on the Uber crash for WIRED.
Last summer, Vasquez’ legal team argued the grand jury hadn’t heard to full version of events before indicting her.
In 2019, the NTSB’s final report placed primary blame on the operator, but secondary blame on Uber, the pedestrian, and the state.
In 2015, Lauren wrote about the “shut-in economy” and social divides being entrenched by on-demand services.

Support the show