Let’s face it, we work in a largely unregulated space. For my own company, most people don’t even see self-driving cars as a current technology. For companies like Google, an entire Senate hearing is spent practically instructing old politicians on how to turn on their computers and explaining to them what algorithms are. Facebook created election and news products that were easily misused, and capital hill still doesn’t know much about what they’re doing. Here’s my question, especially for my fellow engineers: Do you feel your company leadership really considers ethics, potential misuse, or even responsibility (beyond strictly a legal sense) when what you are trying to ship goes through a review process?
“We” are in a tough spot until regulation, if ever, catches up. Luckily Tesla took the hit with issues, so most have to ship cars that just do better. The hard part is until there are enough self driving cars where traffic and injuries are publicly obvious is also what most will wait for to buy in. What’s worse is I think the real safety and congestion threshold will require a lot of vehicles out there which means we’re testing the regulation waters as we go. I think you (we) are doing it as right as possible from what I’ve seen.
Yeah I agree with you. I have been at other companies, though, that don’t seem to consider ethics or misuse at all before shipping.