A woman in Tempe, Arizona, USA, died after being struck by a self-driving car Sunday. Although self-driving cars have been on the roads in certain states for years now and have been involved in collisions before, this seems to be the first time a self-driving car caused the death of a pedestrian, the New York Times reports.
Here's what we know about the accident: The car was an Uber set to autonomous mode. There was a human safety driver behind the wheel. And the woman who was struck was crossing a street outside of the outlined crosswalk zone.
Uber, which is testing self-driving cars in Tempe, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and San Francisco, suspended operations and released a statement saying it is "fully cooperating with local officials" to investigate the incident.
Which brings us to the big question: How will tests of self-driving cars progress now? While Uber is still putting safety drivers in the front seat of its cars, Waymo (the autonomous car branch of Alphabet, Google's parent company) has already started using completely driver-less cars in Arizona, where the state hasn't done much in the way of regulating the technology.
The biggest challenge for self-driving companies is to teach their cars how to react to us humans and our unpredictable behaviour in a way that doesn't, you know, kill us. And as Elon Musk and other industry leaders have warned, we might not get government regulation on artificial intelligence until it's too late to prevent loss of human life. Suddenly, our automated future doesn't seem worth the convenience.
Sarah Rense is the Lifestyle Editor at Esquire, where she covers tech, food, drinks, home, and more.
