Why not blame both? The human should have been paying attention.
But it's obvious that riding long stretches in an automatic car is going to lead to people getting bored and distracting themselves and not paying attention. It's a HUGE topic in every discussion on self-driving cars. It's why Teslas require you to grab the wheel every 15 seconds.
Uber should have short shifts, bans on personal cell phones, attention and tiredness tracking (which IIRC Volvos already have!) etc, etc to combat this. But they don't actually care, it's just a regulatory checkmark, so they stick some minimum wage warm body in there on a full-time shift and this is what happens when it gets late.
Other safety-conscious know that humans will cut corners and hence have tricks like safety interlocks, double-checks, multiple people involved etc to combat that. In aerospace you can't just say "well the maintenance guy shouldn't have done that, 300 people died and it was all his fault" - you have redundant systems, verifications, checks, etc.
edit: from the article, Uber used to have two safety drivers in each car, but cut it down to one for whatever reason
> When Uber moved to a single operator, some employees expressed safety concerns to managers, according to the two people familiar with Uber’s operations. They were worried that going solo would make it harder to remain alert during hours of monotonous driving.
They knew this was going to be unsafe but did it anyway
But it's obvious that riding long stretches in an automatic car is going to lead to people getting bored and distracting themselves and not paying attention. It's a HUGE topic in every discussion on self-driving cars. It's why Teslas require you to grab the wheel every 15 seconds.
Uber should have short shifts, bans on personal cell phones, attention and tiredness tracking (which IIRC Volvos already have!) etc, etc to combat this. But they don't actually care, it's just a regulatory checkmark, so they stick some minimum wage warm body in there on a full-time shift and this is what happens when it gets late.
Other safety-conscious know that humans will cut corners and hence have tricks like safety interlocks, double-checks, multiple people involved etc to combat that. In aerospace you can't just say "well the maintenance guy shouldn't have done that, 300 people died and it was all his fault" - you have redundant systems, verifications, checks, etc.
edit: from the article, Uber used to have two safety drivers in each car, but cut it down to one for whatever reason
> When Uber moved to a single operator, some employees expressed safety concerns to managers, according to the two people familiar with Uber’s operations. They were worried that going solo would make it harder to remain alert during hours of monotonous driving.
They knew this was going to be unsafe but did it anyway