Just a dry spell

Who is way-mo’ betta at driving?

A large insurance study involving Swiss Re + Google Waymo has come out that has shown that autonomous drivers experienced 76% fewer accidents with property damage across 3.8 million miles traveled.

So how does that stat hit your ear?

If you’re anything like me, I read it and thought, “That sucks.”

I’m not sure why exactly, because looking at the raw data, it feels like fantastic news. From the report – for every million miles, the accident ratio is 3.26:0.78 (human v AI) – 4x in favor of the AI. But somehow that still feels below the bar that needs to be set for there to be trust.

Why is this?

To start, maybe it’s because humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk. We just apply too many personal ascriptions to our own assessments. Not to mention – there’s an innate fear of change that makes staying the course feel somehow less scary.

Another (and perhaps largest) factor at play here is even more human. Humans love a story. Humans love understanding something from start to finish. Humans, ultimately, love closure.

If an AI-controlled vehicle caused an accident that took an innocent life, these human factors become very hard to sort out.

• Who is to blame?

• Who will pay?

• There’s no one to punish; no one who can repent.

• What if this choice saved the life of another? Who do we allow to decide such a thing?

We’re entering an era where the Trolley Problem is not only real, but the definitive answers have to be trained into the system way in advance.

While I am excited to gain the benefits of safer roads, cheaper insurance, and quite possibly less need for a personal vehicle – I am not excited about the process of getting from here to there.

SBF Trial Coverage – Week 3 + 4!

Things have slowed down a bit and the most interesting things have been what we’ve all heard. Prosecutors brought up the contents of this article here, which is as damning as it gets as far as intent.

Nishad Singh – SBF’s former BFUIRI (best friend until it risks incarceration) pulled some Tekashi 6ix9ine levels of snitching but with far, far less hair dye. We can only wonder how long it will take for the street to catch up with him in the locker room.

While SBF took the stand briefly yesterday, there wasn’t much to talk about because most of it was "closed” to determine what was and what wasn’t admissible.

Next week should give us some great insights into how the rest of the trial will go.

The highlights:

• More reports of secret backdoors in the code

• Political donations were being hidden and passed through others for “optics”

• Once again, the fraudulent behavior was almost solely pinned on SBF’s direction

• SBF keeps answering questions he wasn’t expected to answer and his own defense team is over it

Until next time…

That Drip

• 23andMe is looking into yet another potential data hack. They’ve been blaming it on “recycled” login credentials that were exposed in previous hacks, but that excuse is starting to wear a bit thin.

• NY is suing crypto firms for misleading customers into thinking they didn’t actually lose billions of dollars. Oops.

• What happens when you give an AI tool, content farm, and freelance writer the same prompt? Probably exactly what you expect.

• Peter Thiel might be an FBI Informant. Given everything else, why not?

Sponsor Post

Nancy Strader knows a thing or two about leading and she absolutely nailed it here. Click on the image to learn more about dealing with the loss of a key executive.

If you’d like to sponsor future issues: [email protected]