People often ask 'if an autonomous car gets into a crash, who's going to pay for it? The driver? The owner of the car? The software programmer?'
So far, three companies have volunteered to accept liability for their cars if things go wrong:
Volvo, Mercedes, and Google. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is a
really huge deal, as getting a company to accept liability costs for something potentially expensive and systematic is never an easy thing. It goes to show just how lucrative autonomous cars are believed to be in the eyes of these three companies - because they would never be willing to take on additional costs unless the benefits more than paid for them.
If all autonomous car makers accept the same terms, it will remove a major potential sticking point in the adoption of this technology. The technology will not need to wait for the legislators to sort out laws designating responsibilities, and lawsuits will not suspend testing (or commercial) programs while liability is sorted out. Instead the car maker will simply pay out, tweak their software so that the specific type of crash will not happen again, and then continue their program. It's the Silicon Valley way, and it is really good news for everyone.