POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Our relationship with technology—and, in particular, technological advancements that are on the horizon and that promise major and not entirely predictable changes in how we conduct our daily lives—has always been ambivalent at best.

But the newsletter teaser for an article in the Los Angeles Times on the inevitability of human deaths caused by autonomous vehicles caught my attention for the unusual and unsettling bluntness in which it framed the central calculation:

“Will Robot Cars Kill People at Significantly Lower Rates than Impaired Drivers?”

The article was one of a number that appeared following the first death of a pedestrian struck by an autonomous vehicle. The fatal accident occurred in Tempe, Arizona, when an Uber vehicle in autonomous mode failed to detect a pedestrian in time to avoid hitting her.