Analog Regulators Can't Keep Up With the Digital Age

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Last week, a pedestrian was killed by one of Uber's self-driving cars in Arizona. The Grand Canyon State has an incredibly lax regulatory oversight of autonomous vehicles as it works to attract Silicon Valley companies. But almost every state thinking about regulating autonomous vehicles is doing so incorrectly. They are bringing a 19th-century mindset to a 21st-century problem.