What Can AI Learn from an Uber Accident?

In 2014, when artificial intelligence (AI) first began to enter the commercial market, we knew the critical link was the human interaction with cognitive machines, but even the most salient proof points at that time were only hypothetical. Then March 18th, 2018, happened. On that evening in Tempe, Arizona, a self-driving Uber – one with a back-up human driver on board – struck and killed a female pedestrian. The answer is: very predictably. Since the accident, we have learned that the back-up driver allegedly was more than a little distracted by, among other things, watching a streaming version of "The Voice" for as much as one-third of the trip before the fatal accident.