[Avodah] Autonomous Vehicle vs. Bor biRshus haRabbim

[Micha Berger]

The Torah says that baal habor only has to pay the nezeq his bor caused
if the injured is a person or an animal, not keilim. And in fact even
when it comes to animals, we learn that since a healthy animal walking
in the daytime watches where it foes, any hezeq done to the animal in
such a circumstance would be the animal's fault.

People, OTOH, our eyes don't point down at the floor, and even when
we try to watch where we're going, we can be distracted by other
thoughts. Animals don't have such distraction.

(And yet adam mu'ad le'olam? Why is it that when speaking of an outright
maziq, a person is culpable for not watching his own klutzy elbows,
but here...? Anyway, back to the question...)

Keilim would only fall into the bor if someone was transporting them
through a reshus harabbim, either by hand or by animal. But when porting,
the person carrying would normally be paying attention to where they
are going, and the baal habor can't be held accountable if they didn't.

Notice here I'm saying two conflicting explanation of the din. The
opening sentence makes it out to be a gezeiras hakasuv, but Chazal
provide explanations for the various aspects of the din.

Now we get to autonomous vehicles. Say my self-driving car hits a pothole
someone else made in the road and incurs damage. (I picture reparing
those things won't be cheap!) Let's assume further it isn't the kind
of pothole most mass produced cars would notice, so it's like more an
animal going in the dark. Does the baal habor have to pay, because there
was no human porting my keli and thus it has the din of a beheimah? Or
is it a keli and thus exempt because of the gezeiras hakasuv?

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
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