“The ability to assign fault is the key,” Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua said, according to prepared text of his speech. “Just like the best human drivers in the world, self-driving cars cannot avoid accidents due to actions beyond their control. But the most responsible, aware and cautious driver is very unlikely to cause an accident of his or her own fault, particularly if they had 360-degree vision and lightning-fast reaction times like autonomous vehicles will.”

His system involves programming autonomous cars to always follow certain parameters such as calculating the exact safe distance to follow other cars on the highway, based on sensor input of their speed, information on their braking power, and other factors.

“A major positive of agreeing on these definitions of responsibility and fault would be to never put an autonomous vehicle at risk of violating any of these rules,” Galves said. “It creates a safety layer where, no matter what, the vehicle will never issue a command to the brakes or steering that would put it at risk of causing a collision that would be its fault.”