I recall reading many comments on HN confidently predicting that the moment a self-driving car caused an accident that killed someone, that would be the end of self-driving cars. But while they have caused accidents, and there has been resulting lawsuits and investigations by regulators, it hasn't put an end to them. And with the incoming US administration, I'm expecting far less legal and regulatory barriers to greater use of robots and automation.
Dying in a domestic accident like a house fire is as "normal" as dying in a car accident. Robots are a novel element in both, so I don't see why one would be more readily accepted than the other.
The domestic accident is in the home, a far less acceptable place to have a threat.
Furthermore, the threat/cause of the accident is presumably being visualized as a human shaped live-in android a la Bicentennial Man. A human shaped threat can feel a lot more viscerally unacceptable, at least in my experience.
House fire deaths are at least an order of magnitude less common than traffic deaths and houses are the most valuable asset that many people will ever own. They’re certainly similar but I think different enough that people would have very different reactions to robot-caused destruction.
To be fair, many many people die in car accidents every day. Yes, self driving car crashes are still newsworthy but you are up against a baseline that’s pretty bad.
On the other hand, virtually no one dies from laundry, that I’m aware of. So the reaction to a single accident might be quite different.
