We already accept 40,000 vehicle deaths a year, 7,500 pedestrian deaths a year, 1,100 by police, 260 by train, and almost 50,000 deaths from falls.
Nothing is completely safe, and it's just factually correct to say that there will be a fatal crash at some point that's the fault of an autonomous car (there actually have been already), but that Waymo's at least are already far safer than human drivers, and if that remains true, then society will "accept" it.
Also, the question was literally "Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?" which is not great, IMO. What does it mean for "society" to "accept" a death? There will be lawsuits, regulations, etc. Is the question whether self-driving cars will be banned everywhere after one fatality?
Nothing is completely safe, and it's just factually correct to say that there will be a fatal crash at some point that's the fault of an autonomous car (there actually have been already), but that Waymo's at least are already far safer than human drivers, and if that remains true, then society will "accept" it.
Also, the question was literally "Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?" which is not great, IMO. What does it mean for "society" to "accept" a death? There will be lawsuits, regulations, etc. Is the question whether self-driving cars will be banned everywhere after one fatality?