Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

[Jim Richards]

I think it will happen, but incrementally. The media and public perception will be the biggest obstacles for rapid adoption of autonomous vehicles. Oh yeah, and public sector funding of the necessary infrastructure changes to enable the various aids that the cars will rely on, such as state of traffic lights, road condition, etc.

[Dantilla]

Originally Posted by Holger

Regarding airplanes: I have never understood why there are no restrictions about what the pilots can do and override. How the hell can it be possible to crash a perfectly working plane into a mountain?! This should be avoided by the electronics in all scenarios! Cant be that hard!

Autopilots are dumb. They just do what they're told. Garbage in, garbage out.

My little airplane is pretty sophisticated, and has a terrain warning that pops up on a screen if there is any land at or above my altitude nearby. Kinda fun to watch when landing at an airport in a canyon or valley.

Two things:
-Not all airplanes have this feature
-The warning has no control of the airplane.

Just like other airplanes nearby, the airplane can give me a warning, but can't physically move the controls.

In pilot-speak, it's called "situational awareness". Gotta know where you're at even if all you've got is old-fashioned round gauges with needles.

Getting much easier with more and more airplanes being equipped with moving map displays.

[gordner]

There are aircraft out there that will, at a properly equipped airport, taxi themselves to the runway, take off, fly to destination, land and taxi to within 100 feet of the destination gate, all without a human interacting with it.
Autonomous will come, the single greatest hurdle is liability.....

[Dantilla]

Awesome technology, but in no way can it negotiate a car through a busy intersection.

It can fly the exact flight plan that was programmed into the autopilot before it left the ground.
It cannot think on the fly, or modify the plan due to other traffic.
All the other airplanes in the same block of airspace are under the direction of the same controller, so a human is still needed to call out other traffic, or keep other traffic out of the way.

The technology is coming, probably very soon, but self-driving cars are a magnitude more difficult than an airplane's autopilot.

If an airplane is flying in the clouds blindly, it is under direct control. When flying in clear skies, even when under direct control, FAA rules require all pilots to see and avoid all other traffic. We still need human intervention.

[gordner]

The only reason these systems don't react to traffic automatically and re-route is that no one has put up the money to certify the technology yet. Self driving autonomous cars are a reality, I believe Google has over a million miles on theirs, and my understanding is the only accident occured under the control of a tech that was moving the vehicle for maintenance. Otherwise they are accident free.
The technology exists today, but certification in the aviation industry is a very expensive prospect....someone has to put up the cash to get it done. That is why FADEC for piston engines is not very old in aviation, but has been in common use in cars for decades (EFI).

[legion]

Originally Posted by aigel

Hopefully the cars communicate and therefore collisions are going to be very few and far between. If they do collide, the rule should be minimize the loss of life but with a correction factor for occupant's age. I.e. a 90 year old vs. a 20 year old occupant - the 90 year old should become crumple zone for the 20 year old.

G

You are assuming that all communications from other cars will be honest. I guarantee this will be the first thing hackers will go after. You can force a car to kill someone because it made the "least bad" decision based on false information.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by legion

You are assuming that all communications from other cars will be honest. I guarantee this will be the first thing hackers will go after. You can force a car to kill someone because it made the "least bad" decision based on false information.

To your point that's also assuming the only scenarios include other vehicles.

What about biologics?

And does anyone honestly think that a driver is going to enter the ages of every occupant every time they get in the car?

Even if you put sensors in the seat and set the cars logic so that it won't start until the driver complied who's to say the driver will be honest?

Probably every car on the road will somehow only contain 20 yr olds.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by aigel

If they do collide, the rule should be minimize the loss of life but with a correction factor for occupant's age. I.e. a 90 year old vs. a 20 year old occupant - the 90 year old should become crumple zone for the 20 year old.

G

What if the 20year old is a twit?

[john70t]

Two scenarios:

1). Entering a street with traffic backed up. You are going to have to push a little to get in line. Vehicles are in front of yours. Big line of cars behind, impatient and honking. All types of people walking on the sidewalk.
-Can the sensor see the person waving you through?
-Can the computer determine when a bit of 'assertiveness' is needed?
-Or does that cost extra or require a special gub'mint permit?

2). Road-rager or carjacker or rioters are in front. Thugs on the sidewalk waiting to jump your wife. The kids in the back are scared and crying. She is in danger and needs to get out of there fast. Any way she can. Obstacles and even people are negligible at this point.
-Can the computer distinguish between bad you the driver vs. bad them the pedestrians?

[Jim Richards]

It's a brave new world out there...

Motobot (from Jalopnik)

[Seahawk]

Very interesting discussion.

I have been in the aerial drone world for almost 15 years and Moore's Law is certainly at work.

Auto pilots are getting to the point where true autonomy is within grasp: They are no longer as "dumb" as they once were. Oddly enough, the enablers to true autonomy, sense and avoid, file and fly, etc. for drones are much easier that the discussion here centering around cars.

The Holy Grail for drones is "swarming" and we are still in the lab stage. Even then, because of the constraints of car maneuvering, the complex, ordinary interactions that take place in cars every second of every mile, a truly autonomous car is a much more complex undertaking.

A quick sea story:

I managed the first deployments of Scan Eagle off Navy ships. Do a search on Scan Eagle, the videos are very impressive, especially shipboard arrested landings.

The accuracy of the aircraft was such that we actually had to move the arrestment point on the wing where the cable first hits after a few flight: The cable was hitting the exact same spot over and over and was causing wing damage.

[Holger]

Regarding autopilots: I dont need any bots to taxi, start and land the plane. But the electronics certainly could prevent an intentional crash, like the one in France some months ago.

[KNS]

Originally Posted by john70t

Two scenarios:

1). Entering a street with traffic backed up. You are going to have to push a little to get in line. Vehicles are in front of yours. Big line of cars behind, impatient and honking. All types of people walking on the sidewalk.
-Can the sensor see the person waving you through?
-Can the computer determine when a bit of 'assertiveness' is needed?
-Or does that cost extra or require a special gub'mint permit?

2). Road-rager or carjacker or rioters are in front. Thugs on the sidewalk waiting to jump your wife. The kids in the back are scared and crying. She is in danger and needs to get out of there fast. Any way she can. Obstacles and even people are negligible at this point.
-Can the computer distinguish between bad you the driver vs. bad them the pedestrians?

Very good points! Imagine a busy European roundabout where you've got to be assertive or you're going nowhere.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by KNS

...you've got to be assertive or you're going nowhere.

LOL, just reminded me of the first time I took a bunch of my American buddies skiing in Europe.

In the states everyone queues up politely and stepping on someones skis is poor etiquette.

First stop I take them to is Pitztal in Austria. Tell them on the way out to the lift to forget everything they know about line etiquette cause that sweet and gentle looking grandma over there will not think twice about spearing you in the nads with the pointy end of her pole to get in front of you.

As I hopped on a chair I look back and my buddies are still at the back of the scrum going no where, took them 20 minutes to finally get on the lift.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by aigel

Hopefully the cars communicate and therefore collisions are going to be very few and far between. If they do collide, the rule should be minimize the loss of life but with a correction factor for occupant's age. I.e. a 90 year old vs. a 20 year old occupant - the 90 year old should become crumple zone for the 20 year old.

G

This is a golden opportunity to clean up our country. We can devise a social credit system and be assigned scores to see who is best to live. Why stop at age?

Social credit scores can be based on:

Do you volunteer

Are you religious and attend service or just spiritual? If religious, are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, or whatever Tom Cruise is. Poor Katie...

FICO score

Are you a Millennial

Do you buy American

Vegetarian, vegan, omnivore, locavore

Do you give good Secret Santa presents or last minute shuffle through the junk drawer.

Do you drink PBR, Bud and Coors or Innis & Gunn. Have you ever had Michelob Light?

and so on.

Building a Social Credit Score db could also be used for weighting Social Security payouts.

[Holger]