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The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#221

Post by gherkin0 »

sokoloff wrote: post #196
gherkin0 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, you handle such things via deterrence. When an accident happens, the car's software can be dumped (in some cases), and criminal/civil liability can be assessed based on the results. The risk of heavy fines or jail will probably keep most people from hacking their self-driving cars to be more aggressive.

Because that threat today keeps people from modifying their cars by cutting springs, installing lift kits, putting on ridiculous wheel/tire packages, and changing to poorly "engineered" HID retrofit lighting kits. I see unsafe modified cars almost every week right now.

Those kinds of modifications are of a completely different category than modifications to an autonomous driving system. There aren't serious civil or criminal penalties to deter "ridiculous wheel/tire packages" because they don't really have the same potential to cause serious problems.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#222

Post by kbart »

imtringued wrote: post #215
schoen wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole kind of unpleasant but interesting topic about attacks against behavior of self-driving cars. I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested that they might put occupants at greater risk of kidnapping because the cars could refuse to take evasive actions that endanger or injure a kidnapper (or just violate a traffic law). This risk might be farfetched, but it may illustrate the concern about people…

>I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested that they might put occupants at greater risk of kidnapping because the cars could refuse to take evasive actions that endanger or injure a kidnapper What alternative would a human take? Would they kill the kidnappers by driving over them?

"Would they kill the kidnappers by driving over them?"

Of course, in many countries that would count as self defense (if kidnappers were armed and pointed guns towards your car).

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#223

Post by kbart »

eru wrote: post #113
mikeash wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ethical question is greatly overblown. The odds of being in a situation where there's any sort of ethical choice to make are so remote as to not really be worth considering. 99.9999% of the time, the correct choice when faced with an impending crash will be to brake as hard as the driving surface allows and steer to avoid obstacles as much as possible. In any case, tinkering and commons already intersect…

Wow, I just looked up "rolling coal". I can maybe get the political protest aspect---even if I disagree, but blowing the smoke at pedestrians, cyclist or even just other cars seems like one of the most dickish things ever.

Is it even legal in USA? In EU, that would make your card road illegal instantly.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#224

Post by nradov »

foota wrote: post #70
mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Per hour" is rather ridiculous. I'm talking about per crash . There are a couple million vehicle crashes in the US each year, so if it really is 99.9999%, that's two or three ethical crises per year here. Among a billion vehicles it would be maybe ten per year. And honestly I'd be surprised if it's that many. When have you ever heard of a crash where there was any kind of ethical dilemma in the response? People keep…

I'm actually familiar with a situation like this, the person was on a highway at night and came around a corner to see a deer lying in the road and a crowd right behind the deer. There was a couple of people off to either side. They couldn't brake in time to stop and not harm the people on the other side of the deer.

A properly designed self driving car would never out drive its sensors in the first place. This is just basic defensive driving. If there's a blind corner coming up then it would slow down sufficiently that it would be able to come to a controlled stop if there's a stalled car or other static obstruction around the corner.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#225

Post by schoen »

schoen wrote: post #145
saidajigumi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this situation is in the realm of the plausible, which has little to do with my comment. I'm not arguing against an analysis of the decisions made by a self-driving system. That's essential. I'm arguing against applying ethical models that utilize knowledge outside the realm of the knowledge or "reasoning" capacity of the drive algorithms. To continue your example, I'll pose that any system with unilateral behav…

There's a whole kind of unpleasant but interesting topic about attacks against behavior of self-driving cars. I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested that they might put occupants at greater risk of kidnapping because the cars could refuse to take evasive actions that endanger or injure a kidnapper (or just violate a traffic law). This risk might be farfetched, but it may illustrate the concern about people…

> I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested

I might also have heard about some of these problems from Brad Templeton, who describes "Abusing robocar collision-avoidance" among many other interesting problems at

http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/downsides.html

I don't remember if he also mentioned the kidnapping scenario when I heard him present about this.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#226

Post by eru »

nine_k wrote: post #125
eru wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that the common `debugging caveat' applies: computer do indeed do what we tell them to do. That doesn't mean than anyone understands what the computer are going to do.

Debugging sucks. Formally verified code is not unheard of.

Formally verified code is awesome. It moves the `debugging problem' up one level, "Does our formal spec capture our informal meaning?"

Ideally in practice, that problem is simpler than "Does our code what we want?

In theory in the abstract, of course, the problems are the same.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#227

Post by eru »

ams6110 wrote: post #173
eru wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I just looked up "rolling coal". I can maybe get the political protest aspect---even if I disagree, but blowing the smoke at pedestrians, cyclist or even just other cars seems like one of the most dickish things ever.

I've seen it happen firsthand a couple of times. In both cases it was done after the cyclists stayed two abreast instead of singling up to let traffic pass.

Does the law say anything about having to get into single file?

(In any case, the law doesn't provide for this case of vigilantism. And two wrong wouldn't make a right.)

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#228

Post by javajosh »

intrasight wrote: post #199

As someone who came of tinkering age in the early 70s and spend lots of time taking apart and repairing old machines, I wish to express another concern. How do we expect to hook the next generation of engineers if there is no opportunity to tinker as a child? For me that spark (excuse the pun) definitely came from those early "break it/fix it" sessions. Is tinkering going to be relegated to playing with the public AP…

This is a very important point. Children can't learn from magical slabs that can't be opened.

That said, my personal view is that you should never buy toys. You should build them. There are two important reasons for this: first, as you say kids need to learn how to disassemble and reassemble things. Home-made toys are going to fit that bill nicely. Second, kids need to not learn consumerist habits at a young age. Toys are easy (and fun) to make at home, and, like food, much better (and better for you).

As for computers, I'm not excited about my kids even seeing a screen, which obviates the problem of disassembling a magical, sealed slab in the first place. When they are old enough (10+) perhaps I'll let them play with discrete electronics on a breadboard. :)

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#229

Post by omegaham »

kbart wrote: post #223
eru wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I just looked up "rolling coal". I can maybe get the political protest aspect---even if I disagree, but blowing the smoke at pedestrians, cyclist or even just other cars seems like one of the most dickish things ever.

Is it even legal in USA? In EU, that would make your card road illegal instantly.

Depends on the state. Some states do emissions testing that fails such people, and officers are on the lookout for vehicles that are visibly violating the standard. Other states are indifferent as long as you aren't assaulting others with it.

Obviously, seeing as how they're doing it for attention, it's very unlikely that someone would roll coal with the intention of not blasting someone with soot.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#230

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikeash wrote: post #19
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for the…

I think the ethical question is greatly overblown. The odds of being in a situation where there's any sort of ethical choice to make are so remote as to not really be worth considering. 99.9999% of the time, the correct choice when faced with an impending crash will be to brake as hard as the driving surface allows and steer to avoid obstacles as much as possible. In any case, tinkering and commons already intersect…

> as is the case with "rolling coal."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

"Targets of coal rolling often include owners of hybrid vehicles (hence the nickname "Prius duster") as well as bicyclists and pedestrians."

People really do shit like this out of spite?

I have no words.

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