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U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#191

Post by moduspol »

pydry wrote: post #48
walkhour wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is already a Russian roulette right? If autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers as advertised the barrel would just have more capacity.

Self driving cars will be as safe as the level of criminal liability faced by the makers. Regulatory capture means it wont be high and the potential profits to be realized from first mover advantage here means there will be a significant incentive to "move fast and break things". So to speak. I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self…

> I'd feel safe if an executive who OKs a software update that kills someone risks significant jail time. If that means no self driving cars for 20 more years then I am totally fine with that.

The status quo is 139 people dying every day in the US in traffic accidents.

If we replaced all cars with self-driving ones, an executive could approve a software update every single day that kills only 100 and it could very well still be a net benefit to society.

These discussions always seem to implicitly presume that we're currently at zero deaths. We're not--we just don't hear about them. Every year we delay self driving cars is more people dying, not fewer.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#192

Post by HideousKojima »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

That's an overreaction, the simpler solution is to outlaw anything less than level 4 self-driving (or at least ban level 3 and only allow level 1 and 2 stuff until 4 is achieved), and make the liability on the auto manufacturer clear in the law.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#193

Post by AlotOfReading »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127
Communitivity wrote: post #120

This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present. With the presence of an automation kill-switch and manual human controls the driver can always take back control. Without those, the driver is at the mercy of the hacker. Vehicle automation falls under the SCADA sub-domain of cyber-security. SCADA stands for…

> With the presence of an automation kill-switch and manual human controls the driver can always take back control Isn’t this envisioning a car with no passengers who can drive? Agree there needs to be a physical fallback. But fallback to a parallel system running on ROM might be the safer option.

The vehicle this article is talking about is already designed this way. Most systems operate entirely read-only after boot and there are independent fallback systems for critical components.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#194

Post by ghaff »

nanidin wrote: post #183
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

I am tempted to agree about the steering wheel, but then I think of all of the situations where being able to take manual control would be really nice - like when towing a camper, or backing a boat down a ramp, or handing over to valet parking. I think this is forcing a false dichotomy between having a steering wheel and driver liability for failures in the autonomous driving system. I think we can have a world with…

Even with very good automation, it seems an incredibly high bar that you can automate literally everything. I guess you can maybe imagine voice control as a replacement but...

But to the parent comment, it seems insane to me that a consumer would accept full liability for some company's software as they would for their own driving. It seems obvious to me that the manufacturer is liable. If my taxi driver gets in an accident I'm certainly not at fault.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#195

Post by danuker »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

I'd counter with a physical switch, which can not be toggled by the car, and which locks during a crash.

That way, the state of the switch lets you know who caused the crash.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#196

Post by danuker »

belval wrote: post #175
nobody9999 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is problematic for a number of reasons. The most important in my mind is that the risk of the vehicle being hacked and carjacked remotely is always present. Which raises the question: "Why would we engineer vehicles to accept external network connections?" Any communication to/from a vehicle should only be initiated by the vehicle itself. There's no reasonable criteria under which a vehicle should have its syst…

> Or am I missing something important? We absolutely want to remotely control cars at some point, how else will you send a self-driving taxi to a customers or "ask" a car to comeback to the garage for a recall on the underlying hardware or for general maintenance?

That can be implemented by the vehicle initiating a connection and asking "where should I go now?".

But any connection poses vulnerability - for example, security certificates to be sure you're talking to the right person become obsolete over time as processing power gets cheaper, and an update can fail and brick the car.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#197

Post by phire »

nanidin wrote: post #183
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

I am tempted to agree about the steering wheel, but then I think of all of the situations where being able to take manual control would be really nice - like when towing a camper, or backing a boat down a ramp, or handing over to valet parking. I think this is forcing a false dichotomy between having a steering wheel and driver liability for failures in the autonomous driving system. I think we can have a world with…

You don't need to remove the steering wheel completely.

You just need to make it impossible for the driver to take control of the vehicle unless it's fully stopped and in a safe state.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#198

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

vmception wrote: post #122

I was at a crosswalk and saw a car with the big cameras on top coming Normally I walk and have confidence the human will stop and not want the consequences, or I at least make eye contact with the human driver for reassurance they will stop This time I ran, mumbling “self driving car fuck that”

I was thinking about that recently, that there needs to be some kind of “I see you” system. Maybe an external light that tracks you or something. Anything that can help me as a pedestrian understand what its internal state is.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#199

Post by datavirtue »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

If it doesn't have a steering wheel then no one will buy it. It's too weird and different and will be a major obstacle to adoption. So yeah, corporate wants it to have a steering wheel for numerous reasons...including the one you cite.

Re: U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles

#200

Post by danuker »

HideousKojima wrote: post #192
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171

I would go further - if the vehicle is autonomous, it should be illegal for it to have a steering wheel. The idea that you can make a deadly self-driving car, and then jail the driver because he could not react in 0.2 seconds when your car suddenly swerved is the greatest handover of money and power to corporations since the times of slavery. So make the choice clear - either tha car has controls, or it doesn't. And…

That's an overreaction, the simpler solution is to outlaw anything less than level 4 self-driving (or at least ban level 3 and only allow level 1 and 2 stuff until 4 is achieved), and make the liability on the auto manufacturer clear in the law.

But clearly people are appreciating levels 1-3, because they buy current cars offering them.

These levels still provide improvement in quality of life, but for a cheaper price (because it's easier to implement).

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