>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…
Think of all the attention you could monetize with a captive audience in a self-driving car. I fully expect it to be exploited by ad companies. And subsequently by hackers.
Have it poll once a minute and ask for instructions with a display in the car that says "instructed to go to X, accept?" and then have it auto accept after another minute. Sure that means maybe waiting two minutes for the car to move, but that's not a huge deal, especially if you know that happens and request it two minutes in advance, but it gives anyone in the car the chance to cancel the request if it's invalid.
What if you're asleep and the car is in the drive-way? How would you be able to accept/decline in 60 seconds?
Make it beep loudly for 60 seconds? Add a function that puts the car into auto-deny mode that you can turn on when you sleep (or whenever you're in the car). There are many ways to solve this problem.
The point is that the car won't just take remote instructions but will gather them and allow the occupants the chance to override them.
I think a lot of people are misreading this. Right now one of the rules to pass a crash test is that there is a steering wheel. This didn't used to be controversial, but now it is. The rules were written in the 70s and just assumed there would always be a drivers seat. The only thing here is that the government rewrote the rules to no longer assume those things. It's not saying those things aren't necessary, just not…
> It would be like saying today that you can't have a computer without an on/off switch because in the 70s every computer had a physical switch.
Driving is already a Russian roulette right? If autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers as advertised the barrel would just have more capacity.
Statistical equivalence is one thing, but the risk will shift within the population. Let’s set the bar a bit higher than above average ? The average driver is a dumbass. autonomous vehicles should be expected to consistently make better decisions than the best drivers, not just the average ones.
This is bullshit.
Reduction of average statistical risk is what really matters and will be what is primarily responsible for driving down real world fatalities and life altering injuries.
I for one am not going to stand back and let fear of new technology and unfounded preference for human driven action over automation stand in the way of making a statistical impact on reducing the 1.35 million auto fatalities that happen globally every year. To propose that possibly reducing that number to 1.30 million is not good enough and we have to hold back rollout until the tech is better than the "best driver" is disgustingly sociopathic.
>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…
While I agree with you, so many new cars offer remote start/remote engine heating block initiation or even the ability to summon your vehicle from a parking garage and have it drive toward the exit. Many consumers will not purchase cars without these new features, all of which require an external server to issue commands to a vehicle. Definitely a huge security risk, especially with lack of manual controls. Where are…
Agreed on all but remote start. Maybe it's different on fancier vehicles (I have a '13 Mustang), but it's usually just a radio that starts the engine and nothing more. Hardly a security risk.
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…
>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…
Not accepting connections is not enough to be protected on the internet. A connection is just a special case of an incoming packet, any incoming packet is potentially malicious, even if the source IP:Port are ones you initiated a connection with. For example, most web-based malware is downloaded from connections you initiated.
>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…
While I agree with you, so many new cars offer remote start/remote engine heating block initiation or even the ability to summon your vehicle from a parking garage and have it drive toward the exit. Many consumers will not purchase cars without these new features, all of which require an external server to issue commands to a vehicle. Definitely a huge security risk, especially with lack of manual controls. Where are…
Remote start has been available for nearly 40 years. Pre-heating engines has been going on for nearly a century. Neither of these requires a computer, let alone contacting a remote server.
You state the security risks of connected vehicles, so I’m not sure why you lead with these incorrect statements.
I'm not sure if I'm optimistic about autonomous vehicles or just very pessimistic about human drivers. I have no confidence that the next driver making a left turn while I'm crossing the road won't kill me. I'm much more comfortable with a computer that is programmed to avoid killing me, even if the software may have the occasional bug, than with a human who may or may not prioritize my life over whatever else it is…
> I'm much more comfortable with a computer that is programmed to avoid killing me I think the real concern that the car is actually programmed explicitly to kill you if it has to, to ensure it's own safety or the safety of it's riders or something.
Humans do this as well. Many bus drivers may be told to not stop even if a car gets directly in their way, so as to avoid killing all of the children inside - especially so when at heights.
Not all of us laugh. My first grandchild is going to be named for a childhood friend of my daughter, who was killed by a car. My daughter still hurts, 15 years later.
That is indeed sad and it’s true there’s always someone carrying trauma about something. That’s life. But it goes on. That’s why sometimes I say “kill all the apaches” and don’t even think twice about the fact that many Native American tribesmen were killed in the conquest of this nation.
I think it’s sensible not to optimize to the person with the most trauma.
This is like the least important area of this topic, and like 100 steps ahead of where we are now.
But government!
It's a great example of how companies with money can lobby to get things that don't matter changed, while ordinary citizens can't get the government to fix broken regulations that are having an actual impact on our lives.