Some good news regarding driverless cars

[cmaguire]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/driverless-cars-could-ca...


The longer this idea gets postponed the better.

[Sportidge]

Before I even consider getting in an autonomous car, I want the manufacturer to answer the following question;

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. Does the autonomous car;

a) Swerve left, hitting the queue of nurses at the bus stop?
b) Swerve right, into the path of the oncoming minibus full of professors working on a cure for cancer?
c) Plough straight on into the child?

Has anyone programmed a computer to be able to take such a decision, and what parameters is it based on?

[Orillion]

What would you do in this situation?

[Sportidge]

Orillion said:

What would you do in this situation?

Before or after soiling myself?

TBH, I'd probably take the less squishy option. At least if they're in a minibus strapped in, they are more likely to survive the crash than being hit directly with a car.

[esxste]

Stick head in sand and blindly kicking the ball down the road isn't the sensible view to take.

There are benefits to be had from all the mindless "car is a tool" drivers moving to fully autonomous and connected cars. Middle lane motorists will be a thing of the past; HGVs will run in close formation trains in lane 1, and won't block a dual carriage way for 5 minutes performing an overtake.

Automated and connected systems will be a massive boon to effective, fast and safe driving. Imagine being able to safely go 120 mph or more, because your car knows what's going on up to 30 seconds down the road, because cars are relaying the road conditions - and it warns you of hazards in plenty of time.

My think is that those of us who enjoy driving need to ensure the government legislates in a sensible way on automation. Being Luddites won't work.

[Atomic12C]

Sportidge said:

A collision of some sort is inevitable.

Then you would have to accept the laws of physics and have no option but to collide with something.

The good thing in all of this is that it "should" remove yourself from that decision making process.
(If the laws turn out to be rational).

What you are describing is essentially "the trolley problem" (see link below), but this line of thought should be done by the car's computer via whatever the law of the land says should be the outcome.

I guess that would be reversal of due process in terms of law, but maybe a court ruling is necessary to set the basis of how they would be liable instead of waiting for things to happen and then rule on it? (one for the legal bods to answer I guess)

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


p.s.
By the way - I hate the look of the future in terms of all this autonomous vehicle concept. Are people becoming that lazy? Can't society also accept that RTA fatalities are always going to happen - it's human nature for a percentage of people to be stupid enough to create collisions.
I blame all these young generations of lazy types and the new fad to basically not own or care for anything but instead just rent rent rent then throw away.

[Durzel]

Sportidge said:

Before I even consider getting in an autonomous car, I want the manufacturer to answer the following question;

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. Does the autonomous car;

a) Swerve left, hitting the queue of nurses at the bus stop?
b) Swerve right, into the path of the oncoming minibus full of professors working on a cure for cancer?
c) Plough straight on into the child?

Has anyone programmed a computer to be able to take such a decision, and what parameters is it based on?

This is actually the subject of a lot of interesting research. As you say driverless cars, and by extension AI, will eventually have to choose the lesser of N evils.

I don't see how it's particularly an obstacle to development though, so long as it treats these Sophie's choice situations consistently.

As a point of note - I know you were being (intentionally?) hyperbolic but of those choices only the child vs N adults thing is really relevant because you wouldn't know yourself that the queue of adults were nurses, or that the minibus was carrying cancer-solving professors, until after the fact.

[Sportidge]

Durzel said:

I know you were being (intentionally?) hyperbolic

It was a load of hyperbolics. Or 'Testiculating' as it's also known.....

But it's also something which they will need to be able to deal with going forward, and more importantly, get us squishy humans on-board with however they intend to deal with it.

However they intend to do it, I think that Isaac Asimov would have been interested in the result, given his First Law of Robotics

Edited by Sportidge on Wednesday 15th March 14:34

[stupidbutkeen]

Orillion said:

What would you do in this situation?

Well because it is a busy town centre road I would expect to be doing less than 20mph on average.
So the child that runs out close enough that a collision of some sort is inevitable has to have run out close enough to your car that you would stop quicker than turn.
The nurse's are ok and the profs will still keep fighting the cancer but the child is going to be hurt but survive and learn a valuable live lession.

[budgie smuggler]

Sportidge said:

Before I even consider getting in an autonomous car, I want the manufacturer to answer the following question;

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. Does the autonomous car;

a) Swerve left, hitting the queue of nurses at the bus stop?
b) Swerve right, into the path of the oncoming minibus full of professors working on a cure for cancer?
c) Plough straight on into the child?

Has anyone programmed a computer to be able to take such a decision, and what parameters is it based on?

1 - no human is making that decision. It's oh st- swerve- brake. Nobody is weighing up, ooh that old biddy's already lived 80 years but she might have grandchildren where as that guy looks like a pedo, but look he also has a puppy and that has only lived 3 dog years so it's unfair to run that over

2 - computer is smarter than most humans, it can monitor more things at once, it can react quicker, it can be programmed to drive in a manner such that a collision is almost always avoidable

3 - AI can and is being trained to match human response for various things. It's already better at diagnosing illnesses from tissue slides than humans for instance.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Sportidge said:

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. ;

More importantly, you know it's a child immediately. Or a windswept bin liner, or a large dog, or a runaway lawn mower. A computer hasn't got a clue. It just knows it's an object. It'll take a computer about 10 seconds to tell a child from a large bin liner. It has to run the image thru thousands of yes/no questions in order to narrow it down.

[cmaguire]

esxste said:

Stick head in sand and blindly kicking the ball down the road isn't the sensible view to take.

There are benefits to be had from all the mindless "car is a tool" drivers moving to fully autonomous and connected cars. Middle lane motorists will be a thing of the past; HGVs will run in close formation trains in lane 1, and won't block a dual carriage way for 5 minutes performing an overtake.

Automated and connected systems will be a massive boon to effective, fast and safe driving. Imagine being able to safely go 120 mph or more, because your car knows what's going on up to 30 seconds down the road, because cars are relaying the road conditions - and it warns you of hazards in plenty of time.

My think is that those of us who enjoy driving need to ensure the government legislates in a sensible way on automation. Being Luddites won't work.

This is fantasy.
Everything is getting slower not faster.
It'll be slowing everything down even more that gives them a fighting chance of forcing this crap onto us, as that's the only way it'll work on both levels. Firstly that the technology is decades away from working at the speeds we want to do, and secondly we'll all be sick of driving so slow soon we'll be more receptive to not doing the driving at all.

[Johnniem]

As someone who recently lost their licence due to an eyesight issue I have been pondering the idea of investing in an automaton car (when they are available). I am certain that the technology is there in order for a launch sometime soon but the chance of some terrorist organisation (or even just a teenage computer-genius troublemaker) hijacking the systems that control the satellites that control the driverless cars is so strong that it makes me think that there is no chance that this will all go smoothly. Can you imagine the chaos?! If satellite information controls the cars actions (which it must, to a greater degree) then mess with the information and one has chaos.

[esxste]

cmaguire said:

This is fantasy.
Everything is getting slower not faster.
It'll be slowing everything down even more that gives them a fighting chance of forcing this crap onto us, as that's the only way it'll work on both levels. Firstly that the technology is decades away from working at the speeds we want to do, and secondly we'll all be sick of driving so slow soon we'll be more receptive to not doing the driving at all.

Decades away you say?

Ford are looking at building a car with no steering wheel in the early 2020's.

Tesla cars already navigate motorways in near autonomous mode.

Google has a completely driverless car in testing already; and Apple are rumoured to be developing something similar.

The UK government is funding roadtests for HGV's to operate in a "platoon"

Many new cars are already connected to the internet.

It's not fantasy; and it's not decades away.

[cmaguire]

esxste said:

Decades away you say?

Ford are looking at building a car with no steering wheel in the early 2020's.

Tesla cars already navigate motorways in near autonomous mode.

Google has a completely driverless car in testing already; and Apple are rumoured to be developing something similar.

The UK government is funding roadtests for HGV's to operate in a "platoon"

Many new cars are already connected to the internet.

It's not fantasy; and it's not decades away.

They must love people like you. You don't work in I.T. do you?

Let's wait and see just when this car without a steering wheel actually sells to the public.
And a few gimmick Leafs pratting about in London means nothing in the grand scheme of things.Or that ridiculous Google C5 thing.

[98elise]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Sportidge said:

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. ;

More importantly, you know it's a child immediately. Or a windswept bin liner, or a large dog, or a runaway lawn mower. A computer hasn't got a clue. It just knows it's an object. It'll take a computer about 10 seconds to tell a child from a large bin liner. It has to run the image thru thousands of yes/no questions in order to narrow it down.

Is your 10 seconds from empirical evidence, or just a guess?

Sensors are faster than people, compters are faster then people, and computers make decisions without fear, panic confusion etc.

The article makes a good point that the lower levels of autonimy are the dodgy area's. People will expect too much from level 2 and 3.

[Gav147]

98elise said:

Sensors are faster than people, compters are faster then people, and computers make decisions without fear, panic confusion etc.

All very true, however computers are programmed by people and they make mistakes, name me one piece of technology that has not failed, crashed, had bugs etc since the advent of the chip? Not a problem 90% of the time, but on an automated car?

[anonymous-user]

98elise said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Sportidge said:

The autonomous car is driving down a busy town centre road when a child suddenly runs out from the pavement. A collision of some sort is inevitable. ;

More importantly, you know it's a child immediately. Or a windswept bin liner, or a large dog, or a runaway lawn mower. A computer hasn't got a clue. It just knows it's an object. It'll take a computer about 10 seconds to tell a child from a large bin liner. It has to run the image thru thousands of yes/no questions in order to narrow it down.

Is your 10 seconds from empirical evidence, or just a guess?

Sensors are faster than people, compters are faster then people, and computers make decisions without fear, panic confusion etc.

The article makes a good point that the lower levels of autonimy are the dodgy area's. People will expect too much from level 2 and 3.

I would offer that computers spell better than you do but you're still writing aren't you?

[TwigtheWonderkid]

98elise said:

Sensors are faster than people, compters are faster then people,

Sensors may spot an obstruction quicker, and the computer may apply the brakes quicker.But if you think a computer or sensor can identify the object quicker than a human you're living in dreamland.

[Yipper]

Cars today (in rich countries) are already semi-driverless in the 2010s. Most new cars sold (in rich countries) will be fully driverless by the 2040s.