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What the hell are you talking about? You are saying google cars are stupid enough to cause a crash but smart enough to weight the worth of people inside and out

by 203993203993 11y ago

What the hell are you talking about? You are saying google cars are stupid enough to cause a crash but smart enough to weight the worth of people inside and outside the car and then decide which to save. How would a car even kill the occupants? Drive into a wall without braking? Why would it even do that? Our cars are designed to deform and absorb most of the energy from a crash, it's better to stay in your lane and brake as much as the car can handle and if it ends up being unavoidable then hit the car in front of you. Somehow even with all that sophistication everyone dies but a foot brake could solve all problems?

ma2rten 11y ago
He is just saying that it's comforting to have the idea that you can always stop the car.
finance-geek 11y ago
The car would not need to be "stupid" or "stupid enough" to cause a crash, sometimes a crash is unfortunately inevitable given the situation other cats put you into. And yes, some people sometimes have to make the difficult decision between hitting another smaller car, hitting a truck, and hitting a person. I suspect these days, most people react irrationally in split seconds. However, with self-driving cars, all the data would be available and a real decision could be made...but what would be the constraints and what would you maximize? that is the scary question.
gambiting 11y ago
Tyre blows, the car starts sweering to the left into the oncoming lane, the computer can either: 1) decide that a critical error has occurred and shut down 2) apply full brakes on the remaining wheels, sending the car into a spin and killing a group of pedestrians on the pavement. 3) let the car continue, smashing into a minivan with a family inside it. The minivan is also auto-controlled but has no time to change course 4) try steering further left, hitting the barriers/trees, possibly killing its own occupants. Now, situations 2-4 can be simulated before they happen with enough computational power. Therefore, the computer would have to take a conscious/programmed decision who to kill, and that is a huge deal morally, because at some point someone somewhere will have to write code that will literally be evaluating value of human life. And before you say that humans would do no better in this situation - that is true, but no one will judge you for a decision you took in the split second you had, you would do what felt right at the time. The computer is programmed a certain way and you can always sue saying that if it did X then person Y would still be alive - and if there's one thing that companies fear it's litigation.
- Razengan 11y ago
  Well, obviously the car's own occupants should always hold the highest priority for that car. Otherwise it is a terrible terrible product if the code even contains the possibility that it could ever prioritize anything over the lives of its owners. In your scenario, smashing into another vehicle will be preferable to mowing down pedestrians; that vehicle's program just might be able to save itself, or the two vehicles might even communicate to minimize the damage to each other, and in any case a vehicle will most certainly absorb more of the impact than an exposed pedestrian could. People on foot, who have nothing to do with the traffic, should never have to deal with the vehicles and the consequences of their programs. Number 2 from your scenario should not even be an option to the program.
  - gambiting 11y ago
    While I agree with you, there still is a possibility of conflict in what you are saying. What if hitting a pedestrian is the only way to avoid killing occupants of the vehicle? On one hand, like you said - the vehicle should always prioritize its owners, but at the same time, it should have some overriding directive that says "never hit a pedestrian at all costs". One of those has to give - who decides which one?
    - Razengan 11y ago
      The first priority should always be your occupants. Hardcoded. Otherwise, can you imagine the first incident in which some passengers died because the code prioritized the life of someone else? Would anyone want to buy an autocar after that? "YOUR CAR COULD CHOOSE TO KILL YOU", the headlines will say. The second priority should be the safety of pedestrians who are off the road. Until we have computational power at the level of divine prescience, I don't think you can do much else in scenarios like the one you described, other than have a chain of basic priorities that falls back on "stop everything." Eventually though, powerful-enough AI may be able to simulate all outcomes down to a very granular level, such as the difference between outright killing someone or just injuring their limbs to the point of crippling them for life. Many factors will need to be considered then; who appears to be the weakest individual among the unavoidable targets? Are there any acquaintances of the owners among them? Is there a hospital nearby that could tend to their injuries? Does it look like a suicide attempt?

ma2rten 11y ago

He is just saying that it's comforting to have the idea that you can always stop the car.

finance-geek 11y ago

The car would not need to be "stupid" or "stupid enough" to cause a crash, sometimes a crash is unfortunately inevitable given the situation other cats put you into. And yes, some people sometimes have to make the difficult decision between hitting another smaller car, hitting a truck, and hitting a person. I suspect these days, most people react irrationally in split seconds. However, with self-driving cars, all the data would be available and a real decision could be made...but what would be the constraints and what would you maximize? that is the scary question.

gambiting 11y ago

Tyre blows, the car starts sweering to the left into the oncoming lane, the computer can either: 1) decide that a critical error has occurred and shut down 2) apply full brakes on the remaining wheels, sending the car into a spin and killing a group of pedestrians on the pavement. 3) let the car continue, smashing into a minivan with a family inside it. The minivan is also auto-controlled but has no time to change course 4) try steering further left, hitting the barriers/trees, possibly killing its own occupants. Now, situations 2-4 can be simulated before they happen with enough computational power. Therefore, the computer would have to take a conscious/programmed decision who to kill, and that is a huge deal morally, because at some point someone somewhere will have to write code that will literally be evaluating value of human life. And before you say that humans would do no better in this situation - that is true, but no one will judge you for a decision you took in the split second you had, you would do what felt right at the time. The computer is programmed a certain way and you can always sue saying that if it did X then person Y would still be alive - and if there's one thing that companies fear it's litigation.

Razengan 11y ago
Well, obviously the car's own occupants should always hold the highest priority for that car. Otherwise it is a terrible terrible product if the code even contains the possibility that it could ever prioritize anything over the lives of its owners. In your scenario, smashing into another vehicle will be preferable to mowing down pedestrians; that vehicle's program just might be able to save itself, or the two vehicles might even communicate to minimize the damage to each other, and in any case a vehicle will most certainly absorb more of the impact than an exposed pedestrian could. People on foot, who have nothing to do with the traffic, should never have to deal with the vehicles and the consequences of their programs. Number 2 from your scenario should not even be an option to the program.
- gambiting 11y ago
  While I agree with you, there still is a possibility of conflict in what you are saying. What if hitting a pedestrian is the only way to avoid killing occupants of the vehicle? On one hand, like you said - the vehicle should always prioritize its owners, but at the same time, it should have some overriding directive that says "never hit a pedestrian at all costs". One of those has to give - who decides which one?
  - Razengan 11y ago
    The first priority should always be your occupants. Hardcoded. Otherwise, can you imagine the first incident in which some passengers died because the code prioritized the life of someone else? Would anyone want to buy an autocar after that? "YOUR CAR COULD CHOOSE TO KILL YOU", the headlines will say. The second priority should be the safety of pedestrians who are off the road. Until we have computational power at the level of divine prescience, I don't think you can do much else in scenarios like the one you described, other than have a chain of basic priorities that falls back on "stop everything." Eventually though, powerful-enough AI may be able to simulate all outcomes down to a very granular level, such as the difference between outright killing someone or just injuring their limbs to the point of crippling them for life. Many factors will need to be considered then; who appears to be the weakest individual among the unavoidable targets? Are there any acquaintances of the owners among them? Is there a hospital nearby that could tend to their injuries? Does it look like a suicide attempt?