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> I won't be surprised if someone at some point wears a stripy outfit, and the car thinks they are a part of the road, and tries to explicitly chase them down u

> I won't be surprised if someone at some point wears a stripy outfit, and the car thinks they are a part of the road, and tries to explicitly chase them down until they are under the wheels. Or if the car suddenly decides that the road continues at a 90 degree angle off a bridge. Or that the splashes from a puddle in front is actually an oncoming car and it must swerve into the school kids crossing the perpendicular road. Are you working on the next season of Black Mirror? In all seriousness, my fear (and maybe not fear, maybe it's happy expectation in light of the nightmare scenarios) is that if a couple of the "weird and terrifying" accidents happen, the gov't would shut down self-driving car usage immediately.

jessaustin 9y ago
If that's bad, what happens when the robocars get hacked?
- stefano 9y ago
  Like we have botnets made out of thousands (millions?) of compromised computers, we could have entire fleets of compromised cars, rentable on the black market using cryptocurrency, that could be used to commit crimes (e.g. homicide) while keeping the killer anonymous. Scary stuff. I hope these self-driving cars will be able and designed to work while completely offline, with no built-in way to ever connect to a network. But given the biggest player in the field seems to be Google, they'll probably be always connected in order to send data to the mothership and receive ads to show you.
  - ctchocula 9y ago
    Using these cars to commit homicide was actually one of the plot points in the second book of Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. Very much recommended if you are into sci-fi.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Those books are interesting in that Liu seems to get away with seriously portraying narratives that would be out of bounds in the "approved" popular culture of the West. Murder by robocar is a minor example, but others include portrayal of the inherent weakness of societies in which men are effeminate and the superiority of leaving strategic decisions to military authorities. (I don't particularly agree with those propositions, but they are certainly present in the books.)
      - njarboe 9y ago
        I'm half-way done with the last book in the trilogy and I am finding the assumptions and viewpoints of the world from a Chinese view quite interesting. The one that struck me most was how he presents humanities greatest strength over the technologically superior aliens is the human ability to conceal their true thoughts and the possibility of deception. Quite different from Christianity's high value placed on honesty.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        The great stories of paganism and animism were composed by artists, and they all feature trickery and uncertainty. The Christian Bible has some of that (I like Job), but the majority was written by humorless unimaginative prudes. I suppose some of the Chinese philosophers are a little better than St. Paul, but mostly when they're being playful.
  - Humdeee 9y ago
    > receive ads to show you I'm just envisioning a scenario where the car automatically pulls to the side of the highway, locks the doors and dishes you with a 15 second ad, and then the doors unlock and the journey resumes as normal.
    - l9k 9y ago
      Or just (virtually) replace billboards with personalized content
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    "I hope these self-driving cars will be able and designed to work while completely offline, with no built-in way to ever connect to a network." Don't hold your breath about that. There will be a huge load of data ready to be sold to advertising companies just by listening what passengers talk about when passing near areas/stores/billboards/events etc.
- toomanyrichies 9y ago
  Confused by the downvote here. This is a perfectly legitimate question, and indeed it should be asked more, not less, often.
  - wetpaws 9y ago
    This is stupid question. The answer is - the same as if someone will physically mess with your car.
    - xeromal 9y ago
      Physical hacking can only happen to one car at a time.
      - wetpaws 9y ago
        What if someone hacks the assembly line for Ford?
- wetpaws 9y ago
  What if someone put a bomb in your car or mess with your breaks?
  - aidenn0 9y ago
    Right, but what if someone could put a bomb in 100k cars or mess with 100k car's breaks remotely over the internet. A large enough quantitative change becomes a qualitative change.
IgorPartola 9y ago
I am definitely not. Their version of the future is too damn bleak for me. Your fear is very much grounded in reality. US lawmakers tend to be very reactionary, except in rare cases like gun laws. So it won't take much to have restrictions imposed like this. Granted, I believe some regulation is good; after all the reason today's cars are safer than those built 20 years ago isn't because the free market decided so, but because of regulation. But self driving cars are so new and our lawmakers are by and large so ignorant, that I wouldn't trust them to create good regulation from the get go.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  > the reason today's cars are safer than those built 20 years ago isn't because the free market decided so, but because of regulation. All safety functionality was introduced and used way before regulators even knew that it's possible. Edit: please explain the downvotes, ideally with examples
- zeth___ 9y ago
  Largely because of Ralph Nader. It's amazing how reformers get demonized even after their platform is accepted wholesale by the rest of the world.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  > except in rare cases like gun laws They're still very reactionary in that, which is precisely why it isn't very effective when a subset of them do react: there are plenty of smart things that could get proposed, but the overlap between people who know what they're talking about and people that want the laws is exceptionally small, so consequently dumb, ineffective stuff that has no chance of passing anyway gets proposed. What does get proposed is a knee-jerk reaction to what just happened, and rarely actually looks systemically at the current laws and gun violence as a whole. Example: the Las Vegas shooting prompted a lot of talk of bump stock bans. Bump stocks are so rarely used at all, nevermind in violence, and they will generally ruin guns that weren't originally made to be fully-automatic very quickly if they're actually used for sustained automatic fire. Silly point to focus on suddenly. After the Florida shooting last month so much focused on why rifles are easier to obtain than handguns. And it's because overwhemingly most gun violence is handguns. Easily concealable rifles are already heavily regulated at the federal level for that very reason.
pps43 9y ago
> Are you working on the next season of Black Mirror? In Black Mirror, all cars in the world will simultaneously swerve into nearby pedestrians, buildings, or other cars.
- amelius 9y ago
  That could happen during a massive, remotely-triggered software update.
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    Like the one that happened some days ago with Occulus helmets.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    Just imagine a batch of cars with malfunctioning inertial sensors (it's brought down more than a few of my drones). GPS and perception (through ML or LIDAR) will work most of the time to override such errors, but if there was a second malfunction... "The car is swerving left at 1m/s; correct right."
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    That could happen because of a malicious 'time-bomb' placed by a hostile state actor in such an update.
- wang_li 9y ago
  It doesn't even need to be that. Imagine the shit show that a city would be when it's entire transportation fleet is immobilized because someone has messed with their safety features.
- carlmr 9y ago
  More likely it would be something about dissidents being killed in their cars, or cars going after people who aren't liked.
basura045478 9y ago
will never happen. least not with any explicit depth sensors. any car with lidar has depth perception orders of magnitude better than yours and would never chase an object merely because it resembles road markings
kevinwang 9y ago
To be fair, all the examples you gave could also happen to a human driver.
beedogs 9y ago
I mean, maybe the self-driving car shouldn't exist if it's just going to run people over.

jessaustin 9y ago

If that's bad, what happens when the robocars get hacked?

stefano 9y ago
Like we have botnets made out of thousands (millions?) of compromised computers, we could have entire fleets of compromised cars, rentable on the black market using cryptocurrency, that could be used to commit crimes (e.g. homicide) while keeping the killer anonymous. Scary stuff. I hope these self-driving cars will be able and designed to work while completely offline, with no built-in way to ever connect to a network. But given the biggest player in the field seems to be Google, they'll probably be always connected in order to send data to the mothership and receive ads to show you.
- ctchocula 9y ago
  Using these cars to commit homicide was actually one of the plot points in the second book of Three Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. Very much recommended if you are into sci-fi.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Those books are interesting in that Liu seems to get away with seriously portraying narratives that would be out of bounds in the "approved" popular culture of the West. Murder by robocar is a minor example, but others include portrayal of the inherent weakness of societies in which men are effeminate and the superiority of leaving strategic decisions to military authorities. (I don't particularly agree with those propositions, but they are certainly present in the books.)
    - njarboe 9y ago
      I'm half-way done with the last book in the trilogy and I am finding the assumptions and viewpoints of the world from a Chinese view quite interesting. The one that struck me most was how he presents humanities greatest strength over the technologically superior aliens is the human ability to conceal their true thoughts and the possibility of deception. Quite different from Christianity's high value placed on honesty.
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        The great stories of paganism and animism were composed by artists, and they all feature trickery and uncertainty. The Christian Bible has some of that (I like Job), but the majority was written by humorless unimaginative prudes. I suppose some of the Chinese philosophers are a little better than St. Paul, but mostly when they're being playful.
- Humdeee 9y ago
  > receive ads to show you I'm just envisioning a scenario where the car automatically pulls to the side of the highway, locks the doors and dishes you with a 15 second ad, and then the doors unlock and the journey resumes as normal.
  - l9k 9y ago
    Or just (virtually) replace billboards with personalized content
- squarefoot 9y ago
  "I hope these self-driving cars will be able and designed to work while completely offline, with no built-in way to ever connect to a network." Don't hold your breath about that. There will be a huge load of data ready to be sold to advertising companies just by listening what passengers talk about when passing near areas/stores/billboards/events etc.
toomanyrichies 9y ago
Confused by the downvote here. This is a perfectly legitimate question, and indeed it should be asked more, not less, often.
- wetpaws 9y ago
  This is stupid question. The answer is - the same as if someone will physically mess with your car.
  - xeromal 9y ago
    Physical hacking can only happen to one car at a time.
    - wetpaws 9y ago
      What if someone hacks the assembly line for Ford?
wetpaws 9y ago
What if someone put a bomb in your car or mess with your breaks?
- aidenn0 9y ago
  Right, but what if someone could put a bomb in 100k cars or mess with 100k car's breaks remotely over the internet. A large enough quantitative change becomes a qualitative change.

IgorPartola 9y ago

I am definitely not. Their version of the future is too damn bleak for me. Your fear is very much grounded in reality. US lawmakers tend to be very reactionary, except in rare cases like gun laws. So it won't take much to have restrictions imposed like this. Granted, I believe some regulation is good; after all the reason today's cars are safer than those built 20 years ago isn't because the free market decided so, but because of regulation. But self driving cars are so new and our lawmakers are by and large so ignorant, that I wouldn't trust them to create good regulation from the get go.

TomMarius 9y ago
> the reason today's cars are safer than those built 20 years ago isn't because the free market decided so, but because of regulation. All safety functionality was introduced and used way before regulators even knew that it's possible. Edit: please explain the downvotes, ideally with examples
zeth___ 9y ago
Largely because of Ralph Nader. It's amazing how reformers get demonized even after their platform is accepted wholesale by the rest of the world.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
> except in rare cases like gun laws They're still very reactionary in that, which is precisely why it isn't very effective when a subset of them do react: there are plenty of smart things that could get proposed, but the overlap between people who know what they're talking about and people that want the laws is exceptionally small, so consequently dumb, ineffective stuff that has no chance of passing anyway gets proposed. What does get proposed is a knee-jerk reaction to what just happened, and rarely actually looks systemically at the current laws and gun violence as a whole. Example: the Las Vegas shooting prompted a lot of talk of bump stock bans. Bump stocks are so rarely used at all, nevermind in violence, and they will generally ruin guns that weren't originally made to be fully-automatic very quickly if they're actually used for sustained automatic fire. Silly point to focus on suddenly. After the Florida shooting last month so much focused on why rifles are easier to obtain than handguns. And it's because overwhemingly most gun violence is handguns. Easily concealable rifles are already heavily regulated at the federal level for that very reason.

pps43 9y ago

> Are you working on the next season of Black Mirror? In Black Mirror, all cars in the world will simultaneously swerve into nearby pedestrians, buildings, or other cars.

amelius 9y ago
That could happen during a massive, remotely-triggered software update.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  Like the one that happened some days ago with Occulus helmets.
- falcolas 9y ago
  Just imagine a batch of cars with malfunctioning inertial sensors (it's brought down more than a few of my drones). GPS and perception (through ML or LIDAR) will work most of the time to override such errors, but if there was a second malfunction... "The car is swerving left at 1m/s; correct right."
- PeterisP 9y ago
  That could happen because of a malicious 'time-bomb' placed by a hostile state actor in such an update.
wang_li 9y ago
It doesn't even need to be that. Imagine the shit show that a city would be when it's entire transportation fleet is immobilized because someone has messed with their safety features.
carlmr 9y ago
More likely it would be something about dissidents being killed in their cars, or cars going after people who aren't liked.

basura045478 9y ago

will never happen. least not with any explicit depth sensors. any car with lidar has depth perception orders of magnitude better than yours and would never chase an object merely because it resembles road markings

kevinwang 9y ago

To be fair, all the examples you gave could also happen to a human driver.

beedogs 9y ago

I mean, maybe the self-driving car shouldn't exist if it's just going to run people over.