8 ms·

This is tangentially related, and something I have wondered, so I will ask it here. Does anyone know how self driving cars will react to attempts by law enforc

by dsnuh 8y ago

This is tangentially related, and something I have wondered, so I will ask it here. Does anyone know how self driving cars will react to attempts by law enforcement officers to pull over the vehicle?

vamin 8y ago
They will pull over.
- jtbayly 8y ago
  One would hope! lol. But seriously, how do you know this? Just curious.
- devy 8y ago
  Another attack surface for self-driving cars
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    That was my line of thinking.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Sure, if you're willing to risk going to jail for impersonating a law enforcement officer.
    - polski-g 8y ago
      People are. See South Africa, Brazil, etc.
    - dsnuh 8y ago
      Fair enough. I'm sure some would be willing to do that, but likely not many. I do think it is going to be very interesting to work out some of the scenarios if we do get to Johnny Cab style self driving cars.
      - bryanlarsen 8y ago
        If you're willing to risk jail, disrupting traffic is ridiculously easy, self-driving cars or not.
    - schwap 8y ago
      Is fooling a computer system into thinking you are a police officer the same thing as fooling a person?
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Human drivers also pull over when people who look like the police ask them to.
- dsnuh 8y ago
  By what mechanism though? I could see a big griefing opportunity if there is some automated system that allows law enforcement to signal the vehicle to pull over.
  - vntok 8y ago
    Check out waymo's videos; the car detects the flashing lights + reflective fabric on the police officer's uniform, as well as the shoulder and arm gestures. Griefing is as much an issue as is police impersonation right now, that is a very rare occurence that will be punished very severely when occurring.
    - jellicle 8y ago
      How many different police uniforms do you think there are in the world?
      - vntok 8y ago
        Have a look[1]. Observe how they all kind of look like each other regardless of the country: shoulder pads, head cover, belt, uniform colour, formal attire, etc. Once the model knows the baseline, that is "a uniformed individual waving characteristically in front of the car", don't you think it would be quite easy to teach it with a mere few hundred pictures how local police officers look like in the current region? 1: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-different-police-uniforms-used-in-different-countries?redirected_qid=2454853#!n=12 https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-different-police-uniforms...
        notahacker 8y ago
        They don't look remotely similar to me, especially considering that black, blue, navy, grey and khaki (and reflective yellow for people on roads) are not unpopular colours for clothes worn by people who are not police officers or otherwise involved in traffic direction, many of whom may have cause to move their arms in ways comparable to signals. Humans are just a lot better at gauging intention and even simple stuff like parsing the word "police" at an oblique angle Frankly even with local training, you'd still think giving law enforcement devices to stop, restart and redirect vehicles was a minimum requirement.
- gaius 8y ago
  Have any of the major vendors documented this? Otherwise, citation needed.
  - vamin 8y ago
    "By working with the police department in Chandler, AZ, for example, Waymo has been able to train its cars to yield, pull over, or stop when it hears or sees sirens." [1] [1] https://www.recode.net/2017/10/15/16472896/alphabet-waymo-self-driving-law-enforcement-crashes-accidents https://www.recode.net/2017/10/15/16472896/alphabet-waymo-se...
    - gaius 8y ago
      Thanks!
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  And who will get the tickets? The car? The passengers? The manufacturer?
UnderProtest 8y ago
The only reason this even looks like a problem is that humans don't follow the law. In most jurisdictions if there's an emergency vehicle running flashers and/or siren behind you on the same side of the road you're supposed to slow, pull over, stop, then proceed only when the vehicle passes you. If the emergency vehicle parks behind you then you have effectively been pulled over. Pulling over safely is practically the first thing a self-driving car team works on. It is very easy to detect flashers and sirens. So... no problem. Well, except that self-driving vehicles may accidentally be pulled over by firetrucks.
- dsnuh 8y ago
  So if the autonomous vehicle hears the sirens, does it start to pull over, or wait until it can also detect flashers? What about a loud stereo playing a siren sound or a car with flashers installed on it? I'm just wondering, because although I know this sounds like a pretty simple problem, I don't think that it is.
  - UnderProtest 8y ago
    Again, the law and custom already cover this. When you hear a siren you're to become alert for the possibility of flashers behind you. You are not supposed to just start pulling over because it may not be on the same road as you and pulling over may block traffic. Imagine if every car in a crowded downtown pulled over every time the drivers could hear a siren. Instant gridlock. So a siren played loudly on the radio will not cause a rule-following car to pull over, regardless of who or what is driving it. I presume you're talking about siren sounds in music, but... Installing flashers that produce the same pattern as official police flashers and/or playing a continual siren is impersonating an officer. That's a serious crime. Fake flashers will probably cause self-driving cars to pull over but they'll also cause humans to pull over. Not a self-driving car problem. In the future police flashers can have a cryptographic element emdedded in the flash pattern that a self-driving car or a human-driven car with sensors can authenticate but that's an enhancement over the current situation. It's one of the best-defined situations in traffic because it's precisely the fallback behavior. Detect emergency vehicle behind you, pull over as far as is safe, wait. If a self-driving car can't do that then it's hardly self-driving at all. The real trouble, which you haven't brought up, is when the traffic is already at a standstill and an emergency vehicle approaches. The soft and gradual scooch-scooch movements that we have to do to clear enough space for the emergency vehicle are a much tougher case. You can pull over a self-driving car. You just may have difficulty getting past it to an emergency.

by dsnuh 8y ago

This is tangentially related, and something I have wondered, so I will ask it here. Does anyone know how self driving cars will react to attempts by law enforcement officers to pull over the vehicle?

vamin 8y ago

They will pull over.

jtbayly 8y ago
One would hope! lol. But seriously, how do you know this? Just curious.
devy 8y ago
Another attack surface for self-driving cars
- dsnuh 8y ago
  That was my line of thinking.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Sure, if you're willing to risk going to jail for impersonating a law enforcement officer.
  - polski-g 8y ago
    People are. See South Africa, Brazil, etc.
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    Fair enough. I'm sure some would be willing to do that, but likely not many. I do think it is going to be very interesting to work out some of the scenarios if we do get to Johnny Cab style self driving cars.
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      If you're willing to risk jail, disrupting traffic is ridiculously easy, self-driving cars or not.
  - schwap 8y ago
    Is fooling a computer system into thinking you are a police officer the same thing as fooling a person?
- adrianN 8y ago
  Human drivers also pull over when people who look like the police ask them to.
dsnuh 8y ago
By what mechanism though? I could see a big griefing opportunity if there is some automated system that allows law enforcement to signal the vehicle to pull over.
- vntok 8y ago
  Check out waymo's videos; the car detects the flashing lights + reflective fabric on the police officer's uniform, as well as the shoulder and arm gestures. Griefing is as much an issue as is police impersonation right now, that is a very rare occurence that will be punished very severely when occurring.
  - jellicle 8y ago
    How many different police uniforms do you think there are in the world?
    - vntok 8y ago
      Have a look[1]. Observe how they all kind of look like each other regardless of the country: shoulder pads, head cover, belt, uniform colour, formal attire, etc. Once the model knows the baseline, that is "a uniformed individual waving characteristically in front of the car", don't you think it would be quite easy to teach it with a mere few hundred pictures how local police officers look like in the current region? 1: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-different-police-uniforms-used-in-different-countries?redirected_qid=2454853#!n=12 https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-different-police-uniforms...
      - notahacker 8y ago
        They don't look remotely similar to me, especially considering that black, blue, navy, grey and khaki (and reflective yellow for people on roads) are not unpopular colours for clothes worn by people who are not police officers or otherwise involved in traffic direction, many of whom may have cause to move their arms in ways comparable to signals. Humans are just a lot better at gauging intention and even simple stuff like parsing the word "police" at an oblique angle Frankly even with local training, you'd still think giving law enforcement devices to stop, restart and redirect vehicles was a minimum requirement.
gaius 8y ago
Have any of the major vendors documented this? Otherwise, citation needed.
- vamin 8y ago
  "By working with the police department in Chandler, AZ, for example, Waymo has been able to train its cars to yield, pull over, or stop when it hears or sees sirens." [1] [1] https://www.recode.net/2017/10/15/16472896/alphabet-waymo-self-driving-law-enforcement-crashes-accidents https://www.recode.net/2017/10/15/16472896/alphabet-waymo-se...
  - gaius 8y ago
    Thanks!
onemoresoop 8y ago
And who will get the tickets? The car? The passengers? The manufacturer?

UnderProtest 8y ago

The only reason this even looks like a problem is that humans don't follow the law. In most jurisdictions if there's an emergency vehicle running flashers and/or siren behind you on the same side of the road you're supposed to slow, pull over, stop, then proceed only when the vehicle passes you. If the emergency vehicle parks behind you then you have effectively been pulled over. Pulling over safely is practically the first thing a self-driving car team works on. It is very easy to detect flashers and sirens. So... no problem. Well, except that self-driving vehicles may accidentally be pulled over by firetrucks.

dsnuh 8y ago
So if the autonomous vehicle hears the sirens, does it start to pull over, or wait until it can also detect flashers? What about a loud stereo playing a siren sound or a car with flashers installed on it? I'm just wondering, because although I know this sounds like a pretty simple problem, I don't think that it is.
- UnderProtest 8y ago
  Again, the law and custom already cover this. When you hear a siren you're to become alert for the possibility of flashers behind you. You are not supposed to just start pulling over because it may not be on the same road as you and pulling over may block traffic. Imagine if every car in a crowded downtown pulled over every time the drivers could hear a siren. Instant gridlock. So a siren played loudly on the radio will not cause a rule-following car to pull over, regardless of who or what is driving it. I presume you're talking about siren sounds in music, but... Installing flashers that produce the same pattern as official police flashers and/or playing a continual siren is impersonating an officer. That's a serious crime. Fake flashers will probably cause self-driving cars to pull over but they'll also cause humans to pull over. Not a self-driving car problem. In the future police flashers can have a cryptographic element emdedded in the flash pattern that a self-driving car or a human-driven car with sensors can authenticate but that's an enhancement over the current situation. It's one of the best-defined situations in traffic because it's precisely the fallback behavior. Detect emergency vehicle behind you, pull over as far as is safe, wait. If a self-driving car can't do that then it's hardly self-driving at all. The real trouble, which you haven't brought up, is when the traffic is already at a standstill and an emergency vehicle approaches. The soft and gradual scooch-scooch movements that we have to do to clear enough space for the emergency vehicle are a much tougher case. You can pull over a self-driving car. You just may have difficulty getting past it to an emergency.