11 ms·

Regulation, not technology is holding back driverless cars

165 points by ultrasaurus 15y ago

cletus 15y ago
No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say where you want to go and some system will route people and cars to destinations. But, the transition won't be quick or easy. You need look no further than the aviation industry to see why. Basically, automation in modern aircraft is a double-edged sword. It seems to erode the ability of pilots to actually fly [1], software errors causing deaths [2] and (I can't find the link to this) I also read a study that in more automated planes, pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience. The issue won't be how the car normally behaves because as demonstrations have shown, current systems require very little human intervention. The issue will be extraordinary circumstances plus the huge liability problem of any errors. Example: if someone runs a red light and causes a crash, killing someone, that person is responsible. If an automated car does the same thing, the manufacturer will be responsible. That alone will impede adoption. Instead I think you'll have what we already have: slowly adding automation to cars. Cars already have radars and can stop themselves from colliding, they can park themselves and so on. But at some point the driver will need to go away and that will be a tremendously challenging leap forward for society. [1]: http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--Pilot_Reliance_on_Automation_Erodes_Skills_ http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--Pilot_Reliance_... [2]: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6
- fleitz 15y ago
  "pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience." The human brain is not setup for 3D dimensions of orientation, unless you can accurately see the horizon it's more than likely that your perception of the planes orientation and vector is wrong than the instruments. In most turbulent situations the brain is wrong and the instruments are right. This is why pilots are trained to fly on instruments only. On most planes the instrumentation system actively and accurately informs pilots that their instruments are broken when they are in such a state.
  - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
    it's not just the human brain. certain g-loads at certain vectors can cause a situation where 2 different scenarios are indistinguishable without outside reference. Illustrated most famously in Einstein's elevator thought experiments.
    - blakeweb 15y ago
      Could you explain what you mean? My understanding was that Attitude indicators solved this problem using a gyroscope a long time ago. Maybe this falls into what you meant by an "outside reference", but it seems to me autopilots would clearly take these measurements into account. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator
      - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
        it does, they can fail. humans can fail at assessing relevant information as well.
- jerf 15y ago
  People generally cite the lawsuit threat, but the threat cuts both ways. I've seen lawsuits for putatively malfunctioning anti-lock brakes, and I've seen lawsuits for not including anti-lock brakes. At some point, once it is reasonably well demonstrated that automated cars drive more safely than humans under some circumstances, someone is going to file a lawsuit for not having automated drivers. It's only a matter of time. That's when it really gets legally interesting. Note I said "interesting", not "the beginning of the inevitable victory". I say "interesting" because I think we can pretty much all agree how this plays out until that happens, but I can't see past that event.
  - fleitz 15y ago
    Yup, I forsee the current seat belt system, where even in situations when it's advisable not to be wearing a seatbelt and/or the other mandated safety systems it's still illegal. The problem is a systemic one that stems from the belief that the gov't is the omnipresent nanny of its citizenry. Note: Before I get downvoted, I recognize that statistically seat belts save lives, however, there are conditions in which seatbelts cause fatalities (even when used properly), and that the choice of whether to wear or not wear one should be that of informed consent.
    - TheAmazingIdiot 15y ago
      The nanny state is what you get when you involve government in issues of health insurance and its kin. The laws and regulations then turn towards cost reduction along with "taxes" to discourage higher health costs. We only have the cigarette laws, seatbelt laws, and other 'endanger self only' actions that are regulated.
      - eru 15y ago
        As a non-smoker I like smoking bans, since smoking affects me as a by-stander, too. I would also be OK with people injecting heroin instead of smoking---anything that doesn't stink.
        15y ago
- JoeCortopassi 15y ago
  I couldn't get past the (unclosed parenthese in the second sentence. It's like my inner programmer went into OCD overload...
  - jacques_chester 15y ago
    I couldn't get past the use of "parenthese"[] as a singular noun in the first sentence. It's like my inner pedant went into OCD overload. 1:Parenthesis :: >1:Parentheses
    - jacques_chester 15y ago
      ... hoist on my own petard.
    - JoeCortopassi 15y ago
      touche
  - mryall 15y ago
    http://xkcd.com/859/ http://xkcd.com/859/
georgieporgie 15y ago
No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much as we routinely test emissions and brake lights. Having lived in Oregon, Arizona, and California, I have never had anything other than emissions routinely inspected. Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself. (I do love the idea of an automated train of cars, and driving my drunk self home, though)
- trafficlight 15y ago
  You're right. A gradual easing in to the idea of smarter cars would make driver-less cars less of a shock in the future.
- true_religion 15y ago
  > Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself. I don't know about other cars, but all model Porsche's will do exactly this. Granted, it doesn't have as many sensors as I would like--leading to it only giving an 'engine warning' light for innumerable problems, but when it comes to breaks, oils, lights, etc. it has a pretty fine grained detection pattern.
  - spitfire 15y ago
    Same with the jaguar XJ since 1988. brake pads low is neat to see show up in the display. The XJ has more sensors so it gives more than just check engine.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Can your average human driver handle any of those situations either? I wager not. "alert on burnt out bulbs" I'm not sure I've seen a car from the current or past 2 decades that doesn't do this...
______ 15y ago
Speed limits are another realm in which regulation can hold back the development of driverless cars, besides merely allowing them on the streets in the first place. With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits, by introducing some ceiling to the speed attainable by the car. I'm sure some "well-meaning" legislator will make it his or her priority to ensure that speed limits are never exceeded. However, at least in Massachusetts, if you go on the highway, everyone (including police) drive at ~75 MPH even though the posted speed limit is 55 or 65 MPH. Few will buy a car with this kind of handicap, were it to exist -- and I worry that it will. Many speed limits in the US were imposed decades ago, with less safe and responsive cars -- it would be a pity if potentially revolutionary technology advances were thwarted by this fact. Legislation has already crippled or made useless many useful automotive innovations. In the US, technologies that allow for adaptive cruise control (maintaining a distance to the car in front of you) can only decelerate the car, and not accelerate the car. This forces the driver to have to constantly accelerate, greatly reducing the effectiveness of this feature. Many computer-laden vehicles with navigation systems are similarly crippled -- they automatically "lock" when the car is in motion, and some (like in Lexus vehicles) cannot even be overridden by people sitting in the passenger seat... often causing unintended risks like drivers pulling over on busy highways just to readjust their GPS target.
- adrianN 15y ago
  Or they introduce a robot-only lane where the cars can decide for themselves what a safe speed it, making speed limits obsolete. When cars can communicate with each other about dangers, much higher speeds are possible with less distance between cars.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    An absolutely fantastic idea. It's a shame it will never happen.
- uvdiv 15y ago
  With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits Why the hell would you want speed limits on a road with computerized cars? That's the whole point of eliminating human error and human limitations from the control loop, that 200 mph+ driving can be extremely safe.
melling 15y ago
One idea would be to make some long haul roads, or sections of them, completely driverless. Maine to Miami along a section of I95, or NYC to LA. We could start the test with tractor trailers. Let them drive for a few years and tune the system. There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7 without drivers.
- nickpinkston 15y ago
  Totally - I've been saying this forever: make the current HOV system enabled for driverless cars. Then it's a competition between fast driverless & slow driven - let's see what people do.
- paganel 15y ago
  > There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7 without drivers. What would happen to the current drivers? Which new jobs should they pick?
  - eru 15y ago
    Who cares? There was a time when 80% of the population used to work on farms. Now much less than 10% work on farms in the western world. Do we have 70% unemployment?
  - jdminhbg 15y ago
    They can become candlemakers: http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
  - jeffool 15y ago
    The increased unemployment due to automation isn't a new problem, just finally getting attention. As also said in reply to you, farms make the perfect example. An arce produces far more food now than at any point in the past. The bigger question is: Will we enter a new social contract where all people benefit from automation, our will only the property owners? Currently, we're trending heavily toward the latter. Regardless, that is a political issue, and unavoidable. Whatever we decide, even to my detriment, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't let it guide technological progress. At least not just yet.
jxcole 15y ago
My dad works in the airplane industry and had an interesting story to tell me that relates to this. (I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is or what the source is, sorry). Apparently, it is illegal for pilots to read while flying. Even if they are heading in a straight line with no one around for miles. This is because one time an pilot wasn't paying attention and due to a series of software failures, the plane turned into a mountain. Interestingly, the plane was tuning at a very exact amount so that the number of Gs remained constant. In any case, this single crash caused regulation to state that computers can never fly planes by themselves. This strikes me as rather unfair. If a single human crashed a plane, it does not make it illegal for humans to fly planes by themselves. Another example is that in London, subways must be driven by a human. Even though driving a subway may be trivial (there is no way to steer), Londoners apparently do not feel comfortable being driven by a non-living thing. They want to be sure that if they die, the driver dies too, adding a level of accountability. It seems that this sort of wide-spread mistrust of machines is driven more by socially normal paranoia than any kind of logic. I for one am rooting for machines to take over all forms of driving. There may be a few mishaps, but it will probably become hundreds of times safer eventually.
- billybob 15y ago
  Counterpoint: as an airplane passenger, my experience is the same whether there's a human pilot or not; I sit in my seat until the ride is over. But in my car, if it could drive itself, I could get in the back seat and sleep. I could have a tiny apartment back there and read or play video games. I think that if people will text while they drive, risking their lives for a tiny message, they will gladly let their car drive for the payoff of getting to do whatever they want during the trip. Side effect: if people can sleep comfortably in the back seat while their car drives, suddenly a 4-hour commute may sound reasonable. That's going to screw with city planning, pollution, etc.
- daniel-cussen 15y ago
  Unions have a lot to do with this as well.
  - nickpinkston 15y ago
ultrasaurus 15y ago
So much of technical progress happens through delivering most of the value of the previous solution at a fraction of the cost (email vs postal mail). Society seems to rule this kind of progress out for a few industries like health care, I assume something similar is happening here.
- william42 15y ago
  The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
  - pash 15y ago
    > The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor. As a matter of policy, the FDA will not approve any device that makes a medical diagnosis without human intervention. [1] Recently there have been numerous studies and much punditry accusing the American medical regulatory environment of stifling innovation and driving up costs. [2][3][4] The arguments are strikingly similar to Cowen's argument re autonomous cars. [1]: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/ http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/ [2]: For a quick summary, see http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-the-m http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-t... [3]: A much discussed recent report [PDF] is at http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=668&Itemid=93 http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc... [4]: An article in JAMA opined similarly [PAYWALL], http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract
chrismealy 15y ago
We don't need driveless cars, we need carless people: http://www.carfree.com/ http://www.carfree.com/
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- wazoox 15y ago
  Given the looming energy crisis, the coming climate crisis, and the "peak everything" crisis, we'll get there sooner and later.
- alnayyir 15y ago
  This would make riding my motorcycle much safer, I like it.
  - seanx 15y ago
    If driverless cars start reducing the car road toll then motorbikes will start to look really dangerous:(. I suppose we could get self driving motorbikes but that would be missing the point of riding.
    - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
      given that a huge proportion, maybe even the majority, are caused by people in cars turning in front of or merging into motorcyclists I doubt it.
- wladimir 15y ago
  Right. The internet has taken away the need for a large part of the reasons for driving or (non-entertainment) travelling. Making more use of telecommuting will drive down the number of accidents without the potential risks and liability issues of driverless cars. Not that driverless cars aren't neat, but I agree it is the solution to the wrong problem.
toddh 15y ago
Perhaps it's because software has an obvious history of being buggy. A web service won't be down for a while if this fails, hundreds of lives being at risk on a 24 hour a day basis. Maybe a little wait-and-see is a reasoned approach for a complex interactive dynamical system like this?
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  I don't think there is a computer in the world that has a worse uptime than myself. Even old cheap Windows ME boxes did a fair enough job of being able to run without impairment for more than 20 hours or so.
  - toddh 15y ago
    The complexity of the applications will be far greater than Windows ME. Good article on The Long, Dismal History of Software Project Failure - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-history-of-software-project-failure.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-his.... Before we let everyone's self-driving mashup on the road it might be good to figure out if they work first.
erikpukinskis 15y ago
I wonder if driverless cars could start out as a tool for people with disabilities. If such use were challenged, I can imagine the supreme court taking seriously a case by a person who is quadriplegic or blind demanding the right to use a self-driving car. If they can prove them safer, it will be hard to find a compelling government interest that could offset denying the use of this assistive technology.
- kwis 15y ago
  They appear to be starting as 'driver aids' on new cars. Today's higher-end cars have adopted technology that alerts you when you drift out of your lane, watches your blind spots, safely follows the car in front of you, performs emergency stops, parallel parks itself, and adjusts vehicle dynamics in a multitude of ways. My assumption is that this is a first step towards driverless cars, as it provides the manufacturers a way to test critical technologies in a safe environment. If the dealerships aren't downloading data from these systems, and sharing it back to the engineering groups, thats an enormous wasted opportunity.
  - janesvilleseo 15y ago
    I believe your assumption is correct as well. All of these 'new high tech safety toys' are the tip of the iceberg. With all of these components being used and people becoming comfortable with them, we will soon see more adoption towards driverless cars. I think another major milestone towards this will be the next generation of GPS, with the increased accuracy it will help guide the cars where they need to go.
blue1 15y ago
I suspect that this kind of "risky" technology will be deployed first in more adventurous countries, like China.
joel_ms 15y ago
>But it’s clear that in the early part of the 20th century, the original advent of the motor car was not impeded by anything like the current mélange of regulations, laws and lawsuits. They did try in the 19th century though, at least in the UK, with the Locomotive Acts[1]. The way those laws went out of their way to protect the status quo (i.e. horse-powered transport) is an interesting parallell to today's possible transition from human-controlled to computer-controlled transport. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts
- meric 15y ago
  "The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act):[5] Set speed limits of 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns. Stipulated that self-propelled vehicles should be accompanied by a crew of three: the driver, a stoker and a man with a red flag walking 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle. The man with a red flag or lantern enforced a walking pace, and warned horse riders and horse drawn traffic of the approach of a self propelled machine."
Jd 15y ago
The article doesn't make its case very well. The core problem people are presumably worried about is safety, and saying it they have a "good safety record" is hardly enough to reassure the senators, etc. who would presumably be responsible for relaxing restrictions. For example, what about edge cases? Suppose the Google car does just fine in normal driving conditions, but in a blizzard w/ 26 mile per hour gusts of wind (as I drove in recently), or when a tractor trailer flips over on the road in front of you? Humans have a certain intuition that allows them to do bizarre twitches in extreme situations (even including supernormal strength) that presumably no machine intelligence will be able to approach for a long time (if ever). Or what about the possibility of someone hacking the car? Could a worm engineered by some hostile government take millions of cars off the road -- or, worse, cause them all to steer into the median and cause mass damage and thousands of instant casualties? It is, frankly, irresponsible not to consider edge cases like these when drafting legislation, and while I'm all for gradual introduction and more testing, the author of this article has convinced me that senators sitting on their hands not doing anything are probably acting on the interests of the people much more so than those who wish to simply hand over driving and navigation functions to machines as soon as possible.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
kmfrk 15y ago
Maybe we just need to emphasize the negative impact of long commutes. Suddenly you have that commute time to do something else. :)
zandor 15y ago
A somewhat similar note put very nicely by James May from Top Gear; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0IxnxwJSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0IxnxwJSU
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
This is the crux of the matter: > imagine that the cars would save many lives over all, but lead to some bad accidents when a car malfunctions. The evening news might show a “Terminator” car spinning out of control and killing a child. There could be demands to shut down the cars until just about every problem is solved. The lives saved by the cars would not be as visible as the lives lost, and therefore the law might thwart or delay what could be a very beneficial innovation. It's otiose to point out that the premise of personal motor vehicles is not called into question every time a human driver spins out of control and kills someone.
- cyrus_ 15y ago
  Human psychology operates in a realm only dimly linked to logic, my friend. Consider the response in the US to the "risk" of terrorism, which in quantitative terms is tiny.
uuilly 15y ago
Regulation and fear are to be expected. The question is, what to do about them? I predict the largest PR campaign in the history of technology. Public opinion generally drives regulation. So less public fear will lead to less regulation. While I have no way to prove it, I'd bet my right hand that Google's PR people made this story happen. I'd bet they also made the first NYT piece blowing up the Chauffeur project happen and they made it look serendipitous for authenticity. I think "The Suit is Back," and I think it's going to come back again and again. Prediction: Driverless cars will be portrayed in a very positive way in a major motion picture within the next year.
pnathan 15y ago
Some things aren't brought into focus here. (1) Off-highway driving happens. That means that the algorithms have to manage an uncontrolled environment where 'anything' can happen. (2) It is very expensive to create bug-free software. (3) You can't iterate by failing fast on life-critical systems after it is released. Failure means killing someone. (4) Legal liabilities. It's not going to work to say something like, "This car's driver software is not warranted free from defects". (5) Humans can manage situations utterly outside the norm; algorithms can not see beyond the vision of the designer. I work in an industry which operates below the levels of software assurance that the medical/flight industries work at, and it is incredibly painstaking as it is. A fully automated car will be very expensive to build. I am not a paranoiac regarding software. I am a paranoiac regarding software bugs and the limits of the software designers.
wallflower 15y ago
I'm not sure I trust the underlying architectures that are being developed with my life... DDOS and MITM attacks take a whole-new meaning if the networked entities are 3-ton objects moving at 65 mph.
jomohke 15y ago
Ars Technica did a great series on the technology and economics of self driving cars a few years ago: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-driving-part-1.ars http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-driving...
schwit 15y ago
"There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005." Can we stop calling all motor vehicle crashes accidents. If the driver was drunk or purposely distracted it is NO more an accident than if I was randomly firing a gun hoping no one got hit.
stretchwithme 15y ago
Its possible to prove that driverless cars can be safe. And that's by keeping cars from having accidents. If safety systems can keep human drivers from having accidents by stopping vehicles before they can have an accident, they can do the same for robotic vehicles. Such systems would place limits on how fast you could accelerate, turn the wheel or apply the brakes. And they would also brake for you when other vehicles, pedestrians and animals appear to be on a collision course. Such systems will have to be proven in the real world. And we are starting to see them. The newest Mercedes have such features. I predict that full blown systems will dramatically lower accidents for older people, teenagers and those who drive under the influence. Eventually all new cars will have these systems. And by then it will be a lot easier to trust the machines.

165 points by ultrasaurus 15y ago

No surprises there. The transition to driverless cars is (IMHO inevitable. At some point it will be cheap enough that the additional cost will pale in comparison to the lives that will be saved as well as the simple convenience of being able to do something else while commuting somewhere. Likewise I see this kind of thing replacing many forms of public transportation. There will simply be a fleet of cars. You'll say where you want to go and some system will route people and cars to destinations. But, the transition won't be quick or easy. You need look no further than the aviation industry to see why. Basically, automation in modern aircraft is a double-edged sword. It seems to erode the ability of pilots to actually fly [1], software errors causing deaths [2] and (I can't find the link to this) I also read a study that in more automated planes, pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience. The issue won't be how the car normally behaves because as demonstrations have shown, current systems require very little human intervention. The issue will be extraordinary circumstances plus the huge liability problem of any errors. Example: if someone runs a red light and causes a crash, killing someone, that person is responsible. If an automated car does the same thing, the manufacturer will be responsible. That alone will impede adoption. Instead I think you'll have what we already have: slowly adding automation to cars. Cars already have radars and can stop themselves from colliding, they can park themselves and so on. But at some point the driver will need to go away and that will be a tremendously challenging leap forward for society. [1]: http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--Pilot_Reliance_on_Automation_Erodes_Skills_ http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-4530--Pilot_Reliance_... [2]: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/8.77.html#subj6

fleitz 15y ago
"pilots are more likely to believe erroneous instruments rather than their own senses and experience." The human brain is not setup for 3D dimensions of orientation, unless you can accurately see the horizon it's more than likely that your perception of the planes orientation and vector is wrong than the instruments. In most turbulent situations the brain is wrong and the instruments are right. This is why pilots are trained to fly on instruments only. On most planes the instrumentation system actively and accurately informs pilots that their instruments are broken when they are in such a state.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  it's not just the human brain. certain g-loads at certain vectors can cause a situation where 2 different scenarios are indistinguishable without outside reference. Illustrated most famously in Einstein's elevator thought experiments.
  - blakeweb 15y ago
    Could you explain what you mean? My understanding was that Attitude indicators solved this problem using a gyroscope a long time ago. Maybe this falls into what you meant by an "outside reference", but it seems to me autopilots would clearly take these measurements into account. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator
    - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
      it does, they can fail. humans can fail at assessing relevant information as well.
jerf 15y ago
People generally cite the lawsuit threat, but the threat cuts both ways. I've seen lawsuits for putatively malfunctioning anti-lock brakes, and I've seen lawsuits for not including anti-lock brakes. At some point, once it is reasonably well demonstrated that automated cars drive more safely than humans under some circumstances, someone is going to file a lawsuit for not having automated drivers. It's only a matter of time. That's when it really gets legally interesting. Note I said "interesting", not "the beginning of the inevitable victory". I say "interesting" because I think we can pretty much all agree how this plays out until that happens, but I can't see past that event.
- fleitz 15y ago
  Yup, I forsee the current seat belt system, where even in situations when it's advisable not to be wearing a seatbelt and/or the other mandated safety systems it's still illegal. The problem is a systemic one that stems from the belief that the gov't is the omnipresent nanny of its citizenry. Note: Before I get downvoted, I recognize that statistically seat belts save lives, however, there are conditions in which seatbelts cause fatalities (even when used properly), and that the choice of whether to wear or not wear one should be that of informed consent.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 15y ago
    The nanny state is what you get when you involve government in issues of health insurance and its kin. The laws and regulations then turn towards cost reduction along with "taxes" to discourage higher health costs. We only have the cigarette laws, seatbelt laws, and other 'endanger self only' actions that are regulated.
    - eru 15y ago
      As a non-smoker I like smoking bans, since smoking affects me as a by-stander, too. I would also be OK with people injecting heroin instead of smoking---anything that doesn't stink.
      - 15y ago
JoeCortopassi 15y ago
I couldn't get past the (unclosed parenthese in the second sentence. It's like my inner programmer went into OCD overload...
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  I couldn't get past the use of "parenthese"[] as a singular noun in the first sentence. It's like my inner pedant went into OCD overload. 1:Parenthesis :: >1:Parentheses
  - jacques_chester 15y ago
    ... hoist on my own petard.
  - JoeCortopassi 15y ago
    touche
- mryall 15y ago
  http://xkcd.com/859/ http://xkcd.com/859/

georgieporgie 15y ago

No state has anything close to a functioning system to inspect whether the computers in driverless cars are in good working order, much as we routinely test emissions and brake lights. Having lived in Oregon, Arizona, and California, I have never had anything other than emissions routinely inspected. Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself. (I do love the idea of an automated train of cars, and driving my drunk self home, though)

trafficlight 15y ago
You're right. A gradual easing in to the idea of smarter cars would make driver-less cars less of a shock in the future.
true_religion 15y ago
> Demonstrate a car smart enough to monitor its own brake pad wear, alert on burnt out bulbs, and provide a clear readout of all detected issues (i.e. not a coded blinking service light, or plug interface) before you start trying to make it drive itself. I don't know about other cars, but all model Porsche's will do exactly this. Granted, it doesn't have as many sensors as I would like--leading to it only giving an 'engine warning' light for innumerable problems, but when it comes to breaks, oils, lights, etc. it has a pretty fine grained detection pattern.
- spitfire 15y ago
  Same with the jaguar XJ since 1988. brake pads low is neat to see show up in the display. The XJ has more sensors so it gives more than just check engine.
burgerbrain 15y ago
Can your average human driver handle any of those situations either? I wager not. "alert on burnt out bulbs" I'm not sure I've seen a car from the current or past 2 decades that doesn't do this...

______ 15y ago

Speed limits are another realm in which regulation can hold back the development of driverless cars, besides merely allowing them on the streets in the first place. With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits, by introducing some ceiling to the speed attainable by the car. I'm sure some "well-meaning" legislator will make it his or her priority to ensure that speed limits are never exceeded. However, at least in Massachusetts, if you go on the highway, everyone (including police) drive at ~75 MPH even though the posted speed limit is 55 or 65 MPH. Few will buy a car with this kind of handicap, were it to exist -- and I worry that it will. Many speed limits in the US were imposed decades ago, with less safe and responsive cars -- it would be a pity if potentially revolutionary technology advances were thwarted by this fact. Legislation has already crippled or made useless many useful automotive innovations. In the US, technologies that allow for adaptive cruise control (maintaining a distance to the car in front of you) can only decelerate the car, and not accelerate the car. This forces the driver to have to constantly accelerate, greatly reducing the effectiveness of this feature. Many computer-laden vehicles with navigation systems are similarly crippled -- they automatically "lock" when the car is in motion, and some (like in Lexus vehicles) cannot even be overridden by people sitting in the passenger seat... often causing unintended risks like drivers pulling over on busy highways just to readjust their GPS target.

adrianN 15y ago
Or they introduce a robot-only lane where the cars can decide for themselves what a safe speed it, making speed limits obsolete. When cars can communicate with each other about dangers, much higher speeds are possible with less distance between cars.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  An absolutely fantastic idea. It's a shame it will never happen.
uvdiv 15y ago
With computerized drivers, it will finally be possible to fully enforce speed limits Why the hell would you want speed limits on a road with computerized cars? That's the whole point of eliminating human error and human limitations from the control loop, that 200 mph+ driving can be extremely safe.

melling 15y ago

One idea would be to make some long haul roads, or sections of them, completely driverless. Maine to Miami along a section of I95, or NYC to LA. We could start the test with tractor trailers. Let them drive for a few years and tune the system. There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7 without drivers.

nickpinkston 15y ago
Totally - I've been saying this forever: make the current HOV system enabled for driverless cars. Then it's a competition between fast driverless & slow driven - let's see what people do.
paganel 15y ago
> There would be a huge economic benefit to allowing trucks to run 24x7 without drivers. What would happen to the current drivers? Which new jobs should they pick?
- eru 15y ago
  Who cares? There was a time when 80% of the population used to work on farms. Now much less than 10% work on farms in the western world. Do we have 70% unemployment?
- jdminhbg 15y ago
  They can become candlemakers: http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
- jeffool 15y ago
  The increased unemployment due to automation isn't a new problem, just finally getting attention. As also said in reply to you, farms make the perfect example. An arce produces far more food now than at any point in the past. The bigger question is: Will we enter a new social contract where all people benefit from automation, our will only the property owners? Currently, we're trending heavily toward the latter. Regardless, that is a political issue, and unavoidable. Whatever we decide, even to my detriment, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't let it guide technological progress. At least not just yet.

jxcole 15y ago

My dad works in the airplane industry and had an interesting story to tell me that relates to this. (I'm not sure exactly how accurate it is or what the source is, sorry). Apparently, it is illegal for pilots to read while flying. Even if they are heading in a straight line with no one around for miles. This is because one time an pilot wasn't paying attention and due to a series of software failures, the plane turned into a mountain. Interestingly, the plane was tuning at a very exact amount so that the number of Gs remained constant. In any case, this single crash caused regulation to state that computers can never fly planes by themselves. This strikes me as rather unfair. If a single human crashed a plane, it does not make it illegal for humans to fly planes by themselves. Another example is that in London, subways must be driven by a human. Even though driving a subway may be trivial (there is no way to steer), Londoners apparently do not feel comfortable being driven by a non-living thing. They want to be sure that if they die, the driver dies too, adding a level of accountability. It seems that this sort of wide-spread mistrust of machines is driven more by socially normal paranoia than any kind of logic. I for one am rooting for machines to take over all forms of driving. There may be a few mishaps, but it will probably become hundreds of times safer eventually.

billybob 15y ago
Counterpoint: as an airplane passenger, my experience is the same whether there's a human pilot or not; I sit in my seat until the ride is over. But in my car, if it could drive itself, I could get in the back seat and sleep. I could have a tiny apartment back there and read or play video games. I think that if people will text while they drive, risking their lives for a tiny message, they will gladly let their car drive for the payoff of getting to do whatever they want during the trip. Side effect: if people can sleep comfortably in the back seat while their car drives, suddenly a 4-hour commute may sound reasonable. That's going to screw with city planning, pollution, etc.
daniel-cussen 15y ago
Unions have a lot to do with this as well.
- nickpinkston 15y ago

ultrasaurus 15y ago

So much of technical progress happens through delivering most of the value of the previous solution at a fraction of the cost (email vs postal mail). Society seems to rule this kind of progress out for a few industries like health care, I assume something similar is happening here.

william42 15y ago
The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
- pash 15y ago
  > The problem with healthcare is not that progress is being ruled out but that healthcare is highly labor-driven. So far there's no machinery that can replace a doctor. As a matter of policy, the FDA will not approve any device that makes a medical diagnosis without human intervention. [1] Recently there have been numerous studies and much punditry accusing the American medical regulatory environment of stifling innovation and driving up costs. [2][3][4] The arguments are strikingly similar to Cowen's argument re autonomous cars. [1]: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/ http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37596/ [2]: For a quick summary, see http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-the-m http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/25/will-fda-regulation-kill-t... [3]: A much discussed recent report [PDF] is at http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=668&Itemid=93 http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc... [4]: An article in JAMA opined similarly [PAYWALL], http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/15/1523.extract

chrismealy 15y ago

We don't need driveless cars, we need carless people: http://www.carfree.com/ http://www.carfree.com/

deleted 15y ago
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wazoox 15y ago
Given the looming energy crisis, the coming climate crisis, and the "peak everything" crisis, we'll get there sooner and later.
alnayyir 15y ago
This would make riding my motorcycle much safer, I like it.
- seanx 15y ago
  If driverless cars start reducing the car road toll then motorbikes will start to look really dangerous:(. I suppose we could get self driving motorbikes but that would be missing the point of riding.
  - nazgulnarsil 15y ago
    given that a huge proportion, maybe even the majority, are caused by people in cars turning in front of or merging into motorcyclists I doubt it.
wladimir 15y ago
Right. The internet has taken away the need for a large part of the reasons for driving or (non-entertainment) travelling. Making more use of telecommuting will drive down the number of accidents without the potential risks and liability issues of driverless cars. Not that driverless cars aren't neat, but I agree it is the solution to the wrong problem.

toddh 15y ago

Perhaps it's because software has an obvious history of being buggy. A web service won't be down for a while if this fails, hundreds of lives being at risk on a 24 hour a day basis. Maybe a little wait-and-see is a reasoned approach for a complex interactive dynamical system like this?

burgerbrain 15y ago
I don't think there is a computer in the world that has a worse uptime than myself. Even old cheap Windows ME boxes did a fair enough job of being able to run without impairment for more than 20 hours or so.
- toddh 15y ago
  The complexity of the applications will be far greater than Windows ME. Good article on The Long, Dismal History of Software Project Failure - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-history-of-software-project-failure.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/05/the-long-dismal-his.... Before we let everyone's self-driving mashup on the road it might be good to figure out if they work first.

erikpukinskis 15y ago

I wonder if driverless cars could start out as a tool for people with disabilities. If such use were challenged, I can imagine the supreme court taking seriously a case by a person who is quadriplegic or blind demanding the right to use a self-driving car. If they can prove them safer, it will be hard to find a compelling government interest that could offset denying the use of this assistive technology.

kwis 15y ago
They appear to be starting as 'driver aids' on new cars. Today's higher-end cars have adopted technology that alerts you when you drift out of your lane, watches your blind spots, safely follows the car in front of you, performs emergency stops, parallel parks itself, and adjusts vehicle dynamics in a multitude of ways. My assumption is that this is a first step towards driverless cars, as it provides the manufacturers a way to test critical technologies in a safe environment. If the dealerships aren't downloading data from these systems, and sharing it back to the engineering groups, thats an enormous wasted opportunity.
- janesvilleseo 15y ago
  I believe your assumption is correct as well. All of these 'new high tech safety toys' are the tip of the iceberg. With all of these components being used and people becoming comfortable with them, we will soon see more adoption towards driverless cars. I think another major milestone towards this will be the next generation of GPS, with the increased accuracy it will help guide the cars where they need to go.

blue1 15y ago

I suspect that this kind of "risky" technology will be deployed first in more adventurous countries, like China.

joel_ms 15y ago

>But it’s clear that in the early part of the 20th century, the original advent of the motor car was not impeded by anything like the current mélange of regulations, laws and lawsuits. They did try in the 19th century though, at least in the UK, with the Locomotive Acts[1]. The way those laws went out of their way to protect the status quo (i.e. horse-powered transport) is an interesting parallell to today's possible transition from human-controlled to computer-controlled transport. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive_Acts

meric 15y ago
"The Locomotive Act 1865 (Red Flag Act):[5] Set speed limits of 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns. Stipulated that self-propelled vehicles should be accompanied by a crew of three: the driver, a stoker and a man with a red flag walking 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle. The man with a red flag or lantern enforced a walking pace, and warned horse riders and horse drawn traffic of the approach of a self propelled machine."

Jd 15y ago

The article doesn't make its case very well. The core problem people are presumably worried about is safety, and saying it they have a "good safety record" is hardly enough to reassure the senators, etc. who would presumably be responsible for relaxing restrictions. For example, what about edge cases? Suppose the Google car does just fine in normal driving conditions, but in a blizzard w/ 26 mile per hour gusts of wind (as I drove in recently), or when a tractor trailer flips over on the road in front of you? Humans have a certain intuition that allows them to do bizarre twitches in extreme situations (even including supernormal strength) that presumably no machine intelligence will be able to approach for a long time (if ever). Or what about the possibility of someone hacking the car? Could a worm engineered by some hostile government take millions of cars off the road -- or, worse, cause them all to steer into the median and cause mass damage and thousands of instant casualties? It is, frankly, irresponsible not to consider edge cases like these when drafting legislation, and while I'm all for gradual introduction and more testing, the author of this article has convinced me that senators sitting on their hands not doing anything are probably acting on the interests of the people much more so than those who wish to simply hand over driving and navigation functions to machines as soon as possible.

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kmfrk 15y ago

Maybe we just need to emphasize the negative impact of long commutes. Suddenly you have that commute time to do something else. :)

zandor 15y ago

A somewhat similar note put very nicely by James May from Top Gear; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0IxnxwJSU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0IxnxwJSU

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

This is the crux of the matter: > imagine that the cars would save many lives over all, but lead to some bad accidents when a car malfunctions. The evening news might show a “Terminator” car spinning out of control and killing a child. There could be demands to shut down the cars until just about every problem is solved. The lives saved by the cars would not be as visible as the lives lost, and therefore the law might thwart or delay what could be a very beneficial innovation. It's otiose to point out that the premise of personal motor vehicles is not called into question every time a human driver spins out of control and kills someone.

cyrus_ 15y ago
Human psychology operates in a realm only dimly linked to logic, my friend. Consider the response in the US to the "risk" of terrorism, which in quantitative terms is tiny.

uuilly 15y ago

Regulation and fear are to be expected. The question is, what to do about them? I predict the largest PR campaign in the history of technology. Public opinion generally drives regulation. So less public fear will lead to less regulation. While I have no way to prove it, I'd bet my right hand that Google's PR people made this story happen. I'd bet they also made the first NYT piece blowing up the Chauffeur project happen and they made it look serendipitous for authenticity. I think "The Suit is Back," and I think it's going to come back again and again. Prediction: Driverless cars will be portrayed in a very positive way in a major motion picture within the next year.

pnathan 15y ago

Some things aren't brought into focus here. (1) Off-highway driving happens. That means that the algorithms have to manage an uncontrolled environment where 'anything' can happen. (2) It is very expensive to create bug-free software. (3) You can't iterate by failing fast on life-critical systems after it is released. Failure means killing someone. (4) Legal liabilities. It's not going to work to say something like, "This car's driver software is not warranted free from defects". (5) Humans can manage situations utterly outside the norm; algorithms can not see beyond the vision of the designer. I work in an industry which operates below the levels of software assurance that the medical/flight industries work at, and it is incredibly painstaking as it is. A fully automated car will be very expensive to build. I am not a paranoiac regarding software. I am a paranoiac regarding software bugs and the limits of the software designers.

wallflower 15y ago

I'm not sure I trust the underlying architectures that are being developed with my life... DDOS and MITM attacks take a whole-new meaning if the networked entities are 3-ton objects moving at 65 mph.

jomohke 15y ago

Ars Technica did a great series on the technology and economics of self driving cars a few years ago: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-driving-part-1.ars http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/future-of-driving...

schwit 15y ago

"There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005." Can we stop calling all motor vehicle crashes accidents. If the driver was drunk or purposely distracted it is NO more an accident than if I was randomly firing a gun hoping no one got hit.

stretchwithme 15y ago

Its possible to prove that driverless cars can be safe. And that's by keeping cars from having accidents. If safety systems can keep human drivers from having accidents by stopping vehicles before they can have an accident, they can do the same for robotic vehicles. Such systems would place limits on how fast you could accelerate, turn the wheel or apply the brakes. And they would also brake for you when other vehicles, pedestrians and animals appear to be on a collision course. Such systems will have to be proven in the real world. And we are starting to see them. The newest Mercedes have such features. I predict that full blown systems will dramatically lower accidents for older people, teenagers and those who drive under the influence. Eventually all new cars will have these systems. And by then it will be a lot easier to trust the machines.