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this is not a problem because if other cars with the same program don't crash it's not the programmer's. The owner of the vehicle will pay. But if others also c

this is not a problem because if other cars with the same program don't crash it's not the programmer's. The owner of the vehicle will pay. But if others also crash with similar situations, then the programmer/company will pay. That said, I will never get a self driving car. I like automation in everything except cars. Driving should be a fun experience.

crusso 14y ago
You won't have a choice. At some point, automated driving cars will drive better than people statistically speaking. They'll save more fuel and traffic will flow much more efficiently. Imagine if 4+ vehicles make it through every busy intersection light because autonomous vehicles are never busy daydreaming or checking text messages. Imagine if the oscillation of busy traffic on the interstate basically went away so you didn't have random stop-n-go (think metering lights but much more efficient). Once some of these things begin to be proven - something that Google and other manufacturers will be guaranteed to demonstrate early on - legislation will quickly follow mandating that all new cars be autonomous. Liability insurance for non-autonomous vehicles will skyrocket. Driving yourself will be something you only do on specialized entertainment tracks and video games.
- babesh 14y ago
  How would you explain planes then? We have had autopilot for awhile but there is no law that planes be autonomous. Anyway, the question is who is liable. If we take the plane industry as an example, then if the autopilot is at fault the seller is liable. It is not reasonable for an autonomous vehicle to say 'I give up, have the controls back' whenever it is about to crash. Especially not if the would be driver cannot drive (blind, elderly, young children, etc...) The only issue is that Google and other autonomous car manufacturers don't want to be liable because the potential liability will be enormous but they want autonomous cars. The prediction is that those companies will try/are trying to get legislation to shift liability to the owners of the cars possibly as part of their insurance (autonomous car coverage). Another question is if a machine kills a human even if by accident, is the entity who created the machine at fault? Again, it will be a matter of politics and power rather than right and wrong. If it was otherwise, corporate officeholders would have long been in jail.
  - crusso 14y ago
    How would you explain planes then? The FAA decrees lots of safety equipment to be present and used on commercial aircraft. It's worth noting that plane autopilots are not at the door-to-door level that we're talking about with autonomous cars. Also, Pilots are much better trained than drivers, so there's less impetus to get them away from the controls. Sooner or later, though, planes will be flown completely by wire. When it's demonstrable that autonomous planes fly better than real pilots gate-to-gate, that will become legally enforced. Anyway, the question is who is liable In this sub-thread, I was just addressing the previous poster who said that he would never own an autonomous vehicle. Just to throw my two cents in... in all likelihood, Google will need to demonstrate that their vehicles are more safe than "normal drivers". When you buy a Google car, you will need to buy auto insurance that covers an autonomous vehicle. Depending upon actuarial tables, that insurance will be more or less than your current insurance. Google's liability would likely only extend to extreme defects in the AI and/or death-causing defects that are systemic and can be shown to be the result of negligence or not disclosed to customers. politics and power rather than right and wrong I object to the immediate contention that you or anyone else really knows what's right or wrong at this point. Your statement above "to shift liability to the owners of the cars" gives away where you think liability lies. I don't think that's at all clear. If Google creates all the cars from here on out and deaths on the highway are cut in half... does that mean that they're liable for the deaths that still occur? That number of deaths would have occurred anyway. Google did nothing wrong, they actually saved tens of thousands of lives. So what's that worth? Suing them out of existence for the deaths they didn't prevent? In order to book those lives saved, we'll all need to pay for our own insurance for most accidents.
Tuna-Fish 14y ago
In a few short years, laws will prevent you from driving on the public roads without some level of automation. There are something like >30k deaths on the highways per year these days. That's the equivalent of all American Vietnam war casualties every two years. The highways are more dangerous than any war the US has been in since the WW2. And a very large proportion of those deaths can be called "innocent" -- not at fault in their death in any way. There really is only one reason this is accepted by the public. Because there is no alternative. There is no policy you can establish that would stop the deaths that would not also inconvenience everyone too much. Once self-driving cars fall down in price enough to be a real possibility, every highway death where a non-automated car was involved turns from something sad, but inevitable into something that is squarely blamed on the existence of that traditional car. "This wouldn't have happened if Datsundere wouldn't have put his personal enjoyment above the safety of everyone else on the road." Since car makers will be happy to lobby for this (why not, they get to sell everyone something new), since there will be enough relatives of dead people so the grassroots support is strong, since the federal government has control over roads, and since there are no strong lobbies to oppose it, this will pass as a law as soon as it's actually feasible to replace/refit all the cars on the road. The best you can hope for is a car that will allow you to turn off the automation in situations the car deems safe, with the car automatically taking over if it feels like something is wrong. Beyond that, the only place you will have a fun driving experience in the future is on the track.
- to3m 14y ago
  I think you underestimate the extent to which people truly, honestly don't believe that it will happen to them, provided they are in control of the car. A self-driving car just doesn't give you that assurance. Besides, who would trust their adorable children, the lights of their very life, to a robot? A mindless, unthinking automaton, a heartless killing machine with no soul?
  - danielweber 14y ago
    I would mis-quote Linda Hamilton from Terminator 2: "The [car] would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die, to protect him."
macspoofing 14y ago
>That said, I will never get a self driving car. I like automation in everything except cars. Driving should be a fun experience. Yes, but you don't have to live in a binary world, in which you have to choose one or the other. Imagine you get stuck in traffic for an hour or so (a common occurrence in most cities), wouldn't it be nice to turn on autopilot so that you can sit back and browse the web on your iPad. When you clear traffic, you turn off autopilot and continue to enjoy your driving experience. Similarly, as you're driving on the road, you remembered you wanted to send an email to your mom, so you turn on autopilot for 5 minutes to write your email, and then continue on your merry way. The future is bright.

crusso 14y ago

You won't have a choice. At some point, automated driving cars will drive better than people statistically speaking. They'll save more fuel and traffic will flow much more efficiently. Imagine if 4+ vehicles make it through every busy intersection light because autonomous vehicles are never busy daydreaming or checking text messages. Imagine if the oscillation of busy traffic on the interstate basically went away so you didn't have random stop-n-go (think metering lights but much more efficient). Once some of these things begin to be proven - something that Google and other manufacturers will be guaranteed to demonstrate early on - legislation will quickly follow mandating that all new cars be autonomous. Liability insurance for non-autonomous vehicles will skyrocket. Driving yourself will be something you only do on specialized entertainment tracks and video games.

babesh 14y ago
How would you explain planes then? We have had autopilot for awhile but there is no law that planes be autonomous. Anyway, the question is who is liable. If we take the plane industry as an example, then if the autopilot is at fault the seller is liable. It is not reasonable for an autonomous vehicle to say 'I give up, have the controls back' whenever it is about to crash. Especially not if the would be driver cannot drive (blind, elderly, young children, etc...) The only issue is that Google and other autonomous car manufacturers don't want to be liable because the potential liability will be enormous but they want autonomous cars. The prediction is that those companies will try/are trying to get legislation to shift liability to the owners of the cars possibly as part of their insurance (autonomous car coverage). Another question is if a machine kills a human even if by accident, is the entity who created the machine at fault? Again, it will be a matter of politics and power rather than right and wrong. If it was otherwise, corporate officeholders would have long been in jail.
- crusso 14y ago
  How would you explain planes then? The FAA decrees lots of safety equipment to be present and used on commercial aircraft. It's worth noting that plane autopilots are not at the door-to-door level that we're talking about with autonomous cars. Also, Pilots are much better trained than drivers, so there's less impetus to get them away from the controls. Sooner or later, though, planes will be flown completely by wire. When it's demonstrable that autonomous planes fly better than real pilots gate-to-gate, that will become legally enforced. Anyway, the question is who is liable In this sub-thread, I was just addressing the previous poster who said that he would never own an autonomous vehicle. Just to throw my two cents in... in all likelihood, Google will need to demonstrate that their vehicles are more safe than "normal drivers". When you buy a Google car, you will need to buy auto insurance that covers an autonomous vehicle. Depending upon actuarial tables, that insurance will be more or less than your current insurance. Google's liability would likely only extend to extreme defects in the AI and/or death-causing defects that are systemic and can be shown to be the result of negligence or not disclosed to customers. politics and power rather than right and wrong I object to the immediate contention that you or anyone else really knows what's right or wrong at this point. Your statement above "to shift liability to the owners of the cars" gives away where you think liability lies. I don't think that's at all clear. If Google creates all the cars from here on out and deaths on the highway are cut in half... does that mean that they're liable for the deaths that still occur? That number of deaths would have occurred anyway. Google did nothing wrong, they actually saved tens of thousands of lives. So what's that worth? Suing them out of existence for the deaths they didn't prevent? In order to book those lives saved, we'll all need to pay for our own insurance for most accidents.

Tuna-Fish 14y ago

In a few short years, laws will prevent you from driving on the public roads without some level of automation. There are something like >30k deaths on the highways per year these days. That's the equivalent of all American Vietnam war casualties every two years. The highways are more dangerous than any war the US has been in since the WW2. And a very large proportion of those deaths can be called "innocent" -- not at fault in their death in any way. There really is only one reason this is accepted by the public. Because there is no alternative. There is no policy you can establish that would stop the deaths that would not also inconvenience everyone too much. Once self-driving cars fall down in price enough to be a real possibility, every highway death where a non-automated car was involved turns from something sad, but inevitable into something that is squarely blamed on the existence of that traditional car. "This wouldn't have happened if Datsundere wouldn't have put his personal enjoyment above the safety of everyone else on the road." Since car makers will be happy to lobby for this (why not, they get to sell everyone something new), since there will be enough relatives of dead people so the grassroots support is strong, since the federal government has control over roads, and since there are no strong lobbies to oppose it, this will pass as a law as soon as it's actually feasible to replace/refit all the cars on the road. The best you can hope for is a car that will allow you to turn off the automation in situations the car deems safe, with the car automatically taking over if it feels like something is wrong. Beyond that, the only place you will have a fun driving experience in the future is on the track.

to3m 14y ago
I think you underestimate the extent to which people truly, honestly don't believe that it will happen to them, provided they are in control of the car. A self-driving car just doesn't give you that assurance. Besides, who would trust their adorable children, the lights of their very life, to a robot? A mindless, unthinking automaton, a heartless killing machine with no soul?
- danielweber 14y ago
  I would mis-quote Linda Hamilton from Terminator 2: "The [car] would never stop. It would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him, or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there. And it would die, to protect him."

macspoofing 14y ago

>That said, I will never get a self driving car. I like automation in everything except cars. Driving should be a fun experience. Yes, but you don't have to live in a binary world, in which you have to choose one or the other. Imagine you get stuck in traffic for an hour or so (a common occurrence in most cities), wouldn't it be nice to turn on autopilot so that you can sit back and browse the web on your iPad. When you clear traffic, you turn off autopilot and continue to enjoy your driving experience. Similarly, as you're driving on the road, you remembered you wanted to send an email to your mom, so you turn on autopilot for 5 minutes to write your email, and then continue on your merry way. The future is bright.