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The kind of scenario Wired propose between hitting two cars based on which would absorb the impact the better or cause the least harm aren't the kind of decisio
by DigitalSea 12y ago
The kind of scenario Wired propose between hitting two cars based on which would absorb the impact the better or cause the least harm aren't the kind of decisions humans make during a crash. I've been in a couple of car accidents caused by other people luckily and not once during any of those crashes did I weigh up my options between which car or which direction to swerve. Maybe we will expect more from an autonomous for its ability to make these kind of decisions, but I think it's an argument with a few holes.
A lot of cars are currently at a point where they come standard with sensors that can allow a car to automatically parallel park itself between two other cars on a busy street. Smart cruise control which will know when to brake if the distance between your car and the car in-front gets smaller, cameras that follow the lines on a road. It's all there, car technology is already insanely smart.
The questions people aren't asking here about autonomous cars is not what if it has to choose between two targets to hit, but rather what happens when a bug in the software controlling the vehicle rears its head and the car gets confused and reacts to something that isn't really happening? A faulty sensor thinks you're about to hit something when you're driving on a straight road and swerves into a tree trying to avoid an accident that wasn't even about to take place, now that's a scary thought.
That would be my biggest worry. I am aware modern jetliner planes are essentially fly by wire except during takeoff and landing, but if the computer fails, another takes its place and on the rare occasion redundancy fails, the pilot and crew are there to manually guide the plane.
The arguments presented here aren't even realistic. Why should autonomous computers be expected to make such decisions based on environmental factors like if a car can handle the impact or not? For accidents where the outcome will be the same (choosing between two vehicles for example) does it matter what the thinking behind the decision is? There is going to be an accident and no matter how in-depth the analysis is, depending on the speed and location, someone is bound to get hurt to an extent or killed.
I have a much better idea and it's far cheaper and more realistic: if an accident is about to take place, the car slams on the brakes and the car slides to a stop. Technology like that already exists in some cars. Swerving in a car accident is most of the time the wrong choice as well, you're most likely to cause more harm to someone swerving in an unpredictable direction then you are straight on, unless of course you can see someone ahead, something on the road or about to have a head-on collision with another car.
- sounds 12y agoThank you! The article asks the question of which way should the car swerve, when physics indicates that attempting to alter course takes available tire frictional force away from the braking maneuver. Most modern roads are designed so that even if an oncoming car is suicidal, you can make some kind of defensive maneuver to prevent an accident. Not that it's impossible to have a no-win scenario, but the article makes it sound like autonomous vehicles will be getting in these kinds of accidents all the time. The National Safety Council estimates the two leading causes of motor vehicle accidents in the US are: ~40% alcohol-related [1] 23% distracted driving [2] There were 34,080 fatalities from motor vehicle accidents in 2012 [3]. If someone heading home from the bar could just get in the back seat and let the car take them home, late at night, wouldn't that be worth something? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_traffic_crashes_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_traffic_crashes... [2] http://www.nsc.org/safety_home/MotorVehicleSafety/Pages/MotorVehicleSafety.aspx#distracted%20driving http://www.nsc.org/safety_home/MotorVehicleSafety/Pages/Moto... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...
- stickfigure 12y agoPerhaps a minor point, but nevertheless: [1] explicitly points out that the 40% number is misleading and that alcohol-involved accidents should not be construed as alcohol-caused accidents.
- sounds 12y agoTrue. It's always going to be difficult to identify all the causes of an accident with the conflicts of interest. Just getting the 40% number was very difficult – number of fatalities with non-zero blood alcohol is easy to find but number of accidents with alcohol present gets political way too fast (which I find informative as the US starts to debate autonomous vehicles).
- dagw 12y agoThe other huge difference between planes and cars is the maintenance schedule. Planes are given a pretty rigorous once over between each flight and given a very complete overhaul on a regular schedule. How many people will do that to the sensors and electronics systems on their car? I spoke to a auto mechanic recently about self driving cars and he was very skeptical about the idea on this basis. He'd fixed enough cars where people backed into things due to their proximity sensors failing. He had no problem accepting that the basic engineering problems could be solved, but doubted they could build a system that would keep working flawlessly with the amount of abuse people put their car through.