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I wonder how Tesla software will handle this problem. Also who will get sued when it actually happens.

by plg 12y ago

davidwihl 12y ago
Like an autopilot in a plane, I imagine that there are some problems that a self driving car cannot or should not attempt to solve. This shifts the ethical and moral burden to the human driver as it should be. Though Armstrong in "Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence" makes an interesting point: "these programs [autopilots and stock trading programs] occasionally encounter unexpected situations where humans must override, correct or rewrite them. But these overseers, who haven't been following the intricacies of the algorithm's decision process and who don't have the hands-on experience of the situation, are often at a complete loss as to what to do - and the plane or the stock market crashes." This is pretty much what happened in AF447 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447). In a self-driving car case, I hope the human will be able to exercise at least a defensible judgement. I find the future of ethics of intelligent machines fascinating. I plan to put a lot more energy into this area.
ghaff 12y ago
We're far far away from autonomous driving software being at a state where this is an interesting question. And, PR aside, Tesla's latest update is the same sort of assistive driving tech that's already in a number of high-end cars. It's not self-driving in that the driver is supposed to remain alert (and remains fully responsible for being in control of the vehicle). We do seem to be rapidly heading toward an "interesting" place where assistive driving technologies are good enough that a lot of people realistically won't pay attention while driving (given that plenty of people text and use their phones even without such technologies).
- cjbprime 12y ago
  You seem overly pessimistic about autonomous driving software; it seems to me like Google's driving software could easily already be at a point where it might be able to consider the choice between hitting pedestrians crossing the street, or purposefully crashing the car.
  - ghaff 12y ago
    As a general approach, I can certainly see assistive driving algorithms making decisions about whether to veer off the road vs. possibly hitting something ahead, i.e. how do you prioritize staying in the lane vs. avoiding a known/likely collision. One implication is that you'd sort of like to know what "off the road" means in a given location.
    - walshemj 12y ago
      And what happens if you have an out of date map and the car thinks its swerving into an empty lot - but its now a kids playground.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    It's my understanding that Google's self-driving car technology as shown to the public, cannott currently handle a crew repairing potholes without advance notice, or drive to an arbitrary location using a route that hasn't been pre-run to record navigational waypoints. In other words, the disclosed technologies can drive in areas for which extremely large amounts of data have been collected and only so long as conditions have not changed. If a new traffic light or stop sign is installed, the self-driving car is likely to miss it. There may be secret sauce in the lab, of course.
- s_kilk 12y ago
  It'll be interesting to see what happens the first time a self-driving car fucks up and ploughs through a bus queue. Who would be responsible? The "driver" who was chilling out reading their kindle? The manufacturer?
  - ghaff 12y ago
    Presumably it depends on what "self-driving" means in the context of that particular car and what the laws are. Today, "self-driving" cars are legally just assistive technology like cruise control and you're responsible. If you have an accident while texting you're in pretty much the same situation as if your car didn't have those technologies. Presumably at some point we have cars that can legally operate fully autonomously (under some defined set of conditions) and the driver would not be expected to be in control. In that case, I'd expect in that scenario there would be a lawsuit naming the manufacturer among others.

I wonder how Tesla software will handle this problem. Also who will get sued when it actually happens.

by plg 12y ago

I wonder how Tesla software will handle this problem. Also who will get sued when it actually happens.

Like an autopilot in a plane, I imagine that there are some problems that a self driving car cannot or should not attempt to solve. This shifts the ethical and moral burden to the human driver as it should be. Though Armstrong in "Smarter Than Us: The Rise of Machine Intelligence" makes an interesting point: "these programs [autopilots and stock trading programs] occasionally encounter unexpected situations where humans must override, correct or rewrite them. But these overseers, who haven't been following the intricacies of the algorithm's decision process and who don't have the hands-on experience of the situation, are often at a complete loss as to what to do - and the plane or the stock market crashes." This is pretty much what happened in AF447 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447). In a self-driving car case, I hope the human will be able to exercise at least a defensible judgement. I find the future of ethics of intelligent machines fascinating. I plan to put a lot more energy into this area.

ghaff 12y ago

We're far far away from autonomous driving software being at a state where this is an interesting question. And, PR aside, Tesla's latest update is the same sort of assistive driving tech that's already in a number of high-end cars. It's not self-driving in that the driver is supposed to remain alert (and remains fully responsible for being in control of the vehicle). We do seem to be rapidly heading toward an "interesting" place where assistive driving technologies are good enough that a lot of people realistically won't pay attention while driving (given that plenty of people text and use their phones even without such technologies).

cjbprime 12y ago
You seem overly pessimistic about autonomous driving software; it seems to me like Google's driving software could easily already be at a point where it might be able to consider the choice between hitting pedestrians crossing the street, or purposefully crashing the car.
- ghaff 12y ago
  As a general approach, I can certainly see assistive driving algorithms making decisions about whether to veer off the road vs. possibly hitting something ahead, i.e. how do you prioritize staying in the lane vs. avoiding a known/likely collision. One implication is that you'd sort of like to know what "off the road" means in a given location.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    And what happens if you have an out of date map and the car thinks its swerving into an empty lot - but its now a kids playground.
- brudgers 12y ago
  It's my understanding that Google's self-driving car technology as shown to the public, cannott currently handle a crew repairing potholes without advance notice, or drive to an arbitrary location using a route that hasn't been pre-run to record navigational waypoints. In other words, the disclosed technologies can drive in areas for which extremely large amounts of data have been collected and only so long as conditions have not changed. If a new traffic light or stop sign is installed, the self-driving car is likely to miss it. There may be secret sauce in the lab, of course.
s_kilk 12y ago
It'll be interesting to see what happens the first time a self-driving car fucks up and ploughs through a bus queue. Who would be responsible? The "driver" who was chilling out reading their kindle? The manufacturer?
- ghaff 12y ago
  Presumably it depends on what "self-driving" means in the context of that particular car and what the laws are. Today, "self-driving" cars are legally just assistive technology like cruise control and you're responsible. If you have an accident while texting you're in pretty much the same situation as if your car didn't have those technologies. Presumably at some point we have cars that can legally operate fully autonomously (under some defined set of conditions) and the driver would not be expected to be in control. In that case, I'd expect in that scenario there would be a lawsuit naming the manufacturer among others.