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Why Automated Cars Need New Traffic Laws

4 points by acheron 11y ago

stephengillie 11y ago
> “A stop sign—rather than a ‘yield’ sign—is there to make sure people have the opportunity to look both ways and see nobody is coming,” Kornhauser says. “But with 360-degree camera coverage, lidars and radars, those automated cars know in a 20th of a second whether something is coming. Why should we require them to come to a complete stop?” I would make the same argument for a human with gamer-level twitch reflexes and high-level situation awareness. What sense does it make to completely stop your vehicle when you've been constantly monitoring oncoming traffic, cross traffic, and sidewalk traffic? We have developed a set of rules (laws) for a rules-engine that will abandon rules when there's an situation that will optimize without those rules. AKA a human. And we've replaced that with a different rules-engine that's designed to absolutely obey rules. And so we're finding that our rules aren't working anymore.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  A big reason you should stop as a human, and obey other traffic laws, even when there's no traffic, is to keep the habit. Otherwise, when you're tired or distracted, you'll be more likely to miss that stop sign or forget your turn signal.
joshuaheard 11y ago
Once all cars are automated, we won't need any traffic laws at all. All machine behavior will be coded into the algorithms controlling the cars.
kwhitefoot 11y ago
I think that we should require that automated cars obey the rules we already have. The highway is for people not machines, the machines should not be given privileges that the humans do not have.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  We changed the rules when tellers became ATMs. We changed the rules when clerks became vending machines. Of course the rules change. When auto-cars hit the roads, by necessity we have to address issues like liability, reasonable doubt and the like. Because machines are different from people.
- stephengillie 11y ago
  But we operate by 2 sets of mutually exclusive rule sets. One rule, printed on signs, says the maximum speed is 45 MPH. One rule, stored only in tribal knowledge, says the maximum speed is 54 MPH. We choose which rule to obey to optimize our state - increase desired effects while decreasing undesired effects. We will obey the 2nd rule most of the time, as it decreases our travel time to our destination. We will obey the first rule selectively, as it will generally increase our travel time, but will reduce interaction with Law Enforcement individuals, which can both increase our travel time (as they process a traffic stop paperwork) and possibly incur a monetary penalty, which is also undesired. So do we program self-driving cars to evaluate the proximity of LEO and change rulesets appropriately?

4 points by acheron 11y ago

> “A stop sign—rather than a ‘yield’ sign—is there to make sure people have the opportunity to look both ways and see nobody is coming,” Kornhauser says. “But with 360-degree camera coverage, lidars and radars, those automated cars know in a 20th of a second whether something is coming. Why should we require them to come to a complete stop?” I would make the same argument for a human with gamer-level twitch reflexes and high-level situation awareness. What sense does it make to completely stop your vehicle when you've been constantly monitoring oncoming traffic, cross traffic, and sidewalk traffic? We have developed a set of rules (laws) for a rules-engine that will abandon rules when there's an situation that will optimize without those rules. AKA a human. And we've replaced that with a different rules-engine that's designed to absolutely obey rules. And so we're finding that our rules aren't working anymore.

SamReidHughes 11y ago
A big reason you should stop as a human, and obey other traffic laws, even when there's no traffic, is to keep the habit. Otherwise, when you're tired or distracted, you'll be more likely to miss that stop sign or forget your turn signal.

joshuaheard 11y ago

Once all cars are automated, we won't need any traffic laws at all. All machine behavior will be coded into the algorithms controlling the cars.

kwhitefoot 11y ago

I think that we should require that automated cars obey the rules we already have. The highway is for people not machines, the machines should not be given privileges that the humans do not have.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
We changed the rules when tellers became ATMs. We changed the rules when clerks became vending machines. Of course the rules change. When auto-cars hit the roads, by necessity we have to address issues like liability, reasonable doubt and the like. Because machines are different from people.
stephengillie 11y ago
But we operate by 2 sets of mutually exclusive rule sets. One rule, printed on signs, says the maximum speed is 45 MPH. One rule, stored only in tribal knowledge, says the maximum speed is 54 MPH. We choose which rule to obey to optimize our state - increase desired effects while decreasing undesired effects. We will obey the 2nd rule most of the time, as it decreases our travel time to our destination. We will obey the first rule selectively, as it will generally increase our travel time, but will reduce interaction with Law Enforcement individuals, which can both increase our travel time (as they process a traffic stop paperwork) and possibly incur a monetary penalty, which is also undesired. So do we program self-driving cars to evaluate the proximity of LEO and change rulesets appropriately?