Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

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Ultimate Geek
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#1421336 5-Nov-2015 07:41

tdgeek: 1. Self driving cars with sensors and algorithms galore will always be safer than humans. No tiredness, texting, being idiots, breaking road rules, not drink or stoned, not angry.

Not sure if I agree with this one. You comparing self driving cars to the absolute worst human drivers and then saying self driving cars will always be safer. You need to compare the best to the best.

IMO I dont see self driving cars ever being safer/better than the absolute best human drivers. Computers operate on a list of instructions. Every single possible variable will need to be pre-programmed, if said variable is not there then the car could end up doing something unexpected, or worse nothing. This could actually have far more sever results. An example could be a car hitting its brakes very hard in a tunnel causing absolute mayhem.

What about total destruction of computer at 100km/h? Or simply loss of power. A human can still try and compensate in such a situation. Ie, loss of power steering/engine power.

ubergeeknz

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#1421422 5-Nov-2015 09:48

nunz: Maybe an explosive driven spike straight into the road for an instant stop, while deploying air bags.

That would cause serious injury to the occupants

SaltyNZ

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#1421425 5-Nov-2015 09:52

ubergeeknz:
nunz: Maybe an explosive driven spike straight into the road for an instant stop, while deploying air bags.

That would cause serious injury to the occupants

No, silly, he said it went through the road, not the occupants!

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Rikkitic

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#1421437 5-Nov-2015 09:54

DizzyD:
Rikkitic:
There it is again. The stupid button. This whole Grand Theft Auto attitude to road users who do not happen to be driving a ton of metal. There is no rivalry between cyclists and drivers. One does not have more rights than the other. One or the other is not a lesser being. Both are road users, with equal rights to be there and equal responsibilities to show a little courtesy to the other. Get over yourself.

Its stupid to keep mentioning the "stupid button".

There is a kind of anti-cyclist prejudice that emerges here from time to time. I have seen it on various threads. It usually consists of complaints about cyclist behaviour on the roads, getting in the way of faster and more powerful vehicles, accompanied by a kind of arrogant dismissal of their right to be there in the first place, along with sneering comments about the kind of people who choose to ride bicycles at all.

I don't doubt there are thoughtless and inconsiderate cyclists with a chip on their shoulder, just as there are thoughtless and inconsiderate drivers. All this says is that there are thoughtless and inconsiderate people. It has nothing to do with their chosen mode of transport. I would remind all drivers that their vehicles are much bigger and heavier and more powerful than any bike, and are capable of doing vastly more damage. That places an extra responsibility on them to take care and to curb their impatience and their urge to push the pedal to the metal. If a cyclist happens to get in your way, that doesn't make them an inferior species. They have as much right to be on the road as you do.

Let's cut the stupid jokes about taking out cyclists because they are the targets with least human worth or the least protected so the easiest to squash. Bad taste is not the same as a sense of humour.

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ubergeeknz

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#1421439 5-Nov-2015 09:55

SaltyNZ:
ubergeeknz:
nunz: Maybe an explosive driven spike straight into the road for an instant stop, while deploying air bags.

That would cause serious injury to the occupants

No, silly, he said it went through the road, not the occupants!

Not the spike, the instant stop... this is why cars have crumple zones, to spread the force of the impact over time. Too much momentum shed in too little time and your brain gets mashed against your skull, regardless how well you are restrained.

surfisup1000

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#1421440 5-Nov-2015 09:56

Airbags occasionally kill people too. But, they save more lives than they take so I see no issue if that is the same case with self driving cars.

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keewee01

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#1421448 5-Nov-2015 10:08

Rikkitic:
DizzyD:
Rikkitic:
There it is again. The stupid button. This whole Grand Theft Auto attitude to road users who do not happen to be driving a ton of metal. There is no rivalry between cyclists and drivers. One does not have more rights than the other. One or the other is not a lesser being. Both are road users, with equal rights to be there and equal responsibilities to show a little courtesy to the other. Get over yourself.

Its stupid to keep mentioning the "stupid button".

There is a kind of anti-cyclist prejudice that emerges here from time to time. I have seen it on various threads. It usually consists of complaints about cyclist behaviour on the roads, getting in the way of faster and more powerful vehicles, accompanied by a kind of arrogant dismissal of their right to be there in the first place, along with sneering comments about the kind of people who choose to ride bicycles at all.

I don't doubt there are thoughtless and inconsiderate cyclists with a chip on their shoulder, just as there are thoughtless and inconsiderate drivers. All this says is that there are thoughtless and inconsiderate people. It has nothing to do with their chosen mode of transport. I would remind all drivers that their vehicles are much bigger and heavier and more powerful than any bike, and are capable of doing vastly more damage. That places an extra responsibility on them to take care and to curb their impatience and their urge to push the pedal to the metal. If a cyclist happens to get in your way, that doesn't make them an inferior species. They have as much right to be on the road as you do.

Let's cut the stupid jokes about taking out cyclists because they are the targets with least human worth or the least protected so the easiest to squash. Bad taste is not the same as a sense of humour.

Well said :)

SepticSceptic

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#1421450 5-Nov-2015 10:10

MikeB4: The last thing you will want to see going down the Rimutaka Hill or travelling the Auckland motorway.

Fixed:

DizzyD

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#1421456 5-Nov-2015 10:15

Rikkitic:
There is a kind of anti-cyclist prejudice that emerges here from time to time. <.... snip .....>
Let's cut the stupid jokes about taking out cyclists because they are the targets with least human worth or the least protected so the easiest to squash. Bad taste is not the same as a sense of humour.

Maybe a topic for another thread. Cyclists play a major part in the design of a fully automated vehicle. This thread is about the designed morality of the car, and in certain rare instances the possibility of maybe taking out cyclists and/or pedestrians, maybe even the driver! Humoring a serious topic like this is a great way of making light of the discussion IMO. Learn to laugh instead of taking offence.

PS: I'm a cyclist.

SaltyNZ

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#1421467 5-Nov-2015 10:31

ubergeeknz:

Not the spike, the instant stop...

Ooooooh, that makes much more sense. I guess I completely missed that. :-D

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SJB

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#1421483 5-Nov-2015 10:58

geocom:
SJB: As a software developer I am NEVER, EVER getting in a self drive car, taxi or bus.

And anyone who does or decides to buy one should be sectioned as soon as possible.

Well you should never get on an aircraft as well then.

There are some airlines I won't fly with even when they have a pilot. Aeroflot comes to mind immediately.

A plane has a great deal of help, both human and technology based, on the ground to make sure it is going in the right direction and avoiding other traffic. Cars, trucks etc would not have any of that outside assistance.

Most airlines also maintain their planes scrupulously. My current car is nearly 20 years old and although it's serviced regularly bits still fall off or don't work.

I have never had a PC that lasted longer than 10 years. How is sophisticated technology in a car going to last the cars lifetime which could easily be 20 years plus. Imagine if the sensors that tracked the car in front started to fail but the passengers didn't know it was faulty. That is until they ploughed under the lorry they were following.

Google and co would be doing the planet a much greater service by concentrating their enormous resources on developing a replacement for the combustion engine. They a trying to make an automated car which is propelled by something that was invented over 100 years ago.

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geocom

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#1421564 5-Nov-2015 11:59

SJB:
A plane has a great deal of help, both human and technology based, on the ground to make sure it is going in the right direction and avoiding other traffic. Cars, trucks etc would not have any of that outside assistance.

Most airlines also maintain their planes scrupulously. My current car is nearly 20 years old and although it's serviced regularly bits still fall off or don't work.

I have never had a PC that lasted longer than 10 years. How is sophisticated technology in a car going to last the cars lifetime which could easily be 20 years plus. Imagine if the sensors that tracked the car in front started to fail but the passengers didn't know it was faulty. That is until they ploughed under the lorry they were following.

Google and co would be doing the planet a much greater service by concentrating their enormous resources on developing a replacement for the combustion engine. They a trying to make an automated car which is propelled by something that was invented over 100 years ago.

I won't respond to all of this as most of my reply will be speculative about what people are doing in the field.
I don't think you will see any system for the next 30 years where there is no manual override(joystick in the door etc). Car companies are too afraid of what will happen if they do in lawsuits.

Your PC is made from consumer grade parts and is not made to last. There are servers that are still running day and night and do so for a very long time.
Why because they are made of components that are made to run for a long time.
Voyager(space probe) for one is an example of something that has been going for a long time and has to put up with radiation that would kill your computer in the mater of minutes maybe even seconds. It all depends on the process involved in making the chip. The chips made for automotive industries follow a different set of test and processes to the chips in your computer.

You would also not trust just one computer. You would have a redundancy unit that will take over and stop the car in a way that is safe.

Google is a software company. What hardware project has google done(by them self) that has been a success? I cannot think of one. Every hardware project has been completed by another company.
The autonomous car project was started when one of the lead designers friends was killed by a drunk driver. People make bad decisions all the time.

Do I think that car manufactures should be making the software. No they have a really bad track record when it comes to security and UX design.

Geoff E

tdgeek

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#1421649 5-Nov-2015 13:05

DizzyD:
tdgeek: 1. Self driving cars with sensors and algorithms galore will always be safer than humans. No tiredness, texting, being idiots, breaking road rules, not drink or stoned, not angry.

Not sure if I agree with this one. You comparing self driving cars to the absolute worst human drivers and then saying self driving cars will always be safer. You need to compare the best to the best.

IMO I dont see self driving cars ever being safer/better than the absolute best human drivers. Computers operate on a list of instructions. Every single possible variable will need to be pre-programmed, if said variable is not there then the car could end up doing something unexpected, or worse nothing. This could actually have far more sever results. An example could be a car hitting its brakes very hard in a tunnel causing absolute mayhem.

What about total destruction of computer at 100km/h? Or simply loss of power. A human can still try and compensate in such a situation. Ie, loss of power steering/engine power.

Its not the worst of drivers, these are commonish behaviours. Good drivers have lapses, didnt look left, speeding, tired.

I dont see self drive as being this AI of driving. Car folows GPS mapping, sensors keep it in the lane, detect traffic and obstacles so they avoid them. Obeys road rules, lights etc, the perfect driver.

Redundancy. There would be say 3 sensors, operating off different power sources, two CPU's all these operate, but one is the master, and as long as the other CPU is up, the sensors are all within 1% of each other, it runs. CPU breaks, sensor breaks, there is redundancy

I feel the complexity some are putting on self drive is overstated. Its a car being driven in a fully enclosed virual tunnel, and it has redundancy

Edit: A self drive car is not a computer being a driver, using the computer brain to make the same decisions. Drivers make decisons with their driving that are good ir no so good or lacking, a self drive is just following a track, guided by sensors, obeying a few hundred road rules, its not a PC driving the car as we know it

DizzyD

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Ultimate Geek
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#1421667 5-Nov-2015 13:25

tdgeek:

Redundancy. There would be say 3 sensors, operating off different power sources, two CPU's all these operate, but one is the master, and as long as the other CPU is up, the sensors are all within 1% of each other, it runs. CPU breaks, sensor breaks, there is redundancy

I feel the complexity some are putting on self drive is overstated. Its a car being driven in a fully enclosed virual tunnel, and it has redundancy

All of which needs power to operate. I don't think its possible to have redundant power in a vehicle. Remember we want the car to be responsive not only before an accident, but also during an accident.

As for the virtual tunnel, there are multiple factors that can put the car outside of this virtual tunnel. Even at high speed. What happens then? Should the car be programmed to function outside of this virtual tunnel? Or should it just switch off, driving over ~~cyclists~~ pedestrians while it comes to a standstill?

DizzyD

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#1421673 5-Nov-2015 13:30

tdgeek:
Edit: A self drive car is not a computer being a driver, using the computer brain to make the same decisions. Drivers make decisons with their driving that are good ir no so good or lacking, a self drive is just following a track, guided by sensors, obeying a few hundred road rules, its not a PC driving the car as we know it

True. This thread however is focusing on cars that will one day take the driving out of our hands altogether. IE driverless.

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