You are currently viewing SemiWiki as a guest which gives you limited access to the site. To view blog comments and experience other SemiWiki features you must be a registered member. Registration is fast, simple, and absolutely free so please, join our community today!
Recently during my visit to USA, San Francisco I met many of my friends, Americans, Europeans, Indians settled there as well as people from other nationalities. No one except a few was comfortable with seeing driverless cars on the roads. While the technology is superb and yes, it will drive safe itself, but what about external environment? So, how do we see this car becoming a success unless it generates comfort feeling in a larger section of our society?
There are couple of scenarios where it will be difficult to predict how that robot decides -
A speeding truck coming and only one side is accessible which is crowded. What should it do? Obviously for lesser damage it must stay put, thus placing the lives of its passengers in danger
How should it speed, should it drive slowest of all? When should it overtake? How will it take the request of a passenger to speed to reach airport to catch the flight?
If a passenger among others has to take a detour on the way, then what algorithm it should use to decide whether to honor the request or not?
Who should take the responsibility of cleaning the car after its use?
There are many such hick-ups people have which says it definitely needs a human driver to fix responsibility upon. Otherwise, in case of an accident, should the robot be blamed? Who should be the scapegoat?
It could be a perfect scenario if all the vehicles on the road were driverless, however that possibility is very remote. So, then should every driverless car have a human to monitor? If yes, then it defeats the purpose.
How do we see these practical scenarios getting addressed before the unique, high-tech, driverless cars ply on the roads?
The same questions keep coming up time and time again from people against driverless cars -- how would it cope in [some unlikely situation] compared to a good human driver?
The answer is that it doesn't matter, the vast majority of accidents are caused by people's inattention/stupidity/carelessness/phoning/texting/drinking/sleepiness/showboating, and driverless cars will do none of these. The net benefit from this -- meaning fewer deaths and lower accident costs -- will vastly outweigh the rare cases where a driverless car fails to do as well as a human driver.
In all these cases the human gets blamed -- it's why the police here no longer refer to "accidents" but "incidents" -- but insurance picks up the bill. If the driver was obviously stupid or breaking the law they suffer the consequences (e.g. jail for dangerous driving). If a driverless car crashes because of a fault in the programming then the blame will go back to the source -- no different to any other industrial liability case.
1. Who will pay ? well today the end users always pay - either by footing the insurance bill or the car costs. Same will happen with self driving cars.
2. The particulars - what's the reasonable thing to do(and also who specifically pays in error) in every situation would be a decision between courts and regulators, which is always the case. I assume similar issues already bother safety critical systems (heck we build nuclear reactors) - so society probably has a process to decide on those questions.
As for the personal liability - the whole point there will be none.
1. Who will pay ? well today the end users always pay - either by footing the insurance bill or the car costs. Same will happen with self driving cars.
2. The particulars - what's the reasonable thing to do(and also who specifically pays in error) in every situation would be a decision between courts and regulators, which is always the case. I assume similar issues already bother safety critical systems (heck we build nuclear reactors) - so society probably has a process to decide on those questions.
As for the personal liability - the whole point there will be none.
Exactly -- if the total cost is lower with driverless cars (which it surely will be compared to the idiot meatbags in control now) that's all that matters.
Next step -- every year the insurance premiums for driverless cars go down as they get better, and the premiums for meatbag drivers go up as a smaller and smaller proportion of drivers cause a bigger and bigger proportion of accidents.
Next step -- the premiums for meatbags become so high that almost nobody can afford to pay them.
Next step -- meatbag driving becomes socially unacceptable ("your driving fun is killing our children")
Last step -- meatbag driving on public roads is banned, it's only allowed on racing tracks where they can only kill themselves or other similar risk-takers.
Any guesses how long getting to the last step will take? My guess is between 10 and 20 years after (relatively) safe driverless cars reach mass production...
I think insurance companies underestimate the damage Starbucks has done. Just today I was riding my bike down the Iron Horse Trail, waiting at a pedestrian stop light, and a girl waiting next to me was almost splattered by an SUV. She was talking on the phone, the driver was draining the last drops from his Starbucks sippy cup and blew through the light barely missing the distracted pedestrian who stepped out on the green light. Which is why I don't cross unless there is eye contact with the driver.
This poor girl said "Oh My God" a bunch of times then just sobbed. She was talking to her mother, I kid you not, I waited for her to come and pick her daughter up.
I think insurance companies underestimate the damage Starbucks has done. Just today I was riding my bike down the Iron Horse Trail, waiting at a pedestrian stop light, and a girl waiting next to me was almost splattered by an SUV. She was talking on the phone, the driver was draining the last drops from his Starbucks sippy cup and blew through the light barely missing the distracted pedestrian who stepped out on the green light. Which is why I don't cross unless there is eye contact with the driver.
This poor girl said "Oh My God" a bunch of times then just sobbed. She was talking to her mother, I kid you not, I waited for her to come and pick her daughter up.
Couldn't imagine this happening in US which appears to me so disciplined and so sensible.
I have a good instance to narrate about sensibility of traffic cops there. Once, when I was driving in San Jose, out of my natural instinct of left-side driving in India, I turned left on an opposite one-way and saw a huge crowd of cars coming head-on. Fortunately they were at a distance and I could quickly take a complete U turn and slowly stopped on the side of that road. The cop came, looked at my passport, understood the situation of that blunder done by me unknowingly and he let me go with a warning to drive consciously. I can't imagine that kind of treatment by cops in India.
Exactly -- if the total cost is lower with driverless cars (which it surely will be compared to the idiot meatbags in control now) that's all that matters.
.........
..........
Last step -- meatbag driving on public roads is banned, it's only allowed on racing tracks where they can only kill themselves or other similar risk-takers.
Any guesses how long getting to the last step will take? My guess is between 10 and 20 years after (relatively) safe driverless cars reach mass production...
I guess it may take more that 20 years, if the instances what Dan Nenni mentioned have started happening. Even if it happens in 10 or 15 years, will it be worth trying so long for the driverless cars to occupy the streets?
I think insurance companies underestimate the damage Starbucks has done. Just today I was riding my bike down the Iron Horse Trail, waiting at a pedestrian stop light, and a girl waiting next to me was almost splattered by an SUV. She was talking on the phone, the driver was draining the last drops from his Starbucks sippy cup and blew through the light barely missing the distracted pedestrian who stepped out on the green light. Which is why I don't cross unless there is eye contact with the driver.
This poor girl said "Oh My God" a bunch of times then just sobbed. She was talking to her mother, I kid you not, I waited for her to come and pick her daughter up.
From my daily driving experience, I start thinking some of those technologies designed for helping drivers or passengers are actually creating more dangerous distractions. I often see drivers gesture their two hands in the air while talking on cellphones via the Bluetooth connection. In the town where I live, there are a lot moms are driving like this way while sending kids around. We need new technology to prevent driving distraction!
More importantly, driverless cars's technology issues, if managed like we manage aircraft incidents will ensure that over time we will be able to reduce accidents to very low levels. That is all that matters, even if at launch the technology is just a little better than human drivers, we can be sure it will evolve.
