DMV shuts down Uber’s unlicensed self-driving car program.

[Viking]

https://electrek.co/2016/12/14/uber-self-driving-car-red-light-pedestrian-sf/

 

[SawMaster]

As I've always said, autonomous cars aren't really a safety improvement because they can't actually see and think- that always takes a (hopefully competent) driver.

It's also going to bring up huge questions about US law where corporations are essentially given the rights of a person but cannot be criminally charged like a person. The end result of a final ruling on that going either way would change the entire corporate legal landscape of the US and I think it's time for that to happen There can be no corporations without people, so those people need to be held personally responsible for what their corporation does.

It seems the initial trend toward autonomous cars in the US is beginning to fade somewhat as incidents like this have become known and more commonplace. The idea has potential to succeed, but not with today's infrastructure.

Phil

 

[Viking]

Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars: Which Lives to Save in a Crash

http://www.livescience.com/55175-self-driving-cars-moral-dilemma.html

 

[Module 79L]

Autonomous Vehicles won't solve any of the problems they are being designed "to solve". No programmer, no matter how good they are, can program a machine to deal with unpredictability as humans can.

 

[DT MI]

As I've always said, autonomous cars aren't really a safety improvement because they can't actually see and think- that always takes a (hopefully competent) driver....

...No programmer, no matter how good they are, can program a machine to deal with unpredictability as humans can.

It is truly a mind boggling series of decisions that have to be made to accomplish what is, to a human mind, a simple task.

Years ago when I was teaching an entry level computer programming course one of the exercises I had the students do was to create a decision tree or flowchart of the all the factors that had to be considered to solve a problem. The purpose of the exercise was to teach them to anticipate eventualities and allow for them.

The assignment was really quite simple:

1. You are behind the wheel of an automobile.
2. You are approaching an intersection.
3. Show all the decisions necessary to get to the other side of the intersection.

Nobody, including myself, ever completed the project - yet it's something we all do multiple times a day pretty much without a lot of conscious thought.