How Will Driverless Cars Respond to Emergencies?

If robotic cars ever reach the point of being able to make ethical choices, perhaps a better application would be to elect them to office? The wetware kind doesn't seem to be working out.

The theory may be great as a "Wowo, I will live in the future' mentality', However do you really want to be so lazy about driving. If so take a damned bus and stay of the roads. No 2, do you really want the police to have control of your vehicle which you own, you have paid for, maintained and serviced. Oh yes colleagues it is on the books for the police to slow and stop you car from their on-board laptop.

So your new privately owned vehicle, with all the bells and whistles runs someone over or smashes into another idiot mobile, do you really think you will not be held responsible? Are they going to sue your computer?

Come on lads, we should not even be entertaining this if you are a vehicle owner. This is all for bus and train commuters. Soon you will not require a drivers licence, just an IT diploma, some MS software, an android phone, and an expensive subscription to a a GPS. God forbid. Take the wheels of these ideas and decide yourself when to turn right or left. The IRS, NSA, FBI will be hacking your car next, then what will you do? If you don't want to drive take a bus!!!! Or walk!

I have not YET, but I AM going to read this article. I just felt the need to post this 'rant' prior to reading it, because I find the whole concept of 'driverless vehicles' repugnant! Not because I am a Luddite who abhors progress; but, because of the politicosophical 'bottom line', that it represents. Who the bloody hell "needs", let alone "wants" a driverless vehicle? I don't object to the ongoing research, which is behind this "drive" towards vehicular autonomy; and, I can fully appreciate the advances that our modern cars have gained from that sort of research. Everything from automatic transmissions, to ABS breaks, to 'total breaking' faster than a human can react; but, these are things, which up till now are 'add-ons', which make the 'human experience' of the act of commanding a vehicle safer, and more enjoyable.

Just a short analogistic 'aside' here, in order to make one of several points: Speaking as a Vascular Technologist, and one who literally takes people's blood pressures accurately all day long, I can knowledgeably say; that, the reason most "automatic blood pressure machines" are notoriously INACCURATE is precisely 'BECAUSE' they have removed the "human element" from the process! A human can sense, and react to things, that even the most advanced 'fuzzy logic' circuitry will always find trouble resolving easily, and inexpensively. (That is my second point! All this Autonomous Technology is going to be hellaciously expensive for the average man.) I can listen to, and sense the right speed (AND, vary it on the fly), when lowering the cuff pressure in order to be able to determine very accurately what a person's blood pressure is, even if they have a very slow heart rate, and a very erratic heart beat. Every single automatic cuff out there has one set release rate for lowering the cuff pressure. Assuming it can physically be done, to build the sort of detection/correction into an automatic BP Cuff, which a human has innately would probably cost you more that it currently costs to go to the doctor's office, and have your BP taken everyday for a month! Even the Automatic BP Cuffs, that nurses wheel around in a hospital, which cost $2000, SOLELY because they are hospital equipment are not anymore technologically sophisticated in their execution, than the $45 one you bought at Walmart! Apart from the costs of the obligatory liability insurance factor, the big-ass red LED display, and some memory for keeping the latest readings, they accomplish the same thing, in exactly the same way; AND, it is nowhere near as accurate, as the nurse simply putting a stethoscope on your arm and taking your pressure the "Old Fashioned Way"!

But, that just addresses the difficulty, AND the cost of trying to do what a human can do easily. As for the actual "NEED" factor, I submit that there are hundreds of people on the road right now, driving quite safely who have no arms, and some also even have no legs! Granted they "usually" have had some sort of technological accommodations for their disability, which meets or surpasses the input to the control of a vehicle, that we 'fully formed' folk are accustomed to. BUT! THEY are in control, and are doing an admirable job of executing that control! I dare say that those individuals are axiomatically safer drivers, as they are not even capable of 'driving while texting! Or, at least - no one has automated 'that distraction' for them yet!

So, you SAY: You NEED to concentrate on work during your commute! I say" fine, work in the back of your limo, while a REAL CHAOUFFER drives your privileged, powdered ass to work every morning! Their salary will cost you less than an autonomous vehicle will cost you, even in the long run; AND! You will have provided a job for someone else, who would otherwise be on the public dole, or worse yet a congressman, or Senator!! At the very least, they will make a conscience effort to miss the pot holes that the government is too broke to fix, because they have spent so much money putting sensors in the road; so, your over priced car knows the path it should stay on.

The only people on this earth who even 'think', that there is a "NEED" for totally autonomous cars, are politicians possessed of a 'totalitarianistic mind-set', who can't even bare the thought, that 'we the people' have ANY amount of freedom left to enjoy, including that of getting in a car, and actually commanding the blasted thing where to go; and, making it happen with our own mental, and physical prowess!

Can you just imagine trying to 'tell' one of these vehicles where to go, and have it understand your every word, and nuance with all the accuracy of say, 'Siri'! No dammit! I didn't say: "Drive off the Brooklyn Bridge", I said: "Drive to Moffett, and Brookland Ridge Rd."

Or, just imagine the thought, that you can't change your mind easily in the middle of a trip, and go somewhere else, without jumping through some sort of reprogramming hoops, along with those 'certain to happen' machine interpretation, and execution foul ups.

When I see futuristic flicks, where the "flying cars" are all still made to adhere to a 'single file lane' in the sky, I can just imagine some future civil engineer's mind being preprogrammed/hijacked! I also can't help but wonder, "Where the heck are all those people going?" They no longer have any sort of conventional job to commute to, especially in the middle of the day! And, all their shopping is done 'online', and all of the products that their home 'maker-bot' can't produce, that they HAVE to buy online are things being delivered by a drone! (Will those have to stay in single file lanes too?)

Lunacy! It is all Lunacy! AND, I believe Mr. Data was 'right' in his quest to be human! Let us please learn from that classic SYFI story line, removing the "Human Element" all together, should NEVER be the ultimate goal in ANY pursuit; unless, you are talking about places humans are better off not going - like driving on Mars!

On the other hand, programming it to choose between e.g. poor cats on the street and walking politics or lawyers would be a breeze. S.M.