Waymo and Cruise have been testing in San Francisco for even longer, and they have started in Santa Monica. I am not an engineer; I am going off of reports I have read. What I have read is that the lidar system gets confused by rain. Also, it cannot reliably see motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe those challenges have been overcome. This is …
Waymo and Cruise have been testing in San Francisco for even longer, and they have started in Santa Monica. I am not an engineer; I am going off of reports I have read. What I have read is that the lidar system gets confused by rain. Also, it cannot reliably see motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe those challenges have been overcome. This is part of why they have test cities. The rain problem makes Arizona a good testing ground.
Ethical/legal/policy challenges are not things that technology can solve.
Should the driverless car algorithms be designed to minimize loss of life or injury?
If the answer is "yes", then what happens when a driverless car with one passennger is on a multi-lane highway behind a truck which suddenly stops or has a large part of its load drop off the back. There is not enough time to stop before hitting it. The road is crowded and there are cars on both sides with multiple passengers. The minimize injury algorithm would have the car choose to hit the road hazard putting risk only to its sole occupant rather than risk hitting more cars.
From a legal perspective, how is liability determined when there is a crash? Also, DUI laws would need to be updated. Typically, they state that it is illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or a controlled substance. If I summon a Waymo with an app on my phone when I am drunk and there is a crash, will the court determine that "was operating the vehicle" because I summoned it with an app? Would it matter if the vehicle provided the option for me to take control?
Should driverless cars have the ability to be controlled remotely by police and fire departments? One case I read about is a driverless car came to a stop because there was a fire truck nearby, but it stopped on top of a fire hose, which interfered with fire fighting. Adding remote control raises multiple questions. A big one is how to ensure the system cannot be hacked by people with bad intent. We continually see very high value targets owned by entities which have all of the resources they could want to secure their systems fall victim of ransomware. There is no doubt that hackers would try to get into self-driving car remote control systems. Are we ready to trust them?
Waymo and Cruise have been testing in San Francisco for even longer, and they have started in Santa Monica. I am not an engineer; I am going off of reports I have read. What I have read is that the lidar system gets confused by rain. Also, it cannot reliably see motorcycles or bicycles. Maybe those challenges have been overcome. This is part of why they have test cities. The rain problem makes Arizona a good testing ground.
Ethical/legal/policy challenges are not things that technology can solve.
Should the driverless car algorithms be designed to minimize loss of life or injury?
If the answer is "yes", then what happens when a driverless car with one passennger is on a multi-lane highway behind a truck which suddenly stops or has a large part of its load drop off the back. There is not enough time to stop before hitting it. The road is crowded and there are cars on both sides with multiple passengers. The minimize injury algorithm would have the car choose to hit the road hazard putting risk only to its sole occupant rather than risk hitting more cars.
From a legal perspective, how is liability determined when there is a crash? Also, DUI laws would need to be updated. Typically, they state that it is illegal to operate a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or a controlled substance. If I summon a Waymo with an app on my phone when I am drunk and there is a crash, will the court determine that "was operating the vehicle" because I summoned it with an app? Would it matter if the vehicle provided the option for me to take control?
Should driverless cars have the ability to be controlled remotely by police and fire departments? One case I read about is a driverless car came to a stop because there was a fire truck nearby, but it stopped on top of a fire hose, which interfered with fire fighting. Adding remote control raises multiple questions. A big one is how to ensure the system cannot be hacked by people with bad intent. We continually see very high value targets owned by entities which have all of the resources they could want to secure their systems fall victim of ransomware. There is no doubt that hackers would try to get into self-driving car remote control systems. Are we ready to trust them?