Another Future Clash: How Will The Law Deal With Autonomous Vehicles
from the it's-coming dept
So much of what we seem to talk about is really the clash of disruptive innovation and the opportunity it creates with the existing infrastructure (business, legal, physical) and how they seem to clash in ways that tends to limit and/or delay the innovation. Sometimes you can see these clashes coming from miles away -- and autonomous vehicles is one of those clashes. New Scientist has an article by Bryant Walker Smith, discussing the coming clash over autonomous vehicles by asking a simple question: how does a traffic cop give a ticket to a driverless car? Think about it for a bit, and it can be a pretty complex question. While Walker Smith delves into a few of these questions, there are many more -- and lots of people are trying to dig in now.For example, the law school at Santa Clara University held an entire conference on the legal implications of autonomous vehicles, leading to the Santa Clara Law Review publishing a whole bunch of papers on the subject (including one by Walker Smith). One hopes that lots of people putting some thought into the legal implications today will help us avoid the political messes tomorrow, but given what we know from the history of disruptive innovation, that seems unlikely. Fully expect someone whose businesses are disrupted by autonomous vehicles to make a giant stink about how "unsafe" they are and how they need to be regulated to a degree that makes them effectively impossible to exist.
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Filed Under: autonomous vehicles, challenges, law, regulations
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A car that drives itself?
Despite that, I'd like that.
Then I could travel long distances and fall asleep and not worry about killing myself.
No, seriously, I have the hardest time staying awake when I drive for more than an hour. I'm not sure why either.
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I'm still not sure how I was able to get out of Minneapolis that one time. I got tunnel vision so badly that I had to shake my head several times just to stop everything from going black on me.
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The same happens in aeroplanes, but for that, I'm truly grateful.
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Re: A car that drives itself?
And I dunno. I think driverless cars would be seen as fantastic until one's GPS tries to take someone across several cities to get to the corner grocery store, or until it decides that reaching a destination involves driving underwater. We shouldn't take for granted our ability to override machines when they go stupid.
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Also, driverless cars will be hooked into a network and will be able to communicate with each other. Each car can help draw the map for the next car that goes that way, so if there is a mistake or obstruction or construction these things can be quickly routed around.
Emergency vehicles will be able to signal other cars to pull over and let it pass. It's possible that any vehicle can be put in emergency mode and route directly to the nearest hospital, with all other traffic moving out of the way.
However, drunk driving will now mean waking up in a different city or the middle of nowhere.
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And over 90% of accidents are caused by driver error.
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seriously, the sooner the better for autonomous cars: my 45 min commute makes me want to put an RPG up the tailpipe of about half the drivers...
protip to slowcoaches in the left (speeders) lane: when in rush hour traffic and there is a half mile clear space in front of you, a half mile of fuming drivers stuck behind you, and you are going 35-40 in a 45 mph zone where most people go 50-55, and glaring people are pulling around you in a dangerous fashion, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE LANE, jackass...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Waiting for Gecko
That would be the car insurance companies.
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Re: Waiting for Gecko
Yeah, that's a recipe for skyrocketing profits for insurance companies. They'll love it.
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Re: Waiting for Gecko
1. Insurance is often mandatory by law, so you still have to get it even if you won't be responsible in the event of accident.
2. Companies could claim they were "unsafe" and charge extra, at least while the technology is new.
3. They would actually be much safer, eliminating risk factors such as speeding and driving drunk.
4. In the event of an accident, the insurance company could blame the manufacturer and get out of paying.
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The manufacturer will be liable for accidents caused by equipment malfunction, just like they are now.
We're talking about a world where accidents are as rare as airplane crashes, and less fatal.
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It is sad the first thing that occurred to me was getting completely pickled on single malt and making the car drive me home.
Nigel
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Seriously, perhaps the driver can be held responsible in some situations, probably by fiat. However, I suspect there will be many lawsuits targeting the manufacturer. Why not? It worked with ladders.
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Tickets are a big source of income and I don't see automated cars getting a lot of speeding tickets
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They could file bug reports for money XD
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I assume it would still be possible to park illegally.
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Or drop you off and go drive others, and you'll call or schedule another car when you're ready to leave.
so there wouldn't be such a thing as illegal parking.
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so there wouldn't be such a thing as illegal parking.
Why not?
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Because it's not perfect.
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Also, it's likely the police could "text" the car and simply ask it to park somewhere else, as could city workers if there was a need to make road repairs where the car is parked or for snow removal.
This can change the world a lot.
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I think this misses the several real questions for a straw man. In theory, A drvierless car would adhere to all the rules of the road. Its only the Non-Moving violations (non-functioning headlights, improper registration, ect.) that impact, and I would place fault on the "primary passenger", ie. the one who is sitting in a position to override the auto-drive, or the owner as the law dictates.
Real questions come about how police track wether a car is, in fact, in autonomous mode (situations like driving the drunk home), how fault is assigned if the programming became corrupted, if an accident occured, ect., and other Deeper questions that a question of ticketing is not a concern.
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Glad I'm not in the UK, though. I don't think that would stick there as they would say you're still in charge of the vehicle, much like a pilot is still in charge of his aircraft even if it's on auto-pilot.
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I imagine it would still be illegal to be the person in charge of operating a vehicle* while drunk, at least while cars still resemble the cars we have today.
* meaning sitting in the driver's seat and giving instructions to the car
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Either they'll claim that you *obviously* had intent to drive the car while intoxicated, or by merely turning the car on but not going anywhere you're still "operating a motor vehicle".
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> the vehicle. I can be fall-down drunk, get
> in my car, start the engine, and just sit
> there with it in park. As long as I don't
> shift into reverse or drive, then I'm not
> driving while intoxicated or driving under
> the influence.
Not in every state. Try that in Texas and if you get caught, you get a DUI. There have been cases of people getting DUIs who were curled up asleep in the back seat of their parked car. If they have the keys in their possession and they're inside the vehicle, they can be liable for DUI.
I personally think that sort of thing is chicken-shit and counter-productive. If someone is trying to do the right thing by sleeping off their intoxication instead of driving around endangering others, the last thing you want to do is punish them for it.
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In Connecticut, if the key is in the ignition (not even on) you can be arrested.
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Insurance on autonomous vehicles
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But yes, if you own the vehicle, you'll need insurance, but the rates will be very low because of the drastic decrease in accidents.
Most people will not own vehicles but will use a vehicle service. You call when you need a car and one will be there within 5 minutes.
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One of our group along with sever other members got stopped speeding.
Of course it was impossible that it was the fault of the driver. He simply was not speeding.
The judge was in agreement. The driver was not the cause. It was the car that was the problem. So, he put the car in jail.
Funny after two weeks of jail, which did not agree with the car, the car did not speed again.
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Easy answer
Autonomous cops , of course!
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You pull them over just like any other car. Driverless cars must obey the flashing blue lights - if they can't, that's a defect serious enough to prohibit them.
The cop must then determine whether the infraction was caused by the people in the car. If so, issue the ticket to the person closest to the controls. If the infraction was somehow caused by the car itself, the car might need to be manually driven or towed for repairs. And send the ticket to the manufacturer. If you're selling an autonomous car to be used on the roads, it IS your job to make sure those cars obey the laws.
"Fully expect someone whose businesses are disrupted by autonomous vehicles to make a giant stink about how "unsafe" they are and how they need to be regulated to a degree that makes them effectively impossible to exist."
You don't need to go searching for someone with a vested interest. I don't trust them one bit. Sure, you can make them work in some cases, but it's the special cases that worry me. Are they going to deal with a construction zone properly? Are we going to have to spend billions using special paint for the road lines and special signs that the cars can sense? How on earth would they recognize and yield to a funeral procession? Or a man crossing the street with sunglasses and a striped cane? Will they work in fog? How about ice?
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The question here is that there will always be humans and machines driving in the same roads and even machines can err if the external signs are not working well which in my view is what could cause a driverless car to receive a ticket. If an electric charged cloud forms over the place the car is running (GPS interference) or the usual road signs are poorly maintained or even a determined road changed driving direction without being broadcast to the system then the automatic car could run into problems.
Still, this is the least important issue. You already showed your bias against the technology and that's precisely what will happen when it starts rolling out. People will be wailing unfounded arguments all around much like the wi-fi thing discussed in an article today. Pardon me if it was not what you meant but you got my point, right?
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"Driverless cars could run quite close to each other without ever crashing making the traffic flow much more smoothly."
Not so much, if they want to be safe. You don't know the braking ability of the car in front of you, and there's always the possibility of a deer running in front of him, forcing a panic stop. And just imagine the joy of trying to merge when cars in heavy traffic are going freeway speed without leaving any significant space between them.
Around here, snow will sometimes cover the speed limit signs. And the yellow and white lines. Heck, some roads don't even HAVE yellow or white lines. Can the car accurately detect where the road is based on where the ditch is?
My GPS already tells me the speed limit where I am driving... but even after getting the very latest updates, it isn't perfect, as far as the roads AND speed limit changes. There's a one-way road near me that my GPS, even after the latest update, still tells me to go down the wrong way. If the car was driving itself, it WOULD go down that road, and potentially cause an accident. Worse, EVERY SINGLE DRIVERLESS CAR that thought this was a shortcut would be doing this. I am not convinced that the car could accurately detect the relatively small "One Way" sign among all the billboards and business signs. There's another example I can think of where the GPS urges me to use a private driveway. There's a sign saying not to use it, but could the car recognize that sign for what it is? Wouldn't it be annoying to the owners if EVERY passing car used their driveway? And ever try using GPS in downtown Chicago next to the ultra-high buildings? It tends to be somewhat off. I could see a car getting caught in an infinite loop of reflected signals.
And, while any idiot could read the handmade "No Parking: Police Order" signs made for the local parade, would the car be able to understand that if it wasn't a type of sign it was used to reading? Could it understand "No Parking During School Hours"? Could it understand that "Golden Retriever Parking Only" is a joke that it can ignore? For that matter, could it understand a policeman directing traffic, or a parking attendant at a stadium?
"Still, this is the least important issue."
Some of these are LIFE AND DEATH issue. Maybe these issues can be overcome, but please don't say they are not important.
"You already showed your bias against the technology and that's precisely what will happen when it starts rolling out."
I am biased against anything that might kill me, ok? I am deeply worried that every single driverless car, given a particular stretch of road that confuses them in particular conditions, will make the same mistake and run off the road like a bunch of lemmings. Or will all lose the position of the road lines in the snow, default to the GPS which says the road should be 12 feet to the left, and start driving in the wrong lane right before they crest a hill. I don't care if the car has fantastic reaction times; radar won't work over a hill unless it's got some magic I don't know about.
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Yes. Unless you navigate by communing with the spirits of your ancestors, there's no reason a computer should be incapable of doing the same things you do.
"Not so much, if they want to be safe."
Agreed. The notion of bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic has always seemed to me like less serious prediction and more overenthusiastic futurism.
"Can the car accurately detect where the road is based on where the ditch is?"
I don't see why not. All that takes is knowing where the ditch is.
"I am not convinced that the car could accurately detect the relatively small "One Way" sign among all the billboards and business signs."
It's programmed to scan its environment for navigation signs. It likely won't do anything special with billboards. If they're at all smart about the program, business signs won't distract it from useful signs any more than foliage distracts you.
"There's a sign saying not to use it, but could the car recognize that sign for what it is?"
This could be an issue for the same reason the One Way sign isn't. If it's just a normal, unofficial sign without a physical obstruction, the only way I can see this being avoided is if the cars are made to identify and avoid driveways during transit, which would either definitely happen or probably not happen depending on how reliant the car will be on GPS. This is an uncommon enough problem that I can see it not being thought of during design or coming out during testing for GPS-dependent cars.
"And, while any idiot could read the handmade "No Parking: Police Order" signs made for the local parade, would the car be able to understand that if it wasn't a type of sign it was used to reading?"
No, but whoever's in the car wouldn't have any trouble. It'd be mildly inconvenient to tell the car to park elsewhere, but nothing more.
"Could it understand "No Parking During School Hours"?"
Yes.
"Could it understand that "Golden Retriever Parking Only" is a joke that it can ignore?"
It won't laugh, but I doubt that it'll be programmed to heed that sign.
"For that matter, could it understand a policeman directing traffic, or a parking attendant at a stadium?"
While this would take a bit more code than reading street signs, tracking arm movements isn't an arcane art unknown to machines.
"I am deeply worried that every single driverless car, given a particular stretch of road that confuses them in particular conditions, will make the same mistake and run off the road like a bunch of lemmings. Or will all lose the position of the road lines in the snow, default to the GPS which says the road should be 12 feet to the left, and start driving in the wrong lane right before they crest a hill."
That first one is what testing is for. Even if a glitch is missed during testing, it'll only happen once before it's fixed, which is more than can be said for human drivers. As for the second one: as long as you're able to visually navigate a snow-covered road there's nothing keeping a computer from doing the same.
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The cars (I hope) would be programmed with a worst case scenario in mind plus some cushion. Is it possible a supercar at maximum braking could get rear ended. Maybe, but let's not fall into the perfect solution fallacy. An automated car could follow closer because its reaction time would be near zero.
And just imagine the joy of trying to merge when cars in heavy traffic are going freeway speed without leaving any significant space between them.
Your car would signal the others that it needs to merge, and one of them would slow down. You wouldn't even have to do anything.
Many of your other objections are quite accurate - now. These are problems that will have to be solved, and they will be. I don't think anyone is suggesting this technology is ready for prime time.
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The great thing about computers is that you only need to teach them how to do something once. If driving on ice turns out to be a problem at first, Google will learn of that, their programmers will figure out how to translate an instruction booklet on driving in ice into code, and driving on ice will never be a problem for that company again. If the cars can't recognize construction zones at first, Google's still just an algorithm away from every car being able to identify the signs marking construction zones. Problems will only be problems until they're noticed, and given the lawsuits and publicity shitstorm to be had if every car a company makes doesn't, for example, know to avoid running over blind people, manufacturers are going to make really damn sure that their cars are exposed to and programmed for every driving condition they can think of before releasing their designs into the market. By the time this technology becomes cheap enough for normal people to afford, you're probably going to have people reacting to claims that you prefer driving manually in a manner similar to how people now would react to you saying you feel safer if you use the seatbelt as a blindfold.
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whatever!
And herein lies a problem. With our current IP morass, just how many unique algorithms will need to be built for each function, times every manufacturer that tries to build an Autocar (TM)?
Or would we be better off without the IP morass and let those algorithms mix and match and blend till we get the one that works best?
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Initially, we could permit automated cars only in certain environments that are "easy" for automated vehicles -- like freeways -- and require drivers to take over when moving to other environments. Even that would be a huge boon. I'd gladly pay for the ability to zone out while on the 101, even if I had to take over for the last mile.
Over time, as the technology improved, we could phase in driverless cars into other locales.
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re: fear mongering
special paint/signs? NO - existing tech is sufficient, though positioning tolerances may be tightened.
A procession, HOW? Three paths occur to me off the cuff.
The first is, there is no need to have a special case operation here. autonomous cars will drive amongst and through the procession without impeding either.
Another option is that the procession has a permit, a permitted event has its data in the road information system, whose operation is basic infrastructure required for autonomous operation of vehicles. The road system will tell the car of the procession allowing it to reroute around the temporary closure.
The last is that procession cars link up wirelessly to each other in a procession, which also informs the other cars around them that they are together and should not be interrupted.
Human obstruction recognition? - EASILY - this tech actually ALREADY exists in a form in cars on the market today - further refinement and augmentation will make it all the more reliable.
Work in Fog? - YES - better than humans with their narrower spectrum vision and lack of wireless digital communications with other operating vehicles and lack of global positioning indicators.
Work in Ice? - YES - better than humans, with selective braking and continual awareness of the road surface from road information systems updated by the passage of previous vehicles with their sensors.
With autonomously driven vehicles, thousands of people won't die in automobile accidents every year.
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Just hold somebody else responsible for whatever happens.
There is this cultural problem that is old by the way, that we feel the need to find something to blame.
The church filled this by creating the devil, everything bad could be attributed to it and people could function and don't be destroyed by guilt and don't become a-holes that believed that since they were already bad they should just go all out, now the law tries to create bad guys, and where there is no one to blame or assign blame or punish you need to find something or someone to do it and there you enter third party liability.
If you can't punish a dead suicide dude for throwing himself under a bus and causing damages and panic you punish relatives, if you can't punish the car you punish the owner, manufacturer, maintenance dude or whomever.
I find that creating responsibilities where there should be none very unethical for a lot of reasons, but idiots will be idiots and laws will be laws.
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I find that creating responsibilities where there should be none very unethical for a lot of reasons, but idiots will be idiots and laws will be laws.
Should be none? So nobody should be responsible for what an autonomous car does?
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For instance, it is your fault or the keyboards fault, or spellcheckers fault, that I misspelled where in above sentence.
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Are you responsible for your son's drunk driving?
Are you responsible for your wife's clepto tendencies?
Are you responsible for your uncle that mowned down 30 kids in front of a school?
Why should you not be responsible for it?
The reason you give is why others also should not have to be responsible for things that are out of their control, like the actions of autonomous equipment or other persons.
When somebody should be responsible for something?
When their direct actions or inaction are the primary cause of something, if by inaction you don't go to a repair shop to fix the brakes you are responsible, if by action you code some new great stuff and put it in your car and the car goes nuts killing someone, you should be responsible because you coded it, chose the testing ground and you validated all without others knowing about it and that resulted in bad things, maybe because of stupidity, because you didn't know better, but by your own actions none the less.
Now if someone produce a car, that was validated by a lot of people, have not many problems and nobody could find problems with it and by problems I mean ones that can be replicated and tested, why should anybody be responsible for crap that happens?
You want to create blame to appease your consciousness?
That is not good enough, why would anybody want to force others to care about things that they can't control or do anything about it?
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So as long as it's rare enough, the manufacturer should not be liable? I'm not sure that's a good theory of liability.
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Repair Industry
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Re: Repair Industry
The question is figuring out what industries will grow - like tourism as more people travel greater distances (while they sleep)
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By definition, if you reach a point where cars are no longer driven by people, then you've reached the same point as any other process that is accomplished by a machine.
So yes, Mike, it is indeed Google that will be facing liability if their cars fuck up.
Please pass along this bit of mind-blowing wisdom to them since they're apparently too goddamed clueless to grasp the obvious.
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I don't think it's so simple. If my parking brake fails and my car rolls into someone else's car, is it automatically the manufacturer's liability? Or is it my liability because I'm responsible for ensuring my car is roadworthy?
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Apps
Here's a more interesting question: Assume you can install apps on the car, like on a computer. Assume that you install two apps that conflict with each other in such a manner as to cause a car accident. Who's liable? App A? App B? The owner for installing two conflicting apps? The people who wrote an OS permitting such a conflict? The car manufacturer for installing the OS?
Some additional wrinkles:
* What if App A comes with a big honking warning that said "don't install with App B"?
* What if the warning was neither big nor honking?
* What if you had to jailbreak the car to install apps in the first place?
* What if App B was a malicious piece of malware that a hacker had uploaded onto the car?
* What if the reason someone was able to upload malware onto the car was because the owner stupidly set the password on the car to "password123"?
* What if the cause of a malware was a zero-day exploit that could not have been foreseen?
These issues happen all the time with personal computers, but it's usually not an issue because the law treats economic and emotional harm (e.g. the computer ate your homework) different from physical harm (e.g. the computer ate your arm). Ryan Calo has done a bunch of work in this space and advocates some degree of intermediary liability in this space -- much in the same manner that an ISP is generally not liable for what its users do. If you're interested, you should look up his papers.
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Re: Apps
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How Will The Law Deal With Autonomous Vehicles
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Easy solution
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Police Bug Reports
I think there are some interesting conversations coming about the consumer's right to tinker with their automated vehicle code. I'm all for the right to open and reprogram phones and computers now, but I'm less okay with people editing their cars to exceed driving regulations and maybe create dangerous situations on public roadways. I could see it being illegal to use a home-brew driving program in public; and I might even be fine with that.
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Re: Police Bug Reports
That sounds like a solution in search of a problem. If these things become common and there's a rash of accidents due to tinkerers messing up their car programming sure, but... that sounds like it's in the pigs flying range of probability to me. Almost nobody makes any modifications to their cars now, how much more rare will it be when you have to be a computer programmer to do it?
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If Microsoft Built Cars
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors made the following contribution to the debate:
"If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the car windows, shut it off, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this, restart and drive on.
Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd accept this too.
Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bout a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
We'd all have to switch to Microsoft petrol and lubricants but the packaging would be superb.
New seats would force everyone to have the same size arse.
The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 1 cylinder, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes.Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free,including IBM.
If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11),then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.
Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition for a few days before it worked.
You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.
Every time Microsoft introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
Microsoft would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Automobile Association Road maps (now a Microsoft subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more.
You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~nobyrne/ms-cars.htm
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First off, it's something you own. But in the owner's defense, if it's a defect in the coding, doesn't that make the manufacturer liable?
If you're no longer liable, would it really be right to charge you insurance or issue you a ticket instead of sending it to the manufacturer?
Worst thing would be if the car committed a felony (vehicular manslaughter?). Who's the guilty party? If all these car manufacturers advertise you can sleep, catch up on work, or watch a movie while the car drives, how can you be responsible?
But we know this country runs on money not morales, so you know the owner/driver will end up liable. That way insurance companies can keep running and it's cost effective for manufacturers.
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They have computers already. If a computer error causes a crash in the car you have now, is the manufacturer liable? I don't know.
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Is that written into law, or could it be argued either way in court?
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History repeats itself. Over 100 years ago, the dairy industry used those exact arguments to get that sort of regulation applied to margarine. Everything from arbitrary fees to laws requiring that margarine be dyed pink.
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Hmmn...
The only businesses contingent upon human drivers are Trucking/Delivery and Taxi services. Now, it is entirely possible that a stink would be raised by cabbies and truckers, but there's an important caveat:
1) Operating an 18 wheeler is vastly different than operating a car.
2) Those vehicles would STILL require a human present anyhow in case of failure. For the cabs, you would need a person to prevent car-jacking and fare skipping.
In the end, I'm reminded of that Simpsons episode where Homer becomes a trucker. He discovers there's an autopilot for the truck, so at one point he relaxes on the hood of the vehicle travelling at 60 miles an hour.
All this does is free up human capital, so it's much more like the fast food conveyor belt than, say, the music making computer...
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