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Google's Driverless Car and the Logic of Safety
mikejuk writes "Google's driverless car could save more than 1 million deaths per year and tens of millions of injuries. It is an impressive achievement, but will we allow it to take over the wheel? Sebastian Thrun puts the case for it in a persuasive TED Talk video. However it may be OK for human drivers to kill millions of people each year but one human fatality might be enough to finish the driverless car project — in fact it might not even take a death as an injury might cause the same backlash. Robot drivers might kill far fewer people than a human driver but it remains to be seen if we can be logical enough to accept the occasional failure of algorithm or hardware. Put simply we might have all seen too many 'evil robot' movies."
Brings into the light the numbers on just how dangerous automobiles are. Few activities have these huge numbers of deaths, accidents, and property loss and damages.
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As I don't live in a country that's very sue-happy (yet, we're heading that way), yes! Please take the wheel! A snooze on the way to/from work would be excellent, thanks.
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You can't take revenge against a computer. A human being killed is a-ok with most people as long as you can take revenge.
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People are obviously much more tolerant of human error than machine error. Machines in life safety areas are expected to be perfect.
Also who is liable in a fatal accident caused by a machine? People want a human scapegoat.
Obviously the base programming of these cars will be to have them follow the local rules and being computers will be very good at this. Which means that government types will feel free to keep adding more and more rules to satisfy every voter. Thus these cars will quickly stop following the most efficient routes and going the fastest speed that is safe but will end up following routes that take them away from schools, parks, politicians' houses, and whatever whim they want. Even though these cars will soon be able to scream around at full speed safer than cars now they will end up going slower.
Also how are the morality police going to get their rocks off if now you can be passed out drunk in your car?
If the cars are all carefully following the rules and in theory you need far fewer traffic cops then who will catch people who jailbreak their cars into ignoring speed limits?
Lastly in this litigious society who will you sue if an empty car has an accident? The owner, the coder, or the local government who probably designed a crappy intersection or whatnot that induces the cars to crash at that spot.
I would venture to say the self driving car is simply inevitable, as the economic forces behind it are huge. Millions of people will buy additional cars, to replace theirs as well as to get extra ones to take their kids to work without them, create truck and taxi fleets with no drivers, etc. After cars become self-driving, they will become smaller, as they will really almost always carry one person and be used within city limits. That will be basically the same as PRT systems, which exist already. --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit --- Personal rapid transit (PRT), also called personal automated transport (PAT) or podcar, is a public transportation mode featuring small automated vehicles operating on a network of specially-built guide ways. PRT is a type of automated guideway transit (AGT), which also includes systems with larger vehicles, all the way to small subway systems.
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I like the idea of a robot-driven car, but I think the difficult thing is that in the case of a death or an injury, people want to be able to hold a person responsible. It's difficult to know exactly how that would pan out with a robot car. However, I guess one advantage is that you would probably have a 'black box' that could give you a much better idea of exactly what happened.
To be honest, people probably worry about this more than they should. We already have the situation where injuring or killing people with a car is very lightly punished. It's exceptionally rare (at least in the UK) for anybody to do jail time for killing people. You can do all sorts of idiotic things in your car, kill someone and get away with a fine of a few hundred pounds.
You may have to accept personal liability for any accident you are involved in if you are manually driving a car once this technology become more commonplace. That could be a very steep price to pay. You'll also likely have increased insurance rates as your risk relative to the drivers who use the technology will be higher.
I think the real selling point for driverless cars isn't going to be safety, but efficiency. Road maintenance is very expensive. Adding more roads costs a lot of money, and widening existing roads often means tearing down whatever homes or businesses are built alongside them. Driverless cars could use cooperative algorithms to better handle things like lane closures and overall congestion. You wouldn't have free-rider problems (no pun intended) like people cutting in at the front of a line, slowing everyone else down. When a stoplight turns green, every car could start moving simultaneously, getting more people through the light. I bet a huge reduction in rush hour traffic would be a selling point for a lot of people (and regulators).
It would take a long time to implement. And there would be a backlash from people who want to do (possibly selfish) things the algorithms won't. But it's still a neat idea.
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I drive manual transmission cars, I ride motorcycles, and I love going to the racetrack and testing the limits of both myself and my vehicles. Never had an at fault accident, but in the interest of disclosure I was rear-ended while waiting at red lights TWICE.
So while I have a personal problem relinquishing control of my car to a computer because I enjoy driving it myself, I can see the benefits of computer aided driving especially on public roads. But I believe an in between system would vastly improve safety while leaving people in control. Instead of the computer having absolute control, have it perform the same analysis and assist in collision avoidance.
Approaching a red light at a speed beyond safety margins? Apply the brakes. Start fishtailing on the highway? Apply corrective steering measures. Changing lanes into another vehicle, cyclist or turning into the path of another vehicle? Sound warnings, apply brakes, etc.
The trick is setting the thresholds to a level where people are completely in control up to the point where they are somewhat close to having an accident. Because if you believe computer driven cars will remove ALL collisions, you're deluded. All it takes if for a child to run out between two parked cars in the path of another car, and all the computer systems in the world will not counter its kinetic energy.
And it would be VERY important for the vehicle to be usable with the computer systems disabled, for several reasons.
First, because many people enjoy driving. Short of banning every single existing car on the road, people like me will always be able to purchase and drive a non-computerized vehicle. Even today I can buy a functioning Ford Model T. Think about that for a second, and you'll realize it could take a hundred years before the last current car stops being available, short of outlawing them. But just like with cigarettes and alcohol, I doubt that will ever happen. Can you imagine the lobby all the wealthy car collectors will mount?
Second, because computer systems fail and sometimes they cannot be inexpensively repaired. A current car can still run with many of its electrical systems disabled (power seats, windows, navigation system, even alternator and starter) for a while. Having worked with cars and motorcycles for a long time, I can tell you I'd rather rebuild an engine than diagnose an electrical problem. A cold solder on a PCB can ruin a while weekend trying to figure out why your car will not start in hot weather, but works fine in cold (I'm looking at you Honda Main Relay!!!) The complexity of a computer that can drive a car is beyond anything we have available today ANYWHERE, and it has thousands of failure points. Sensors, cameras, gps, servo motors, switches, wires, PCBs and only lastly the main CPU. The fact it runs in testing is great, but these systems have to last 10+ years of abuse WITHOUT FAILURE.
Lastly, having fully computer driven cars will make people even more dependent on technology, which is NOT a good thing. I've had my GPS tell me to go down a railway track once. I looked at it, smiled, and found the real route myself. But people HAVE driven on railway tracks, into lakes or in remote areas where they died of hypothermia. Imagine if you program your car to drive you, without any input, and it makes such a mistake?
It's ok for coal to have killed and maimed thousands directly and more than a million indirectly, but a nuclear incident that gives a few workers a dose over limit.....
Judging from the number of cars I see with drivers blabbing on cells phones while drifting around on the road, people stuffing their faces, digging around the passenger seat, etc I'd say we've had driverless cars for some time now.
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As soon as it is proven that computers cause fewer accidents than people do, the rates for manual insurance will rocket. Just like it's now impossible for a teenage man (and when the non sex discrimination rules kick in, teenage women, too) to get any insured for less than several thousand £££'s, so it will be for drivers who wish to be in control, themselves. SO while the law may allow people to drive, it will soon be impractical for reasons of cost. Shortly after that it will become socially irresponsible and after that people will start to wonder why anyone would ever want to. It'll take a decade ot two, but sooner or later the only place people will be allowed to control cars themselves will be on private race-tracks next door to hospitals - provided you can afford the medical care.
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Right, the logic expressed in TFS was reasonable, but only from the collectivist POV. That is, a system where some people are sacrificed for The Greater Good(TM), in this case for likely a significant increase in highway safety, vs. a system where the individual has a large amount (albeit not complete) control over his or her own life. This is just one particular case in the timeless struggle between two conflicting general philosophies.
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But I sure as hell don't want to be the one guy in the statistics whos dieing is okay just because the system usually works.
What happens when the system works better than you do?
At least let me cause my own death, or be in control of avoiding getting hit by a drunk driver so it's at least my own fault!
You also are asking for permission to cause the deaths of others. And a drunk isn't going to hit you with a car, if they aren't driving.
As I see it, I don't believe we should ever get rid of human drivers altogether. The need for human freedom outweighs the slightly greater death rate from having human drivers on the road. But at the same time, I think you should understand the trade offs of being a human driver.
When you get behind the wheel, you are putting other people at risk of being hit by you. I think that the risk to these other people are outweighed by your needs and wants (driving is pretty safe when done by a skilled driver who is aware of and respects the risks of driving.
Modern cars could easily be programmed to never exceed 80
And we could easily prevent you from committing a crime in the future by preemptively locking you up. That sort of thinking leads to all sorts of absurd rules and regulations in the name of "public safety". Do we want to live in a Fischer-Price nanny state or would we rather be treated like adults who can handle themselves responsibly unless we demonstrate otherwise through our actions?
I don't own a car or drive
And yet you gleefully propose onerous regulations on driving because even a miniscule improvement in your safety is worth endless amounts of inconvenience to those of us who must drive to work each day? Typical.
Actually, considering that there's too many of us on our little ball of sand and iron already, the Greater Good &trade might be better served if we keep driving like we're used to. Reconcile that with "Do no evil", Google!
May the source be with you.
"But I sure as hell don't want to be the one guy in the statistics whos dieing is okay just because the system usually works. "
>I don't care if it can save millions of lives, I'm a selfish asshole who would rather risk my own life and the lives of everyone around me cause I don't understand technology or probability.
Fixed that for you
Bah. You aren't driving, you're just riding in a box. You don't even need to own it -- you can just rent it for you trip.
We already have that. We call them "cabs".
And they're sometimes useful.
Which may be the way to sell this, more than "it's a car you don't have to drive!". Why bother? The *point* of owning a car is to drive it. Driving is *fun*.
(And if it isn't, please, please, please take the bus, train, or trolley. If you don't enjoy driving, you're not going to be paying attention, which, frankly, makes you part of the problem.)
The problem with driverless cars is not that they're going to be unsafe, but that they're basically useless. We HAVE means of transporting people so that they don't have to pay attention already.
And yet we still own cars. Why? Because they're _fun_. Who's going to drop US$50,000 on a car that they don't get to drive?
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Do not ignore those who are killed by no fault of their own. How many are killed in accidents caused by someone else?
Unfortunately, this is precisely the point. People are illogical. 600k die every year to heart disease and no one flinches, but it a one-time, ~3000 death event caused a massive response. 24k deaths each year can be attributed to coal power plants, but clearly it's nuclear power that's the major threat. After all, you never know when your local nuclear reactor might be hit by a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I know plenty of people who drive for "fun" but do it dangerously and don't pay the necessary attention. I also know plenty of people who have no interest in driving for the sake of driving, but are careful and attentive because they understand that's how you should act with a couple of tons of metal under your control.
Except they're more expensive and less convenient. Your same line of reasoning concludes: why have cabs when we already have buses and trains ?
The vast majority of people for whom cars are a tool to get from A to B, and not a leisure pursuit ? I drive for fun on weekends. All the other trips involve wasting my valuable time sitting on roads full of other cars. A car that drove itself to work and back every day would be _awesome_.
The distance between the planes is larger. But there is a whole lot of reasons why you need larger distance to get the same amount of risk.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?