Slashdot Mirror
Autonomous Vehicles and the Law
Hugh Pickens writes "Google's autonomous cars have demonstrated that self-driving vehicles are now largely workable and could greatly limit human error, but questions of legal liability, privacy and insurance regulation have yet to be addressed. Simple questions, like whether the police should have the right to pull over autonomous vehicles, have yet to be answered and legal scholars and government officials warn that society has only begun wrestling with laws required for autonomous vehicles. The big question remains legal liability for the designers and manufacturers as some point out that liability exemptions have been mandated for vaccines, which are believed to offer great value for the general health of the population, despite some risks. 'Why would you even put money into developing it?' says Gary E. Marchant, director of the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at the Arizona State University law school. 'I see this as a huge barrier to this technology unless there are some policy ways around it.' Congress could consider creating a comprehensive regulatory regime to govern the use of these technologies say researchers at the Rand Corporation adding that while federal preemption has important disadvantages, it might speed the development and utilization of these technologies (PDF) and should be considered, if accompanied by a comprehensive federal regulatory regime. 'This may minimize the number of inconsistent legal regimes that manufacturers face and simplify and speed the introduction of these technologies.'"
Good news is, since the vehicle is computer based, to pull the vehicle over the police would most likely have to issue a computer command, which could be logged, including date, time and identity of the police officer who issue the other. If it is related to a warrant, it could even be linked to court data.
morcego
I can see why in the US there is such resistance to autonomous vehicles: Small towns and counties depend on driver error, be it speeding, red light cameras, or stuff like that for revenue. An autonomous system means that everyone will be going the speed limit, so no tickets (and no chance at finding marijuana and thus earning a civil forfeiture prize) will be given.
This is sad because the US is the perfect place for autonomous vehicles -- most cities are too sprawled out for even buses to be reliable, much less light rail. So, vehicles that drive themselves would be ideal because it would allow long distances to be covered with vehicles packed in as much as their computer and mechanical systems would allow, compared to current driving conditions which depend on the driver's ability/reactions (or lack of when compared to a computer.) Even for people who don't own a car, it wouldn't be hard to have a Car2Go/Zipcar like service.
Even more ironic, with computer controlled cars, it would lesson the need for more and more highway improvements. Cars can be sped up or slowed down to allow vehicles in and out, they can be moved into lanes depending on their destination, and if there is a vehicle problem, it can be moved to the side of the road and traffic routed around it without putting the highway out of commission for hours on end. This would save a municipal area far more money than they ever would earn by speeding tickets.
You have a point, but I imagine it will be some time before a "largely workable" system is permitted to operate a vehicle on public roads.
BMW in Germany already have test autonomous vehicles running on public roads amongst ordinary traffic.
But for general use I think it'll happen gradually.There are already publicly available systems that will apply the brakes for you if you are going to collide with the vehicle in front. And systems that will stop you from veering out of lane on a highways. There are even cars already out there that will perform parallel parking for you.
Aircraft autopilots didn't start doing landings from day one. They evolved from much simpler systems. Each step proving itself for a long time.
The question goes to the heart of the argument. If the average driver has a 1.5% chance of causing a collision, but an automated on 1% then clearly the automated vehicle is preferable (to over simplify somewhat). However if the 'designers' at GM are responsible for 20 million cars then they have no incentive to ever try and work, because merely by law of averages they're going to get screwed selling millions of cars a year.
A couple of months ago the brakes failed on my car and I narrowly avoided hitting two people. Now the thing is, my car had been at the shop to get the brakes checked and repaired about 3 weeks before that. Who is really at fault? In 3 weeks the auto shop can't really be liable for anything that happened to the brakes, but I had no indication there was a problem until I had a loud thunking sound, and no braking action (go go emergency brakes). Had I been a fraction of a second slower realizing what just happened, well, the law would have held me liable for hitting two people. Even though I would attempt to argue that I did due diligence on the brakes, and was braking from a safe distance (but when you're going 60 Km/h and your brakes fail it takes a moment to process what happened and what your solutions are,and what your fall back scenarios are going to be if the emergency brake doesn't work, and even then you're guessing just how quickly the emergency brake will stop you).
In your case, you're saying what we all know. All data is dirty, and no one thing is 100% tolerant of all possible input cases from the dirty data (in addition to all other failures that can happen on a device). Our legal systems don't really play nice with the real world statistical probabilities of random failures, or how you ascribe blame to something that isn't intentional. It would be most unfortunate if a data entry clerk from 20 years ago is held liable because they typed a speed limit into a database as 80kph rather than the intended 60.
I suppose in some ways it is similar to a national healthcare and medical malpractice problem. People die, all of us. Just as mechanical devices will eventually fail. If you individually mandate responsibility to service providers (drivers, mechanics, doctors) you end up with a much different system than if you collectivize the risk (think NHS in the UK). If the goal is a system that in general reduces accidents you need to move away from trying to assign blame on a case by case basis, and providers who consistently make mistakes can be dealt with internally- but you'll have to accept some sort of shared insurance system for the fact that accidents will happen. Whether that's manufacturers or operators who pay into it (or the government or points of sale or....) I don't know.
The line of cars is just approximating a bus. The only advantage is that you have a "last mile" effect of delivering you right to your driveway.
Except that unlike a bus, it's not occupied by anyone who's not with me (e.g., if they're drunk, I probably am too and don't mind), I can leave my possessions in it, it travels on my schedule (it goes just as many places at 3 AM as at noon), and, of course, it takes me directly to my destination.
Imagine if a 16-hour drive could be done as an overnight trip - you get off work on Friday for a week's vacation, you go home and put the suitcases in the car, eat a bit of dinner, and hit the road. You can be well rested and 1000 miles away by lunchtime the next day. All of a sudden, New Orleans is a weekend trip from DC.