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MIT Creates Car Co-Pilot That Only Interferes If You're About To Crash
MrSeb writes "Mechanical engineers and roboticists working at MIT have developed an intelligent automobile co-pilot that sits in the background and only interferes if you're about to have an accident. If you fall asleep, for example, the co-pilot activates and keeps you on the road until you wake up again. Like other autonomous and semi-autonomous solutions, the MIT co-pilot uses an on-board camera and laser rangefinder to identify obstacles. These obstacles are then combined with various data points — such as the driver's performance, and the car's speed, stability, and physical characteristics — to create constraints. The co-pilot stays completely silent unless you come close to breaking one of these constraints — which might be as simple as a car in front braking quickly, or as complex as taking a corner too quickly. When this happens, a ton of robotics under the hood take over, only passing back control to the driver when the car is safe. This intelligent co-pilot is starkly contrasted with Google's self-driving cars, which are completely computer-controlled unless you lean forward, put your hands on the wheel, and take over. Which method is better? A computer backup, or a human backup? I'm not sure."
This is much better than the disaster-waiting-to-happen that Google is building. Computer should act as backup, not as a master. Wasn't this one of the basics of AI? Fucking Google.
Perhaps Onstar can sell this as an option. Have a remote human take over the driving in an emergency. Would be a little laggy but hey, you can safely eat your Big Mac with both hands.
Otherwise perfect reason to have a trunk monkey.
Especially if I'm in the car full of kids for hours on end.
Lamest demolition derby ever!
I'm sorry David, I cannot allow you to pass that car.
While fully autonomous cars may be the more desirable future, computer backup systems like this are a more likely first step. Once people start getting used to cars making good decisions on the road, they will be more willing to give the computers even more control.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
If it THINKS you are about to crash.
Simpsons did it!
Don't all Volvo XC60's have this (as an option). Only difference is it wakes me up when it thinks I'm sleeping instead of it taking over 'until I wake up' LOL.
I would be all for this if the computer would take over once it determines you are driving too slow in the fast lane and blocking traffic. Maybe there can be 2 modes, emergency take over, and 'Nag' mode for when the computer determines your acting like a selfish asshole.
I want a complete and total autopilot so that I can eat breakfast and read a book while commuting.
It should of course be deactivatable so I can drive myself whenever I want to.
Also, it should save my ass when I am doing something dumb and freak out.
Most of all, IT SHOULD BE MY SERVANT, AND NOT LOG MY BEHAVIOUR IN SOME CORPORATE OR STATE SYSTEM.
you have to pretend you're sleeping
Flip it around for a moment...
In the today world one of the most difficult tasks for pilots is to assume control from the auto -pilot when systems problems cause the auto pilot to lose the ability to control. Transitioning from "passive monitor" mode to active control is extremely difficult - and not unusually fatal.
BUT
the robotic backup does not suffer from distraction or an inability to correctly process valid inputs. My choice - robots get my back
There is also the “deskilling” issue, where eventually no one knows how to drive a car (or fly a plane). This isn’t so bad if every car on the road is autonomous, and if steering wheels are removed altogether, but the in between period could be tricky.
If all cars on the road are autonomous why don't we just have trains, light rail and subways?
Which method is better? A computer backup, or a human backup?
Both fail because both exist. Accident reports will be full of "I thought the computer was driving" and so forth.
Also any time there is none the less an accident, "its the computer's fault"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
There's a whole class of philsophical problems about when to save one life v. n lives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem. One very awkward thing about this is that advanced emergency driving systems may need to address questions that we are fundamentally uncomfortable answering or discussing. Should a system for example protect the life of the people in a car as opposed to the life of people in a nearby car that they might crash into? Which gets higher priority. Does the number of people in each car matter? Exactly what the cars do in the few seconds leading up to a crash could alter this. Essentially this sort of thing may force us to examine difficult ethical problems.
I've heard truck drivers complaining about systems like this. Apparently it has more control over the engine speed than the driver.
it doesn't wake u up??
"only passing back control to the driver when the car is safe."
"safe", you say? Who judges it?
It will probably be extended to "all the time". Something like "If another car is less than 1 mile away.".
I'll put my money on the Human, with all of the inherent flaws of that system. A simple test: Park a bus sideways on the road, but leave the shoulder open. Put a pedestrian or two on the shoulder (children) and see which one the system will hit on a blind corner. Also, can the system perform the calculation to intentionally hit an object -- riding (sideswiping) a guard rail to reduce speed, choosing a small diameter tree over a larger one, a location in a ditch based on terrain, or even intentionally spinning out to lose momentum to avoid an greater accident?
Now try the same test in a northern climate with unpredictable traction conditions in the winter. I find myself turning off the best traction control systems all the time. Seems my experience of intentionally skidding around comes in handy. Try some demolition/figure 8 racing. You will be better in emergency situations. I don't even like anti-lock breaks and would "prefer" to be able to lock up the tires of my choice. Front wheel drive, manual transmission and a parking break are the best for driver control.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the "safety systems" similar to this on commercial aircraft should know that development of systems such as this always have unintended consequences. Even if they work flawlessly the flawless function could still potentially be dangerous.
Just as one example: sometimes "crashing" is the least-bad alternative available to a driver. Given the choice between hitting a person standing in the road or a row of water-filled barriers many drivers would correctly choose the barrier over the human. But this safety system will likely subvert that and take the choice away from the driver.
Fuck this.
I do not like this trend.
Lag is the least of your worries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7J7yjBq8Y
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Would it take over if you were attempting to drive 90MPH through a residential zone? What about doing 35MPH through a residential zone?
I believe this very question distinguishes Boeing and Airbus and their autopilot philosophy. IIR, Boeing says the pilot is the senior authority, Airbus prefers the computer's judgement. Note the similarity in the sounds 'airbus' and 'skynet'.
Instead of the abstract fantasy they are now entertaining, it would be nice to see these MIT kids making
the task of driving AS IT NOW EXISTS safer.
Of course it is much easier and better to keep things in the abstract, that way the grant money
keeps flowing.
Because if we do that it's only a tiny step to socialisticalatedized medicine (i.e. death panels), being reabsorbed into the British Empire and forcible conversion to Islam.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Interestingly, both approaches have been tried in aviation.
A while back, Aviation Week reported on an experimental system that could override fighter pilots when they would otherwise crash. It waited until the absolute last second, when the required maneuver was just within the structural limits of the airframe.
Using humans as backups has a long and good operational history, but it might not work as well with undertrained personnel like car drivers. Even with highly trained pilots, dropping control onto a human suddenly in a disorienting situation can be problematic, e.g. Air France 447.
1. Automatic system interferes.
2. Automatic system interference causes crash.
3. Automatic system only interfered if you were about to crash? Check.
Firstly: How does the system detect imminent crashes? If this makes mistakes, it can wrest control away from the driver when unnecessary and cause a crash.
Secondly: How does the system react to imminent crashes? If this performs worse than what the driver was already doing, it can cause a crash.
The main problem with autonomous driving is the legal liability. The problems above still introduce the legal liability, yet without the major benefits from a broader system. I think the industry will simply skip over this straight to broader systems.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
What if there was a switch where the operator of the vehicle could choose between normal driving, computer-assisted driving (MIT), and human-assisted driving (Google)? I think that would be a better option than having to choose between expensive automobiles.
~Jarmihi
Is this some kind of weird expression of the New England work ethic? Make the driver work just as hard as ever, but should he ever falter, a superior system kicks in and saves his ass?
If I have a computer that can handle emergencies more reliably than I can, surely it can handle the mundane more reliably, too.
I wrote parts of this stuff
The difference between the two approaches is a difference of perception - in one, the *human* is considered the primary while the *computer* is the backup; in the other the *computer* is the primary and the *human* is the backup.
Now, obviously, both of those elements can fail. Humans are fallible drivers, as I well know. Computers can crash, or just fail to process events properly. No matter what, you will get accidents under any of these. Hell, we still get train crashes, and they're bound to tracks and subject to tight top-down management.
I think the most likely outcome is this: we begin using computer failovers, expanding on those we already have (antilock brakes, cruise control, lane following, automatic parallel parking). Both because this allows for gradual testing and improvement of each module, and because as a society I don't think we can handle going directly to full computer control.
Eventually, however, the computers will be good enough at driving that you'll be able to have them take full control. And eventually, doing that will be commonplace.
As others have pointed out, have will the system make a choice between multiple bad choices? What if there's no way to avoid a crash, such as a car traveling directly towards you and the road's too tight to get out of the way. How about a tire blowing out and/or the breaks failing. How will the system handle the car not functioning as expected? Humans adapt much better than software. There's only some many situations you can test for. What if you want to use your truck to help push a broken car somewhere? The software wouldn't let you.
The other issue is humans are lazy. If you given them a car that is supposed to prevent crashes, they will speed directly into the cars ahead of them expecting the system to take over and stop for them. 'It'll break for me. Why should I have to worry about that?'
Until they're fully automatic, I don't think we should use self driving cars. The cars should only provide warnings to the driver.
One final issue, how do you disable the lock out mode? The police will use it to automatically cause cars to be pull themselves over. OnStar can already remote disable your car and does so. The plus side will greatly reduce auto theft. But dive by anyone wanted for anything and the car will see them and communicate the info back to the police. It might not be part of the first versions, but there's no reason why those features won't be added to help protect you.
On the plus side, we're going to have super detailed road maps in the future.
Like anything it depends on the situation, and I foresee cars that do all three modes: Human Only, Computer Backup, Human Backup.
I just finished a 3000 mile family vacation. There were long stretches where I thought the car could have taken over on the highway, kept us in a single lane and kept speed while preventing the rear ending of a slower driver. But we did experience one situation with tire rubber from a disintegrated truck tire in the middle of the lane and I needed to drive around it. Wasn't a particularly hard manoeuvre, but I am not sure how a computer would have reacted...especially since I didn't see it until the car in front of me did a similar manoeuvre. It was blocked from my view by the preceding vehicle.
Perhaps special "automated" only lanes where all vehicles are forced to the exact same speed, and trucks require special safety clearance to prevent disintegrating tires. Long distance drivers would benefit from being Human Backups. However on exit from the highway, computer backup becomes the normal mode, and finally in harsh conditions, Computer backup can be disabled.
My 2010 Prius System 5 already stops the car if i'm about to crash (PCS) and it helps steer when I have the lane keep assist (LKA) on. LKA uses machine vision so doesn't always work if there lines in the road are missing, degraded,
While clearly the MIT system detailed as more points of constraint and while I think it's could to have PCS (Pre Crash System); that problem doesn't solve numerous problems like those who are getting older (but still need mobility), those who get fatigued, using automated car "training" to smooth out high way and perhaps local traffic so that there is more throughput, less congestion, Etc.
Clearly the MIT system could be integrated with the Google approach... and I think could and perhaps should be required for new drivers (governance of new drivers) but issues of keeping drivers and passengers safe isn't the same issue has having self driving cars.
http://www.hawknest.com/
An old joke among pilots asks: what do you need to fly a modern airplane? A computer, a pilot and a dog.
The computer’s job is to fly the plane. The pilot’s job is to feed the dog. The dog’s job is to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything.
To me it seems that the MIT approach takes on the hardest part of the problem, reacting correctly in the hard corner cases, while also adding yet another hard problem, which is determining when to take over from the driver, and being less valuable to boot. The only problem the Google approach has to handle that the MIT approach does not is navigation, and that's the easiest part.
The MIT system is still going to have to have full awareness of all of the surrounding obstacles, traffic, pedestrian and other, will have to know where the lines on the road are, etc., should probably know about traffic signs and signals, etc., road conditions (ice, sand, water, etc.), because all of that is necessary to make good decisions in an emergency situation. Actually, the MIT system needs to know more about all of that than the Google car does. The Google approach can rely on the human driver to notice and take over when things get difficult (which, BTW, is why I don't think the Google car will be a solution for people who are under the influence).
As to value, lots of people will see value in not having to drive themselves, in letting a computer do the boring, tedious part of getting from place to place. I think relatively few people will see value in an undoubtedly expensive system that only operates when they screw up, especially since most won't want to believe the system can actually do a better job than they can. Most people are willing to believe that a computer can drive a car safely in normal conditions, especially with a human to take over if things get difficult, but will find it far harder to believe that a computer can handle extreme conditions better than a human, to the degree that it makes sense for the computer to override the human driver.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Because everyone likes a backseat driver, right? It's like I told my ex-wife: If you want to drive, then drive. Otherwise shut up and let me drive.
This is "the worst of both worlds."
Say I'm about to hit a stalled car on the freeway. Will the system steer me around it or apply brakes? If it steers me around, is it sure the next lane will be clear? (Not only at that moment, but in the near future as I'm moving into it?) That requires not only an understanding of physics, but the ability to predict how other human drivers will act and react.
If it brakes, is it sure we're not just going to get rear-ended by the guy behind us and pushed into it anyway? No. No it's not.
These systems are designed to eliminate choices in emergency situations, with the assumption that the computer will always make the right choice for us.
Everyone here should know that computers don't think, they merely execute instructions that it was given in a lab somewhere.
So when your automated car finds itself in an emergency situation, have no fear. Some programmer in a cubicle somewhere has already decided what the best course of action is going to be for you in that situation.
No thanks. I enjoy driving, and I intend to maintain full control over vehicles under my command. It may not always be perfect, but that's part of the human condition.
My wife has narcolepsy, which means even when medicated her 15 minute commute is a risk that she could fall asleep behind the wheel. She probably won't be allowed to drive when she has to go off of the medicine for pregnancy. This emergency autopilot would be a necessity for us if it were available.
A computer backup should be able to make it to market quite a bit faster than a computer-first human-backup driving system. The Google approach is more luxury than necessity. We should push the computer backup system first, but the nature of our economy now is that the luxury of the wealthy will likely be pushed ahead of the needs of a middle class family like mine simply because they can finance it and I can't.
"This intelligent co-pilot is starkly contrasted with Google's self-driving cars"
There is no stark contrast except in the minds of those who dramatize without much technical understanding. The technology behind both is largely similar. As part of the technology process, it is likely that the MIT type of application will be widely commercialized first, for these reasons:
- Today's people buy into most things that increase their safety, and the market is large (elderly folks, night drivers etc.)
- It's easier to get societal acceptance to pose automatic driving as a life saving measure, unlike "taking the weels off my hand"
- This is possible at an earlier stage of maturity (after all, its main risk is that it takes control when it shouldn't)
- There is already an evolutionary trend from ABS through parking assist to lane detection to advance car brake detection to automated parking and
No matter how many accidents that the MIT technology prevented, if this technology fails to prevent an accident the makers of this technology will get sued. The lawsuit's reasoning would go like this: Joe's standard of driving, just like everybody else's, is way above average and his super-fast reflexes were handling the traffic situation fine, but MIT's defective technology overrode his highly skilled actions and actually caused the accident. Unless the auto manufacturers and the technology's inventors could prove that the accident would also have happened with the same or higher level of damage they will be held at least partially responsible. I worked for a few auto companies and such accident preventing technology would always be put on trial when it fails to 100% prevent an accident and they would be perpetually in the courtroom defending it. This is why this kind technology rarely makes it into production.
A mixture of autonomous and human-controlled vehicles presents the problem that a subset of the drivers in the mix will game the system, recklessly cutting-off any vehicle they believe is under autonomous control, if it's to their advantage (or because their assholes tell them to do it.) Drivers in the NYC metro area might well believe this would be indistinguishable from the current situation, but I imagine it could be worse.
This would be a problem with both full-time and emergency-only autonomy, but it might be easier to identify the autonomous vehicles in the former case, by observing how they are driven.
Both systems are stupid. How about better drivers education and mandatory rally/race car courses before licenses are granted, like what is required in some Northern European countries which can take over a year to get your drivers license. How about we evolve in our ability instead of attempting to have a computer take over.
Take it a step further and make the car drive itself. It will be safer for everybody.
What's the problem? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhlR3vidvp0
Have gnu, will travel.
I miss the time when we could buy cars that put the entire responsibility of keeping the car on the road in the hands of drivers. If I want to do a maneuver that seems like a better solution (flipping the car's tail out while purposefully messing with the throttle to induce a controlled sideways skid on a wet road) to avoiding a dangerous situation, traction control already messes with it. I wonder what it will be like with systems like these being applied as mandatory safety features.
We are going fix him like we did to jimmy hoffa.
It's a false dichotomy. There is no need to exclude one. One system for when the driver loses ability to drive. The other system for when the driver drives badly.
> If you fall asleep, for example, the co-pilot activates and keeps you on the road until you wake up again.
Is there a way to keep the driver unaware of that feature?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You can already get a number of Android apps that watch the road and alert you if you pull up too close or leave your lane.
And, of course, some cars have these kinds of assistance systems as well.
Am I the only one that thinks this is an incredibly stupid idea? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is already considering mandatory computer overrides for when the car's software locks the driver out of the brake pedal. "America's drivers should feel confident that any time they get behind the wheel they can easily maintain control of their vehicles — especially in the event of an emergency," says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. [http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/04/13/1417229/mandatory-brake-override-proposed-for-all-cars].
Besides, this system would just encourage bad behaviour (like drunk driving). After all if I'm about to have an accident because I'm drunk the car will save me. Bad drivers would also use this as an excuse to avoid tickets, get lower (good driver) insurance rates etc. All around a bad idea.
Was gonna flippantly reply "if human is a healthy, reasonably young member of the species in all five senses and with sufficent experience, computer should stand back, else the old fart should RIDE in the back."
But then someone mentioned planes. Anyone up to date with the news and who read the final BEA report on the Air France crash in the South Atlantic with 200+ dead will recall that the primary cause was lack of crew preparedness. Dumb pilots who couldn't fly a plane? Yes, but not cause of their choice.The airline chose to invest more in wiz-bang automated avionic wizardry instead of proper and traditional pilot training; pilots were just for show and just expensive chauffeurs who drove the plane in and out of the landing/takeoff strip, rest of the time the thing flew itself. Until the circumstances got beyond the capabilities of the dumb computer who panicked and handed over the controls to the pilots, who had no idea how to fly a big airliner out of a high altitude stall by the seat of the pants with minimal instruments cause they had never been trained to do so.
Given that there are WAY more cars, SUVs and trucks than planes, let's make sure this situation does not repeat itself in our streets and roads. How many young drivers know how to pull a motor vehicle out of a spin in an icy road, emergency brake successfully in a pouring thunderstorm, etc.?
I know some people whose insurance companies might even underwrite the cost of such a system just for the ability to avoid deer collisions.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Give me Google-style self-driving car if I'm not touching the wheel, but robot-backup car if I am. Don't leave me to my own devices if I decide to take over in Google's car. Still keep an watchful eye on me. After all, I'm only human.
What happens when some mud splatters on a sensor? Does it suddenly go into catastrophic avoidance mode? What happens when sensor fails, or when a whole bank of sensors fail? My experience with cars is that when one item goes wonky (like a coilpack on a 2000-2004 VW 1.8 turbo motor) they all eventually go wonky. Since these cars will be making life and death decisions, and interacting with other cars making life and death decisions, who decides if the programming between units is compatible? Does the government set standards for expect car behavior? If a kid, hell if my own kid, runs out in front of my car and I choose to swerve into a tree, does the computer override my decision? If it overrides me and kills my kid, is the car designer guilty of murder, manslaughter, is it merely exposed to possible lawsuit, or is it exempted from liability due to the EULA?
Here's an even trickier legal question, when someone makes a bad driving decision and the car takes over during the impending accident phase, but fails to avoid the accident, and I get pulverized, who is responsible? Does the dumb driver pay my medical and repair bills? Will he argue that Google or Ford is partially at fault and I have to sue them (good luck)?
-- QED
(pun intended).
A lot of things that make cars "safer" actually make things harder for the driver. Case in point: My Honda FIT (a nice little car overall) come with a 5-speed automatic and paddle shifters. Downshifting is limited by the on-board computer, however. So if I want to downshift but the computer senses that I'm going fast enough to over-rev the engine, it countermands my input and refuses to allow the shift to occur. So if I lose my brakes for some reason, the computer will prevent me from compensating appropriately so as to maintain a safe operating envelope for the engine. Wrong answer!
Wouldn't the insurance companies like to get their hands on the data collected by such systems? Every time your driving habits cause the co-pilot to engage, your insurance premium goes up.
My biggest problem with this is that, sometimes, you actually *want* to crash. Like crashing into a tree on the side of the road, rather than face a head-on. Or hitting a fence rather than going over a cliff. Surrender those decisions to a computer? No thanks!
I would not want to be trying to manhandle the steering wheel and braking system out the control of a computer during an emergency maneuver.
How do we in the US normally handle things? First we will have a robotic backup safety system in a few cars and then when it is noticed that the technology works it will be mandatory. As this will increase the cost of an car as well as the cost of maintenance of the car it will be enough to stop some people from driving or at the very least cause them to hold unto their ancient clunker until money comes their way. This will cause a lot of anger and a bit of acting up as well. People still resist seat belts. Imagine trying to lump another $5,000 in safety gizmos on top of the radical price of current models.
the fundamental issue ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability ), why computers, or automated machines for that matter are always vulnerable to crashes.
You in your automated car are approaching a junction. The light is green, computer does the math, calculating the distance to the junction, instant speed, the time needed for it to reach the junction and now has to commit to accelerate or start to plan to slow down. Here the intricate law of nature kicks in, namely the metastability, which says that in certain conditions, it takes arbitrary long for the system to make a decision.
So, in the example above, the autopilot misses hard deadline to make a decision, then finally makes it, deciding to hit the brakes to avoid accident. But unfortunately the car doesn't stop as fast and in fact makes it into junction under wrong light. Boom.
Same thing with planes. Assume two planes are somehow, perhaps due to the faulty sensor are in the same flight corridor, which they are not supposed to be during the flight, are heading towards each other. The autopilot senses approaching obstacle. Oh, its a plane, what do I do ? The system enters metastability state and BOOM.
The nasty thing about metastability is that, theoretically, you can't avoid it happening. Only one thing is given - that the decision will be made eventually, but there is no guarantee how long it will take to do that.
Knowing this and some other facts(human errors implementing algos) would you have 100% fate in your new shiny autopilot enabled vehicle ?
if the driver falls asleep, you fukkn zap his ass to wake him up? and then write up an electronic ticket and suspend license.. simple solutions people.
On surfaces like gravel and snow (both of which exist in plenty around where I live) ABS actually gives longer stopping distances compared to locked-wheel skids. On the other hand, it does let you continue to steer while braking.
People generally don't have those, at least not nearly as often as a computer.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
So instead of human instincts and experience, the computer is going to override your actions and send you flying off the cliff to your death instead of sacrificing hitting another car with minor damage. The computer is instructed to "not hit ANYTHING", but in an emergency scenario where its an easy decision for a human to hit another car vs flying off off a steep cliff, the human decision is going to win every time.
Seriously, again, this idea of car automation, in ANY shape or form, is one of the dumbest ideas ever.
Just leave my car alone. Improve systems to train drivers (such as actually putting training drivers into controlled emergent driving scenarios so they build up better driving skills and confidence), but keep the robots out of my engine.
Its not arrogance that makes me a better driver then a robot, its the fact that I want to survive a crash rather then adhere strictly to a set of programming instructions.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I do completely agree with the parent. We've recently been to Audi to discuss a research project and they gave us a nice tour, sharing some insights into their safety systems. Current Audis (and thus also Volkswagen, Seat, Scoda etc. which all belong to the VW group) have two classes of safety systems: pre and post crash. Pre crash systems analyze the situation and might act preemtively. The more interesting ones will break before you hit an obstacle or even avoid it by steering to the side. Technologically these systems are mostly mature. The sensors aboard can track >30 objects with a latency of just a few ms form object movement to servo action. The reason why they are not found in the current fleet is simple: insurance. What do we do in the 0.01% of the cases in which the system errs? These legal problems had to be resolved first.
Contrary to their name, post crash systems may kick in before the crash, but only if it's unavoidable according to the laws of physics. These systems will try to mitigate adverse effects, e.g. your bones being crumbled. For this the computers have a physical model of your body (and the car) and can detect through sensors in the seat if a heavy or light adult, or a kid in a booster seat is sitting in the car. It can then e.g. dose the strength of the belt pretensioner. One peculiar aspect of this is that the system knows whether you will break your neck during the crash. Scary!
This is the state of the art, no SciFi. Your car already knows much more about its surroundings that you might think it does. So relax people, and welcome your new robotic overlords... ehm, drivers. They'll be better drivers than you. Or me.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
"Maximum Homerdrive" is the episode to which I am referring. And I meant "Simpsons Did It" to be a joke from "Simpsons Already Did It" from South Park. How or why I was modded down from one to zero points is beyond me. I thought someone would get the joke.
Latest Mercedes E-Class does this.
If the computer takes control of the vehicle during emergencies, robbers can drive in front of the vehicle, slam on the brakes, and wait for the car to come to a full stop. There are times (like when another driver points a pistol at me (happened to me once on the California 101 back in the day)) when unsafe driving is an appropriate response to conditions.
How am I supposed to run over annoying children with this car?????