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FBI Concerned About Criminals Using Driverless Cars
gurps_npc (621217) writes As per the Guardian, The FBI is concerned about dirverless cars. It discussed issues such as letting criminals shoot while the car drives (silly in my opinion, apparently they haven't heard of "partners" or considered requiring such cars have a police controlled "slow down" command), the use of such vehicles as guided bullets (safeties again should stop this), and loading it with explosives and using it as a guided missile. This last concern is the only one that I considered a real issue, but even that is not significantly more dangerous than loading up a regular van full of explosives with a timer, then setting the timer to explode before you leave the vehicle next to a school, etc.
Automation is killing jobs faster than we've ever imagined. Even suicide bombers are being rendered useless.
Obviously the solution is requiring passengers to go through TSA checkpoints before they are able to board or disembark from any driverless car.
But seriously, if these are concerns for driverless cars, they are concerns for regular cars too. It's not improbable to build a working remote-controlled car from any normal model anyways. It's regularly done for stun work, Mythbusters, etc.
This is obviously a ploy to mandate government tracking on driverless cars, which they'll eventually extend to all cars.
They want to track all the data, on every citizen, all the time, in flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
They won't even need a button. I highly doubt an automated car will proceed to pilot itself on a high speed chase, or ignore red and blue lights.
Fbi should go back to consulting their Internet slang dictionary, rather than trying to think.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
No, that's silly. After my robocar takes me to work, I should be able to send it back home to pick up my wife so she can run errands.
"Due to this threat, we must have the ability to totally control driverless cars... and cars with drivers... and all electronic devices... and we need to track people in real time for the entirety of their lives..."
A shootout with an autodrive car. Sure the criminal could have the car driving to a destination while they hang out the window and shoot. Of course, the car would go the legal speed, stop at all lights and stop signs, and generally be much safer than any car driven by a human, much less one shooting or getting shot at.
Not to mention it will probably have a police override allowing them to remotely either stop it, or redirect it to a place of their choosing. I wouldn't be surprised if it would even tell the police it's intended route and destination if they asked it.
It will also probably have an emergency responder reaction where if there are sirens from police, fire, or ambulance it pulls over to the side and stops, as that is the law for humans. And as the poster mentioned, a partner could always drive a car so the one riding shotgun could still shoot.
Using it for bombings. What's so different from sending an autodrive vehicle to someplace with a bomb in it as opposed to sending a regular vehicle with a bomb and then leaving it before it blows, or even having some ignorant stooge drive it for you? After all, it's not like you can make the autodrive violate it's programming and plow through a crowd or into a mall. If you really wanted to do that, you could just rig a normal car up with remote controls. It's not that hard or expensive, they do it a lot on mythbusters, so it's not a strange concept to most people either.
Of course, the FBI has way too many people that need to deal with technology that really don't understand it in the slightest. Years ago I had to disappoint an FBI agent that I was helping by explaining to him how things really worked. He was getting samples from all the different printers so that they could make a database to identify what printer printed something like they used to do with typewriters. I had to explain to him that the fonts are totally programmable and have no unique characteristics to that printer. Also, that the inks and toners are actually made by only a handful of companies, and are again, not unique to the printer. He was very disappointing with the information.
That would remove a huge amount of the utility of driverless cars. Things like having it drop you off at the airport, or let you out at the mall while it finds a place to park, or any other number of other activities that require a bit of preplanning and someone else to drive (and often be inconvenienced for it).
How about stop trying to place restrictions on things just because they could be abused. We're supposed to be 'the land of the free,' for fuck's sake. This is just embarrassing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You mean ground drones?
Car heaven is where the mechanics are German, the drivers are Italian, and the leather is maintained by a British butler.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
The future has a bunch of scary possibilities.
At some point, someone's going to figure out that if they tape a gun to a quadcopter, it becomes a very effective way to kill people - especially if you can afford 50 of them and can do some basic automation (ie. float to these GPS coords, then shoot anything that moves). Defense against this kind of threat is problematic.
And yeah, a driverless car would be a good base to build some effective weapons on. You're going to get "drive here" for free. "Keep driving a bit, then blow up" is pretty easy to add on to that. And it requires very little personal commitment to be effective, assuming you're competent in dealing with the software.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
IF everyone is in an automatic car that obeys all traffic laws all the time, will there be no more traffic tickets?
If an auto ca can drop someone off at the airport then drive back home, what will happen to all the long term parking garages?
If an auto car will find it's own parking space, is that the end of valets?
I for one am happy to see all that crap come to an end.
It's "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". If we give up the second half, then the first half needs must go with it.
Not needing a passenger happens to be one of the more awesome features of driverless cars... People can effectively have valet drop off for wherever they go. Cars can be shared because you're staying put at a given location for a period of a time. Cars can drive themselves to maintenance. Cars can make delivery runs. Sure, it's another attack vector, but so is putting salt in your eyes. The danger is imminent, don't put salt in your eyes. I think the more eminent threat is that automated cars are going to result in lots of sex happening on the road. I mean really, what do you think happens when you put people in a close quarters private 15 minute outing, with a virtual guarantee of no interruptions and no need for any person to be paying attention to what's going on outside of the car?
The thing is that an autonomous car would probably be programmed to follow ALL the traffic laws.
What good is a get-away car that stops at every red/yellow light and yields to pedestrians?
That's not even going into whether the car would pull to the side of the road and stop when it detected emergency vehicle lights/sirens.
land of the free, hahaha, funny that people ever believed that
They won't even need a button. I highly doubt an automated car will proceed to pilot itself on a high speed chase, or ignore red and blue lights.
Fbi should go back to consulting their Internet slang dictionary, rather than trying to think.
Don't put a kill switch in my car. Kill switches will be hacked and abused. Devices will be sold and marketed to kill a car, even if they are illegal. Just like the MIRT and all the related devices. Illegal as a $7 bill but assholes still buy them.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Yeppers.
For me, the biggest attraction of a driverless car is that I could go to work, then send it home. Or send it to pick the kids up from school.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I think the more eminent threat is that automated cars are going to result in lots of sex happening on the road.
Sex is a lot more comfortable on a soft, roomy bed. And I don't want my car to smell like bodily fluids. I'm going to spend the time reading.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Knives and other cutting implements can be abused by criminals, don't include them in my kitchen!
That example isn't even close to being equivalent. We're talking about the possibility that which someone can, with relative ease, wirelessly and anonymously deprive me of the use of my property without leaving much of a trace. You seem to be describing the crime of physical breaking and entering, which I would argue is none of those things.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Plus, it really eliminates the need to own so many cars. The car can do multiple duty, and borrowing a car is much more practical when it can pick you up at your door (whether it is shared between neighbors or is actually a taxi).
Parking becomes much easier to optimize when cars can drop and pick people up anywhere, and park themselves. There is no need for parking locations to be within a short walk of every destination.
You can also split up cargo vs personnel transport. Passenger vehicles could be smaller and optimized for passengers, with cargo vehicles being big boxes on wheels. You could take a bus to the grocery store and send your 12 bags home in a cargo vehicle while you take a bus back, or a 1-person car, etc. People don't need to own a vehicle large enough to make that trip they make once a month - they can rent for that.
Endless possibilities for transportation when you don't need people in the loop.
Bad guys can program computers to do bad things without any human involvement (beyond the initial orders from the bad guys). Should we give the police kill switches for computers so they can turn off any computer they suspect may be involved in a crime?
Bad guys can also park cars near sensitive locations, pack the trucks with explosives, and detonate them remotely. Should we make all cars with special locks that the police have master keys to? This way the police can open any car at any time if they decide that car might possibly be suspicious.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I want you to just shut up and take the damn bus. I'm far from alone in that.
That's not at all feasible given where I live. The weather is abysmal and the nearest bus stop is around an hour and a half walk away. I've taken buses plenty before, at best they subject you to significant delays compared to being able to drive your own vehicle, unless you live someplace with massive traffic like I don't.
Give me PRT and I'll not be whinging, but buses are bullshit unless you live in a city. And even then, they are usually bullshit in this country. When I lived in SF I could drive to work including parking in fifteen minutes; I'd probably have to pay for parking now, but I'd still be able to drive that route on surface streets without bad traffic. It took me two buses and the MUNI and a best case of, again, an hour and a half. More likely it would take two hours.
Public transportation in the USA is shit, and suggesting people whose situation you don't know use it is stupid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Okay, so you claim to be an engineer AND a computer scientist. That means a LOT of math classes for you.
Yes it can. That's basic math. Stopping distance is determined by 3 things:
1. reaction time (computers are quicker than humans)
2. speed
3. surface conditions
So the autonomous car should stop in a shorter distance than a human would.
Someone with a degree in computer science should know that computers only run programs. Therefore, SOMEONE would have to have made the decision to program the autonomous car to categorize certain objects as "4-year-old child" and other objects as "octogenarian".
Furthermore, someone with a degree in computer science would know how extremely difficult such a task would be.
Whereas recognizing "obstacle" is much easier to program. So the same action would be taken no matter what the obstacle was. And that action should be to stop.
Stop.
If the passenger wants to take over control of the vehicle at that time then that is an option. But the autonomous car should just stop. And it would do that fast than a human could do that.
Again, someone with a degree in computer science can tell you how difficult it would be to write a program that could, correctly, determine how many passengers there were in a vehicle.
So, when presented with an obstacle, the autonomous vehicle should stop. And do so faster than a human could.
Stop.
Now, from a BUSINESS viewpoint the company would be liable for damages should they ship a car that incorrectly identified an obstacle as anything other than an obstacle ("a 4-year-old child", "an octogenarian", "bus with 12 passengers") which resulted in injury or death to the occupants of the autonomous vehicle. Therefore, no company would write such a program.
You have confused "artificial intelligence" with "autonomous car".
An autonomous car is not the same as an artificial intelligence. Nor would an autonomous car be programmed with the sub-routines that you are postulating.
Autonomous vehicles, especially ones that can go off-road? Fill the trunk with cocaine, set the GPS for a garage somewhere northeast of Mexicali, and unload it when it arrives.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks