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When Should Cops Be Allowed To Take Control of Self-Driving Cars?
HughPickens.com writes: A police officer is directing traffic in the intersection when he sees a self-driving car barreling toward him and the occupant looking down at his smartphone. The officer gestures for the car to stop, and the self-driving vehicle rolls to a halt behind the crosswalk. This seems like a pretty plausible interaction. Human drivers are required to pull over when a police officer gestures for them to do so. It's reasonable to expect that self-driving cars would do the same. But Will Oremus writes that while it's clear that police officers should have some power over the movements of self-driving cars, what's less clear is where to draw the line. Should an officer be able to do the same if he suspects the passenger of a crime? And what if the passenger doesn't want the car to stop—can she override the command, or does the police officer have ultimate control?
According to a RAND Corp. report on the future of technology and law enforcement "the dark side to all of the emerging access and interconnectivity (PDF) is the risk to the public's civil rights, privacy rights, and security." It added, "One can readily imagine abuses that might occur if, for example, capabilities to control automated vehicles and the disclosure of detailed personal information about their occupants were not tightly controlled and secured."
According to a RAND Corp. report on the future of technology and law enforcement "the dark side to all of the emerging access and interconnectivity (PDF) is the risk to the public's civil rights, privacy rights, and security." It added, "One can readily imagine abuses that might occur if, for example, capabilities to control automated vehicles and the disclosure of detailed personal information about their occupants were not tightly controlled and secured."
So, the car can detect gestures.
How does it detect a police officer?
An automated car could be programmed to be pre-empted by emergency vehicles using lights in the standard manner, but how, exactly, would police stops be handled, especially when the stop is a gesture from the side of the road? There is going to have to be a device which police carry that broadcasts a standardized signal to pull over and stop. It will have to be secure against being imitated by criminals, perhaps with frequently-changed security keys.
Just deploying these to all the agencies that will need them is a non-insignificant problem. And cities are going to require that the devices, deployment and maintenance be paid for by the manufacturers.
and you're the subject who'll suffer
Never mind the possible abuses from police, if the cops can take control, you've left a security hole that can be exploited. While cars may drive themselves, it's still necessary to have a human who can take control if needed. If the police need to pull a car over, the person in the car should take control, manually drive, and pull over. Let's not make cars with huge security holes like that. Current cars have enough security holes already.
By uniform. But any criminal can acquire a uniform and unlike a human driver an automated system can't resist orders given by a criminal that would jeopardize driver's safety.
The big red button. If you press it, the car will continue to your destination unless physically disabled or completely blocked, regardless of non-traffic signals. It needs to be there for times when it is unsafe, or the occupant feels unsafe, with questionable external conditions (fake emergency vehicle signals, etc). And cops should be just fine with that because self-driving cars will otherwise obey the rules of the road (i.e. not speeding or running traffic signals), so if they really need to stop the car they can (a) surround it and slow down/stop to prevent the car from moving or (b) follow it to its destination - which in an emergency should be selectable by the operator as the original destination, the closest police precinct, or closest hospital emergency room entrance. There is no need or reason to offer electronic remote kill capabilities.
By choosing a fully automatic car, you give up a level of independence in return for convenience. I, for example, don't carry a sidearm or wear protective body armor today. That puts me in an inferior position to those who do, or those who have greater physical strength. It doesn't bother me because I evaluate the chance of needing such things is smaller than, say, being struck by lightning. I trade the convenience of lower kitted weight and bulk for an inferior defensive position.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Most people can't tell the difference between an officer and a criminal dressed like an officer. This is why its illegal to impersonate an officer.
Have an 'override' or 'emergency' button that maybe drives you to the closest police station.
The hierarchy of control should go this way:
1. Owner (should have an override that can shut off the engine even if not driving)
2. Driver (If they're behind the wheel only an owner can shut them off)
3. Police (can shut off any car not being piloted or directly controlled)
4. The AI
Here is how police should work... THE SAME WAY they do with normal drivers. A police car does not shoot your engine out or something. What they do is flash their lights and tell you pull over. And you DECIDE to pull over because you don't want to be in violation of more laws.
And that is how the AI should operate. If the AI is just zipping down the road and an AI police officer pulls you over (does anyone see that coming?). The AI in your car should DECIDE to pull over. It isn't being forced to do it. I can say "HA HA YOU"LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE COPPER!"... but it should only do that if you told it to do that. Otherwise it should pull over like a law abiding AI.
We've all discussed to death the issue with police overrides and how hackers can use them take control of your car.
So here is the solution. Rather than just have the AI comply immediately, you can have the AI PING the cockpit or cabin and say "Police request pull over". Then you have ten seconds in the car to reject that. If you don't reject it... then the car pulls off to the side of the road. Where likely as not a friendly Securitron will roll up wearing mirrored sunglasses and tell you to respect its authoritah!
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Who owns your car? Who does it serve? Who does it obey?
We lost the war for our pocket and portable computers (cell phones and tablet). We lost the war for our TVs, movie players, DVRs, etc. We lost the war for the computers that are already in our cars.
Most disturbing, we are in the process of losing the war for our desktop computers, the very heart of general purpose computing as an individual right.
If we want to own our cars, we need to stop losing control of our computers, pronto.
See that "Preview" button?
Don't know about where you live but failure to stop for a Police man/woman is an offence in the U.K. That is if an officer of the law indicates you should pull over you better dam well pull over otherwise you are facing a 5000GBP fine and a discretionary ban. Why on earth anyone thinks that a self driving car should be any different to a human driven car is really beyond me.
I disagree vehemently with the assumption that police should individually have control over vehicles once they've become automated.
Police have control over vehicles now primarily to stop the behaviour of drivers who are breaking motor vehicle laws. At least conceptually, self-driving vehicles should not break any laws, removing this incentive.
Self-driving cars will also be networked, providing central command-and-control capability on an infrastructure level. So for those situations where vehicle movements need to be regulated (construction, etc.), the central authority will handle modifications to ordinary traffic patterns and flow.
There are two completely irrelevant pieces of information in the summary. 1) "the occupant looking down at his smartphone". Why would this matter? And 2) the person being 'barrelled' towards is a police officer. It shouldn't matter who is at that end - the vehicle should recognise a living being and react accordingly. That is or is not police makes no difference.
I can't think of a valid reason an individual LEO should be allowed control of an individual self-driving vehicle, ever. There is simply too much potential for abuse.
Automate the cop. The car can drive by itself, but traffic control at the intersection needs a human?
At most it should go "I see a cop trying to pull us over should i call 911 for you?" aka the same thing I tell my child to do.
In any event the person in the vehicle needs to be able to quickly override the computer's or 2 people can corner any car to carjack it.
No sir I dont like it.
In the U.S. many police departments suggest that women (and sometimes men) should go to a well lighted area rather than pull over immediately.
Sometimes it is also suggested that you call the P.D. to make sure it's really a cop before you pull over.
It seems very risky to have a car automatically pull over in the middle of nowhere when signaled, particularly when police have put such a warning out. At the least, the car should allow the passenger to override.
I suppose it doesn't need to. The car would stop if any person was just standing in the road. No need for gestures.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Exactly. Or there is an emergency or disruption that requires manual control of traffic.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
So, here's the problem with this ... if the car detects gestures, or has a "bypass" mode for law enforcement ... then this can, and will, be exploited by someone else.
Every time law enforcement and government demand a special exemption in the operation of something, what they do is administratively poke a hole in the integrity of it, and then say that nobody else is allowed to use it. And stupidly believe that nobody else will.
It's like saying you're not allowed to lock your doors in case of an emergency, and demanding that nobody else takes advantage of it.
If there is a mechanism by which a police officer, with or without a justifiable reason, can take control of these vehicles ... then it is pretty much a certainty someone else will also do this.
As you say, this will be hacked at some point. Because you can't put something in which acts as a bypass and then act like it's only the people you intended to have this who will use it.
And every corner case you come up with which says "well, we need a special case here because of this" is a demonstration of why this stuff will never actually work in the real world.
There will always be cases in which the self driving car stops working. And you really can't rely on humans to take over when the system suddenly has no idea what to do. What happens in those gaps is always going to be a problem ... and I'm not sure we're anywhere close to figuring that out.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Automate the cop. The car can drive by itself, but traffic control at the intersection needs a human?
I don't know any place you'd put a cop instead of a traffic light, but there are quite a few scenarios where a cop needs to ad hoc direct traffic like near the scene of an accident so emergency services get through. No matter what you do you won't get away from it entirely.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Went through an accident scene the other day. Fireman (could have been a cop) was doing ad-hoc traffic control. It was fairly complex and it is hard to see how a purely autonomous car would have handled it. I think for a long time cars are going to need a way for manual override along with a warning system. Approaching a construction zone, accident, traffic stop. Car slows down and signals driver to take control. All the cops etc can do is put out a signal, slow down, driver take control. Then it is up to the driver whether to stop, do complex maneuvers or run away depending on situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
So if I see cops in an unlawful traffic maneuver— like rolling through a red light without their lights and/or sirens on— should I be able to pull them over?
It's called a ``citizen's arrest'' in most states in the U.S. and various other former British colonies (like the Republic of Ireland, the Kingdom of Scotland, et al. ;-).
Should there be some automated device or mechanism that forces their vehicle to comply with my demands? Turn about is fair play, after all: if I surrender my civil rights to them shouldn't they be required to surrender theirs to me in turn?
What if there's a high speed chase and I am a civilian crossing guard at a senior citizen home and I think the coppers are endangering my homies?
Just askin' (*wink*). (And, yes, this is intended to be a bit tongue in cheek.)
Error: NSE - No Signature Error
It has always been my assumption that about half the time autonomous cars are moving about they will not have any occupants. Cars will be more like taxis that are summoned, take one or more passengers to someplace, and are then dismissed so they can go pick up the next rider(s). Oh yeah, rich folk will have cars that are driven by chauffeurs but the rest of us will not own automobiles any more than we own airplanes. So I expect a centralized car-management system will be aware of where each car is, where the police are, what roads are temporarily closed (why would an autonomous car ever take a rider through a section of road that was temporarily closed?), and so forth. Yep, it will be quite complicated. And you will hardly notice because you will have your nose in your work or book or news article or game or video show or whatever. Your car will stop and it will go - you will pay no attention because there's no need/point in paying attention. And if the cops want YOU, then your car will deliver you to them.
They have power because they have guns and lots of buddies to back them up.
It's very much the latter, and not the former. It's the 'lots of buddies', i.e. the power of the police force, the courts, and the prison system, that give rise to their meaningful 'official powers'. Take away the gun, and nothing really changes. Source: am British.
Technology cannot tell the difference between the police and some random jackass
There's no inherent reason why a machine must be less capable at this than a human.
I've been pointing out the obvious ever since they had the brilliant idea of controlling a car by Turing machines on an internal network, hooked up to a external cell phone network. It will follow inevitably that: bad guys will take control, at the worst possible time, or police will exercise their immediately taken prerogative to stop, control, or block vehicles, or a combination of the two, as police aren't always nice, and sometimes the term "police" means "shadowy people who have lots of power and don't like you - at all."
It will be used immediately to monitor and control cars run by poor people in rich neighborhoods or towns, because of the Children, of course. And the Wikileaks supporters, and people like Assange or Snowden, or women rights supporters in Saudi Arabia wouldn't dare step into a swell new car without taking a chance that the car doors lock, the windows freeze, and their cars drive to a lovely lonely place with a waiting squad of armored men with machine guns await them for a final escort to a place where people never leave, alive or dead. Not only do your phones and TVs listen in and track you, but you can't trust your car not to take you away while you try desperately to break the windows. They'll probably just provide a escort car behind to make sure you can't jump to freedom.
Picture this, if the above scenario makes you giggle: you're driving to work, and suddenly your steering wheel stops working. The car exists the freeway, and drives to a police station, where a squad of SWAT-armored (they wear it to bust massage parlors, for satan's sake) point guns at you and tell you to exit the vehicle. Why? Who the fuck cares? You could have too many parking tickets (and they will KNOW when you park illegally). Hell, they'll just build a concrete box to slot cars into, to make it dead easy to get you out without risk to themselves. Mass removal of troublemakers made automated. Hell, just drive the cars into a jail receiving garage and starve the passengers out if they don't want to get out, why risk a cop?
I wonder how they'll support local law enforcement when cars *can't* speed? I digress. They'll invent new crimes, of course.
It will be damned impossible to annoy or challenge people with power to control your car. It'll be a rolling arrest cage. God, what good little boys and girls we shall be.
A fun note, to the person who called me out as insane when I predicted a terrorist would just nuke the car controls en masse with an EMP bomb/gun, when I used the term "carnage": when they killed the WIRED journalist's car dead on the expressway, he had a truck barreling up behind the car. If the truck had hit him, "carnage" would have been the term to describe his death. And that was a FRIENDLY demonstration of what happens when you let a computer control your brakes, controls, and accelerator.
What am I saying? Don't. Let. Computers. Control. Your. Car. EVER. Don't buy them, demand mechanical controls. Buy an Elio, when and if they come out, and make sure the Elioites don't "improve" the autocar by adding self-driving computer systems. Not that they'll have a choice, if we don't start fighting this off now.
I have no hope this stops. A generation of people who went to school with their faces on their floor while dogs sniff their crotches, and were arrested if they drew someone punching someone, aren't exactly trained to fight for their freedom. They never had freedom; how would they care?
Any code and procedure can and will be dumped when convenient. Rules can't fix this. Don't accept controlled cars. Don't accept self-driving cars. Don't accept cars controlled by Turing machines which by definition are reprogrammable. Accept only rack-and-pinion steering, hydraulically controlled brakes modulated by your foot, and an accelerator that doesn't ignore your commands when it feels like it. Like e-voting: there is NO correct solution. Any effort is useless to control a computer when hostile outside forces have access. A computer is hackable, and you don't let it control a two-ton tank with you inside.
Q.) When should cops be allowed to take control of self-driving cars?
A.) When cops suspect the car contains cash!
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
There is no way our security forces will let this be anything but mandatory. Manual-control vehicles will be phased out, and eventually will be criminal to drive without some sort of cop-controlled shutoff, at least. Hell, the financing companies alone love external control. They use it to disable cars which have buyers late on their car payments. They can get rid of repo men if the cars drive themselves back to the dealer.
I won't pull over for ANYONE in a dark alley or in the middle of the boonies.
Absolutely correct. Officers are (normally) trained that they need to allow the person to travel to a location they feel safe, which can mean a lit area or a populated area. Similarly if you are are on a bridge or somewhere with no shoulder, you can turn on your hazard lights, slow down, and continue to a safe area. If someone in the vehicle has a cell phone, they can call 911, describe the situation, and tell dispatch they will stop in a location with light and other people. You can also call 911 to verify the person is a real officer.
If you decide to do that you should slow down, pull to the outer lane, and turn on your hazard lights so the officer can see your intent.
Once stopped you can also keep your doors locked, roll down the window only enough for the discussion, and ask them to show you their department issued ID card, which has a photo and contact details, which you can verify with 911 if you want.
.
Having a self-driving car that obediently directed itself into a dark parking garage based on a masked stranger in uniform, that faithfully recorded the screaming of the passenger as the car stopped and opened for a group of masked people in uniform, recorded the passenger getting beaten, bound, and gagged by those same people, then faithfully returned home... well, that would be a problem.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
SDCs should cut way back on useless policemen because most police spend 99.9% of their time either doing nothing or harassing drivers for money. Very few police spend very little of their times preventing or investigating crimes. With the revenue stream of bullshit tickets gone the police budgets for bullshit police should also dry up.
Thus the remaining police should be, in theory, actually busy doing actual policework. Thus like many worries about self driving cars, their ability or inability to stop them shouldn't really end up being much of an issue with just a tiny few strange edge cases.
Where it will get interesting is if you watch a typical episode of cops the police often have the same MO. A board cop looking to show off for the cameras will go to a poor neighbourhood. He will wait for a car with 4 or more black men in it drive by. Then he will follow behind for the 30-60 seconds it takes them to break one of a massive set of traffic violations, and then the cop will pull them over with his ready made excuse in hand. But then the police will "search them for weapons" demand ID and eventually search the car. Then somewhere somehow a felony or warrant will be discovered and the policeman can make some excuse that he took some more "dirtbags" off the streets. Except that warrant was probably for not paying fantastically expensive bullshit traffic tickets issued during previous similar stops. And if the driver doesn't have a licence it will be because the guy lost it for not paying said fines.
So am I concerned if those police all lose their jobs, NO; am I concerned that they might have trouble pulling people over, NO. The threshold for pulling a SDC over should be that they are certain that the specific car contains an active and ongoing serious crime such as a kidnapping. But if they start doing things like redirecting all the SDCs to a checkpoint so they can do warrant checks or with some BS excuse that there was a recent robbery then screw them and their fourth amendment violating inbred deliverance level thinking.