NHTSA Gives Green Light To Self-Driving Cars

New submitter tyme writes: Reuters reports that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told Google that it would recognize the artificial intelligence in a self-driving car as the "driver" (rather than any of the occupants). The letter also says that NHTSA will write safety rules for self-driving cars in the next six months, paving the way for deployment of self-driving cars in large numbers.

Comments

Instance or class?

[iapetus]

So is each individual instance of an AI a driver? Each version of the software? Each combination of hardware and software?

If a single car is found to be doing something that would have its license revoked, does that car lose its license, or are all Google cars immediately banned from driving? Would a version tweak cause that license to be reinstated, or would Google be out of the self-driving-car business?

The Great Race !

[swell]

'The Great Race' was a 1965 movie and also an American tradition. Competitors race from one side of the country to the other in various vehicles with various rules.

Self driving cars will surely do the same. They will be judged on safety and speed and technicalities like choosing the best route and handling obstacles. Car buyers will want this information and car makers will struggle to optimize their software to win the next race.

Google is on crack

[kheldan]

From TFA:

Google "expresses concern that providing human occupants of the vehicle with mechanisms to control things like steering, acceleration, braking... could be detrimental to safety because the human occupants could attempt to override the (self-driving system's) decisions," the NHTSA letter stated.

Bullshit. Vehicles must have a full set of manual controls available to the human operator at all times, and furhermore they must be fully educated, trained, licensed, and insured, just like always. To do otherwise is what will put people's lives at risk. Google is smoking crack and needs to be put in their place.