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?

Re:Instance or class?

[wiggles]

Actually, I've seen answers to all of those questions.

> If I own a self driving car, is my insurance insuring the AI as the driver?

Yes. Google has stated they will assume liability. Other companies pursuing this say the same.

> Is the driving record of that AI individual to my car, or to AI's of that software version ?

This one is actually easier. The insurance industry will have much better figures on the probability of having a claim to pay for the AI drivers, since all those drivers will drive the 'same'. They will be able to say that cars of model X get into .00001 accidents per car per year (or whatever) resulting in $2000 payouts per accident on average (or whatever) and thus will be expected to pay .00001 x $2000 x $INDUSTRY_MARKUP for insurance. Of course it gets a lot more complicated when you have to weigh in modifiers such as the weight of the vehicle (heavier cars cause more damage), the paint job (red cars get more tickets), the environment the car is in (urban cars get hit more), and etc.

> Can I sue the AI, or am I suing the AI manufacturer. Is the AI the car, or separate from the car?

The manufacturer gets sued. The manufacturer would keep insurance and lawyers for these lawsuits.

> am I suing Google or Ford ?

You sue whoever sold you the car. One throat to choke.

Re:Instance or class?

[Coren22]

You'll sue the car, it will then have to get a job as a taxi to work off the judgement.

Longer commute, here I come

[Lodlaiden]

If I don't have to lose an hour each way on maintaining moderate concentration, moving out of the suburbs into the country suddenly becomes feasible. Sweet! NHTSA approval is a major milestone in this becoming a reality.

I won't ever trust an AI driver

[NEDHead]

Until they can flip a bird and show unambiguous road rage

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.

Re:Google is on crack

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe at first, but in the long term humans will not even know what it means to drive a vehicle. Ultimately it will come down to safety... once they get all this figured out it will just be too risky to have humans manually driving. Software can be buggy but humans are reckless. Software bugs can be fixed but we have not figured out an effective way to keep people from being reckless.