Ford Patents Driverless Police Car That Ambushes Lawbreakers Using AI (washingtonpost.com)

Ford has developed a patent for a police car that issues tickets without even pulling you over. The same car could also use artificial intelligence to find good hiding spots to catch traffic violators (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) and identify drivers by scanning license plates, tapping into surveillance cameras and wirelessly accessing government records. The Washington Post reports: The details may sound far-fetched, as if they belong in the science-fiction action flick "Demolition Man" or a new dystopian novel inspired by Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," but these scenarios are grounded in a potential reality. They come from a patent developed by Ford and being reviewed by the U.S. government to create autonomous police cars. Ford's patent application was published this month. Although experts claim autonomous vehicles will make driving safer and more rule-bound, Ford argues in its application that in the future, traffic violations will never disappear entirely. "While autonomous vehicles can and will be programmed to obey traffic laws, a human driver can override that programming to control and operate the vehicle at any time," the patent's application says. "When a vehicle is under the control of a human driver there is a possibility of violation of traffic laws. Thus, there will still be a need to police traffic."

The patent application says that autonomous police vehicles don't necessarily replace the need for human police officers for catching traffic scofflaws. Some "routine tasks," such as issuing tickets for failure to stop at a stop sign, can be automated, the patent says, but other tasks that can't be automated will be left to people. The application, which was filed in July 2016 and includes elaborate diagrams depicting the autonomous police car interacting with its environment, says officers could be inside the vehicle at all times and reclaim control of the car when necessary. But the application also shows how an autonomous police vehicle could be able to carry out many tasks we associate with human officers.

Comments

This is just silly

[rsilvergun]

we don't need cars to do this. We can just set up cameras everywhere. The UK already does this in a lot of places. This is just somebody at Ford patenting something so they can say they got a patent.

Re:This is just silly

[Lab Rat Jason]

Please tell me they're going to name it Barricade. It's like let's patent a whole bunch of things that are already commonly available... but we'll package it _in_a_car_!

Re:This is just silly

[Anonymous Coward]

we don't need cars to do this. We can just set up cameras everywhere. The UK already does this in a lot of places.

And yet, the UK still has lots of crime.

So instead of spending billions on cameras (and violating the privacy of millions of people), maybe we should focus on other crime reduction strategies.

Why do you even need the police car

[NeumannCons]

Your car could spy on you... and notify the police who could then issue the ticket for speeding, distracted driving, and all manner of things. It could even supply pictures/movies of you breaking the law.

Dystopian Big Brother future.

Re:Why do you even need the police car

[OzPeter]

Your car could spy on you... and notify the police who could then issue the ticket for speeding, distracted driving, and all manner of things. It could even supply pictures/movies of you breaking the law.

Dystopian Big Brother future.

That's already been tried. Back few years ago there was a car rental company who would ding their customers based on speed/time/distance data downloaded from the car's GPS. Not only were they dinging their customers, they were doing it without even notifying them.

Here is the first link I found on Google

http://onlineathens.com/storie...

Expect the cars to get vandalized

[schwit1]

The article doesn't mention if they are fireproof and bulletproof. Cash register justice will provoke a violent and justifiable response.

programmed to obey traffic laws = toslow for I-294

[Joe_Dragon]

programmed to obey traffic laws = to slow for roads. Like I-294 (55 parts) I-90-IL (Toll way) I-55 parts (that new part has people pushing 75-80 all day long)

Higher Priority

[raftpeople]

Kind of wish they would just get the Ford Explorer's transmission working before doing AI stuff

Dupe!

[Daetrin]

I've heard that Ford has patented an autonomous police car that can ambush Slashdot editors with dupes!

https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

Kinda useless

[viperidaenz]

Their use-case of issuing tickets for not stopping at a stop sign has already been covered by cameras and mailing out infringement notices. Same with running red lights. Same with speeding. Same with driving in bus lanes. etc...

I can't think of a single use for a police car with no officer that already isn't done better with existing technology.

Re:Sheer Astounding Arrogance

[arth1]

I'm foreseeing a future where driverless cop cars pursue and stop driverless vehicles...

It's going to get interesting

[Patent Lover]

It's going to get interesting when driverless cop cars issue tickets to driverless cars.

Re: Fascist Ford returns to its fascist roots

[Duhavid]

So, the question is, how do we get to this capitalist nirvana?

It is the same story any utopia. Human nature gets in the way.
Many things could work, if people would cooperate.
But, we have human nature intervening, people grabbing power and more than they need and being jerks to others.
It is the same here, you cant get over the hump very easily, and there are always those who want power, things, control, and will abuse your ideal utopia.

It requires work. Hard work, by all of us, to watch, think, and not let things go down the slippery slope.
We have not done a very good job of that, have we?

Depends on what your goal is

[rsilvergun]

I can't speak for the UK, but in America a lot of our Crime reduction strategies are really just backhanded racial segregation. Our entire drug policy is. This is why black people are several times more likely to serve time for minor drug offenses and serve more time to boot. One way to keep people in their place is to have selectively enforced laws that let you target undesirables.