Before we talk about numbers let's just say that yes the car should have stopped or at least applied breaks and tried to stop Period. That it doesn't recognize an elevated obstruction as a road hazard is a design flaw. An automated car or automatic braking system should see the path in front of it and brake. That the Tesla appears to disregard anything above hood level needs to be fixed either in this model or the next. The car needs to know its clearances and be able to sense its surroundings and project a path with at least those clearances.
That said, even this relatively simple highway driving autopilot does appear to be relatively safe compared with the overall driving numbers. Also, since the driver was at the wheel and also never applied the brakes it is questionable whether there was enough time for a human driver to react to getting cut off by the tractor trailer. Either way this is unfortunate for the driver, family and friends but in terms of safety it appears we are overall not worse off with the potential to be much better off as any issues like this are worked out in the real world.
Still it makes sense to look at whether a software fix is possible or whether a hardware sensor fix is needed for the height clearance issue. Ideally they can just fix the code and send out an overnight update.
If it's truly not personally identifiable, why don't they just release the data for any academic researchers to use in their machine learning datasets? Perhaps they can use it to figure out other diseases and other information that is interesting...
Although I don't read into this any nefarious intent.... I think some public openness in the training data set so that different teams of researchers can try out different machine learning algorithms is a very good idea. All you need to do is remove identity information and keep the diagnosis tags for the training.
If the drone can pull 20G turns, it's game over for the human pilot.
How much dogfighting do you imagine will ever happen? Most combat will remain missile combat. Getting missile lock against your opponent's stealth before he does likewise will decide who wins most fights, and the pilot has little to do with that.
Which is a bit of an ironic point because most missiles themselves are basically autonomous aerial combat weapons of a type that have been around for decades. That a drone can find a target and blow it up is not really even a new thing. Finding a target blowing it up and not blowing itself up is what is new. Basically the benefit of the innovation is the potential cost savings if it can blow things up less expensively. But maybe not even a potential cost savings if they end up costing too much more than the missile would have.
The real elephant in the room is the suggestion that the government get involved in the regulation on how the decision will actually be carried out.
If you thought waiting in line at the DMV or RMV was a problem then wait until the car has to wade through 50,000 lines of government regulations every time it need to decide to apply the brakes.
Humans can and do make "split second" ethical judgements, based on their own ethics. A mother will likely try and save her children, even at the expense of her own life. A teenager may be more about self-preservation whatever the cost. The future will be an algorithm deciding for you, no matter what your position is in society, and no matter what your beliefs are. Or perhaps your position in society will matter, as the President's vehicle may be programmed for self-preservation no matter what.
If they are taking the time to make ethical judgements and thinking through more than one scenario in the time they should be operating the vehicle then they are likely making the situation worse in delaying action.
This is like air bags and seat belts. We should always be looking for ways to make air bags and seat belts better. Like when we found out that lap belts for children in the back seat can actually cause different types of injury... and we started making shoulder restraints in the back seat. Or when defective air bags shot shrapnel into people's faces. The solution isn't to go backwards and take seat belts and air bags out of cars it is to find the real issues or design flaws and fix them.
The ethics on autonomous cars are pretty clear: Save tens of thousands of lives every year by replacing a faulty human based control system or worry about every 1 in a billion edge case first before we go forward and fix the real problem.
The problem is that people replay traumatic accidents over and over in their heads and end up thinking that they had time to consider all the scenarios when they probably barely had time to react in the first place. The brain's attempt to learn from an accident and think of the "what-if" is what creates these embellished recollections.
Now people are applying this delusional thought process to machines and setting unrealistic expectations.
Just need to keep it simple and stop the car as safely as possible.
It isn't even that. Why would you add processing time? Thinking about all this BS would end up killing more people in that extra 600 milliseconds it takes to think through all these scenarios. Just stop the damn car!
I don't want a car that kills people while it is busy thinking about whether it is ethical to stop.
The premise that people make split second ethical judgements is delusional. What people do is react. And many times they don't react in time to avoid the worst possible outcome.
And if they survive their brains spend hours, days, weeks and years even going over and over what happened. The brain in trying to learn from what happened adds more processing than was therein the first place.
Our false recollections. All the things you could have, should have, but didn't have time to think about when really all you had time to do was jerk the wheel and BAM!
And now a bunch of delusional people are trying to apply some false notion of ethics to decision making that should be as simple as stop the car before hitting something. There isn't enough time to consider other options. There never was enough time. People just think there was because our brains work that way.
I am not saying China is a victim... where do you get that? I am critical of America's use of symbolic military power while failing to address the issues of the South China sea constructively.
China has certainly been pushing the South China sea issue. But they need the resources and the other countries have done similar things to lock in their claims. The issue to me is that the US should be helping the other countries solidify their claims instead of just doing drive bys. In some way that would be more aggressive, but at the same time as building infrastructure on those reefs the US should be trying to find a compromise.
As it is now, the US and the regional players are showing little interest in countering the moves on the ground except in a symbolic sense or too late. Military patrols are all well and good, but that is not a solution. For a few million dollars we could have been helping the Phillipines construct and man lighthouses on their reefs, but now we see the Chinese island hopping while we are busy posturing.
As for the cyber war with the US... the espionage was probably a two way street. What is needed there is a closer relationship to agree on how to make it stop. Not more whining about it. And yes, China, the cyber spying is annoying... please stop.
i.e. We want your (cheap foreign) goods but you can't have our top (computer) chips...
Thankfully the economies are tied so it is everyone best's interest to keep both healthy.
In the current South China sea dispute we seem to be antagonizing China without offering a potential compromise. I think if China and the other parties got to keep some of the islands and basically divvied up the economic exclusion zones while creating open freely accessible waterways for shipping under international treaty that would be the essence of a compromise that could be mutually beneficial for commerce, fishing and even oil and gas exploration. Instead we are being annoying with "protests" and sending ships through without even helping the other countries solidify their competing claims by building lighthouses or whatever... It is like we are taunting China without any reasonable objective or strategy that could lead to a resolution. That is dangerous.
"Best interest" could go out the window if anyone gets killed in an incident.
This happens when you don't allow export of your chips to someone who has the knowledge to design their own chips. It gives them the incentive to accelerate development and deployment of their homegrown designs.
Not only do you lose a business opportunity, you're also in danger of losing your technology leadership.
Yes, penny wise, but pound foolish decision. China would never do the same to us because they want us to be dependent on their production.
It is pretty idiotic that our foreign policy and military establishment seem intent on picking periodic fights with China over stupid little things rather than trying to elevate the relationship to become close allies. China and US economies are closely tied. We literally would not have Christmas without China. Much of our equipment is made in China. And for China they have the US to thank for much of their growth over the past 40 years.
And they have a military that could hurt us quite a bit once they turn off our satellites and other technology. Or worse, use our technology against us after they infiltrate it.
Despite fighting a proxy war with China in Korea sixty years ago, we don't have the kind of bad blood that especially poisons their relations with Japan, Vietnam or even Korea.
For the sake of US prosperity and world peace it would be best to find the compromises that can keep us on good terms and get us to better relations and not push us further apart.
As for Chinese human rights... well we are allies with Saudi Arabia which has the worst human rights record on the planet. And we are far less (indirectly) dependent on Saudi oil than we used to be.
That said, Islamic belief and Islamic practice can and must move forward to peacefully coexist in Liberty with the respect for the dignity, privacy and freedom of all people. Islam as practiced by many is a modern religion which focuses on the beliefs and practices of the individual in daily life.
But there is a problem. It is not okay to kill gay people who are consenting adults. It is not okay to kill Muslims that convert to Christianity or otherwise decide they aren't Muslim anymore. Our conflict isn't just with ISIS, it is with a medieval form of ideology that promotes murder and oppression and the countries which choose to allow these practices to fester.
Americans, and all people, need to truly believe in and peacefully promote Liberty for all, both at home and abroad. Tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others doesn't mean you tolerate and support oppression.
Until a robot decides to help someone who wants to commit suicide. Then you are going to have to figure out exceptions... because there always are exceptions, except to the always exceptions rule.
People have been busy figuring out all sorts of exceptions to the rules for thousands of years. What makes anyone think a truly intelligent machine wouldn't break the rules?
"In Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, homosexual activity carries the death penalty. In others, such as Algeria, Maldives, Malaysia, Qatar, Somalia and Syria, it is illegal."
Systematic violence and repression against gay people is prevalent in many Islamic countries, not just among a relative fringe group like IS. On issues of violence against gay people or indeed on issues of systemic repression of many non-muslims we are very much right to note their association and demand reform to spread Islamic teachings that promote peaceful coexistence rather than medieval violence, persecution and oppression.
Islam like any religion has a wide range of beliefs and practices. But Islam as practiced in many parts of the world is also more than just a religion in a modern western sense because widespread Islamic practice it is used to dictate the laws of the government and how they are determined. We aren't just talking about the medieval Islamic beliefs of a fringe group like ISIS, but the template for laws in a dozen or so countries which give primacy or deference to Islamic Law over any contemporary legal system.
In this regard, a more medieval form of Islam is better compared to Liberty and democracy, civil or common law or other political forms versus Christianity or another religion which in their modern forms have been divorced to a much larger degree from government.
Sure, if you look at medieval Christianity or even Christianity from a couple hundred years ago you see that religious institutions, beliefs and political institutions and people overlapped much more frequently. That overlap however has been steadily eroding.
Never has, never will. The revolution submitter seeks would make things far, far worse.
Legal limitations on surveillance in public places are far more likely to be used to suppress freedom of the press and cover up systemic corruption and crime than they would actually protect anyone's privacy. Look at all the laws meant to prosecute animal rights or environmental activists that take video on private property for instance, these "privacy" laws are used to target whistle blowers that expose mistreatment of animals or even contamination of the water supply.
It is still disturbing that they considered mandatory online IDs to be an idea worth exploring. The Wannsee Conference was also just some European leaders exploring ideas.
Technically, we are "exploring the idea" in this forum. As long as the general consensus is that mandating online companies offer authentication via government ID is a terrible idea without merit which seriously undermines liberty then I have no issue with "exploring" the idea further to determine all the ways in which it is a terrible idea.
Europe, or rather, the EU, in its current form, is not really much more than a concentration of bribes. Instead of having to bribe a lot of small nations, you have an easy central hub where to insert your bribes.
Aside of that, there is little benefit.
Of course, regulations that enable and protect local small businesses and exclude competition raise costs for consumers and are probably even more corrupting at the local level... so there is that.
To my perspective, good regulations are the ones that level the playing field between local businesses and large businesses with simple rules everyone can follow and don't rely as much on the preemptive discretion of regulators to enable business with licenses and permits (which is where a good portion of corruption is generated). Punishing bad actors, ones that break simple rules on health and safety, should be the focus of regulation.
Bad regulations are ones that go too far in either direction and create a labyrinth of regulation for the purpose of regulatory capture and protectionism of various sorts. Prior certifications, licenses and permits are at the heart of public corruption and regulatory capture and should be avoided for all but a last resort.
Put simply laws that put too much discretion in the hands of regulators undermine the rule of law.
Better to set simple regulations that are easy to follow and enforce, focus on public health, safety and market fairness.
" I don't see any *good* reason a car should allow a driver to hit another object."
Then you've probably never been shot at while driving your vehicle. Try living in Memphis, some time.
I am not saying people shouldn't be allowed to use their car as a deadly weapon, just that perhaps there should be a big red button to disengage safety controls that says "Allow me to hit stuff"
Toyota has recalled cars because of the gas pedal sticking. If that were to happen in a tesla, the sensors would show the throttle going to 100% and would blame the driver when in fact the car was at fault. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/...
Good point. A floor mat issue or mechanical issue with the pedal would trigger the sensor and make it appear that pressure was being applied to the pedal. Basically you would need a camera pointed at the foot to really see what happened under there.
Maybe they should just install cameras under the dash pointing at the controls with the price of camera modules being under $5.
Technology is about to be mandated that will stop incidents like this; mandatory Automated Emergency Braking is coming in what, 2020? 2025? Real soon now, since all the major manufacturers and suppliers have an AEB solution available. And then "wrong pedal" collisions will be a thing of the past. The car simply won't let you do that.
It's too bad enough of us couldn't be responsible for humans to be able to keep the responsibility of driving, but more and more of it is being taken away.
That is the best fail safe. I don't see any *good* reason a car should allow a driver to hit another object.
Loser pays would also make it basically impossible to sue any entity that has more money than you. The risk would be far too great, even if you had a legitimate dispute.
Let the judge award "loser pays" only after meeting a high threshold. Such as in situations where no rational person would consider it a legitimate dispute.
I agree with making the person suing pay some reasonable legal fees if the case is unlikely to prevail based on an initial hearing. But if the case has enough merit as determined by a preliminary hearing, then this risk should be taken off the table.
Loser pays would tamp down on a lot of people who use the process to punish people.
Make the litigant pay for the person's estimated legal fees up front as they go. An amount could be determined after a hearing which assesses the likelihood of prevailing in court in the next phase of the litigation. Like the process for granting a preliminary or permanent injunction which is based on meeting a certain threshold of likelihood. And then if the person wins they can get their legal fees back. Otherwise you create a perverse incentive to keep the case in court indefinitely if the litigant doesn't have to pay until they eventually lose.
The Snowden effect was that as of this moment what the NSA (or another agency) is probably still doing has been publicly repudiated by most of Congress.
It might be technically legal within the drive a bus through the loopholes that Congress knowingly included to allow widespread surveillance to continue. But next time it is revealed that the NSA or another government body is still abusing its power to enable widespread dragnet government surveillance, then people will be running for cover because no public court is going to give them quarter under the loophole of a vague law that most of Congress is on the public record saying does not enable widespread surveillance.
When interpreting a vague law, then the public record of the people that voted on it matters.
It isn't the great victory for the Liberty, the Constitution and the rule of law that people were looking for, but right now most of Congress is on the record saying that dragnet surveillance is not allowed under the law and that very much matters.
It also makes it more dangerous for the next person to come along and decide to expose illegal covert activities because people are far more dangerous when they are already working outside the law and they know it.
Slashdot Mirror
Before we talk about numbers let's just say that yes the car should have stopped or at least applied breaks and tried to stop Period. That it doesn't recognize an elevated obstruction as a road hazard is a design flaw. An automated car or automatic braking system should see the path in front of it and brake. That the Tesla appears to disregard anything above hood level needs to be fixed either in this model or the next. The car needs to know its clearances and be able to sense its surroundings and project a path with at least those clearances.
That said, even this relatively simple highway driving autopilot does appear to be relatively safe compared with the overall driving numbers. Also, since the driver was at the wheel and also never applied the brakes it is questionable whether there was enough time for a human driver to react to getting cut off by the tractor trailer. Either way this is unfortunate for the driver, family and friends but in terms of safety it appears we are overall not worse off with the potential to be much better off as any issues like this are worked out in the real world.
Still it makes sense to look at whether a software fix is possible or whether a hardware sensor fix is needed for the height clearance issue. Ideally they can just fix the code and send out an overnight update.
Why have some special deal with google only ?
If it's truly not personally identifiable, why don't they just release the data for any academic researchers to use in their machine learning datasets?
Perhaps they can use it to figure out other diseases and other information that is interesting...
Although I don't read into this any nefarious intent....
I think some public openness in the training data set so that different teams of researchers can try out different machine learning algorithms is a very good idea. All you need to do is remove identity information and keep the diagnosis tags for the training.
If the drone can pull 20G turns, it's game over for the human pilot.
How much dogfighting do you imagine will ever happen? Most combat will remain missile combat. Getting missile lock against your opponent's stealth before he does likewise will decide who wins most fights, and the pilot has little to do with that.
Which is a bit of an ironic point because most missiles themselves are basically autonomous aerial combat weapons of a type that have been around for decades. That a drone can find a target and blow it up is not really even a new thing. Finding a target blowing it up and not blowing itself up is what is new. Basically the benefit of the innovation is the potential cost savings if it can blow things up less expensively. But maybe not even a potential cost savings if they end up costing too much more than the missile would have.
The real elephant in the room is the suggestion that the government get involved in the regulation on how the decision will actually be carried out.
If you thought waiting in line at the DMV or RMV was a problem then wait until the car has to wade through 50,000 lines of government regulations every time it need to decide to apply the brakes.
Humans can and do make "split second" ethical judgements, based on their own ethics. A mother will likely try and save her children, even at the expense of her own life. A teenager may be more about self-preservation whatever the cost. The future will be an algorithm deciding for you, no matter what your position is in society, and no matter what your beliefs are. Or perhaps your position in society will matter, as the President's vehicle may be programmed for self-preservation no matter what.
If they are taking the time to make ethical judgements and thinking through more than one scenario in the time they should be operating the vehicle then they are likely making the situation worse in delaying action.
This is like air bags and seat belts. We should always be looking for ways to make air bags and seat belts better. Like when we found out that lap belts for children in the back seat can actually cause different types of injury... and we started making shoulder restraints in the back seat. Or when defective air bags shot shrapnel into people's faces. The solution isn't to go backwards and take seat belts and air bags out of cars it is to find the real issues or design flaws and fix them.
The ethics on autonomous cars are pretty clear: Save tens of thousands of lives every year by replacing a faulty human based control system or worry about every 1 in a billion edge case first before we go forward and fix the real problem.
The problem is that people replay traumatic accidents over and over in their heads and end up thinking that they had time to consider all the scenarios when they probably barely had time to react in the first place. The brain's attempt to learn from an accident and think of the "what-if" is what creates these embellished recollections.
Now people are applying this delusional thought process to machines and setting unrealistic expectations.
Just need to keep it simple and stop the car as safely as possible.
It isn't even that. Why would you add processing time? Thinking about all this BS would end up killing more people in that extra 600 milliseconds it takes to think through all these scenarios. Just stop the damn car!
I don't want a car that kills people while it is busy thinking about whether it is ethical to stop.
The premise that people make split second ethical judgements is delusional. What people do is react. And many times they don't react in time to avoid the worst possible outcome.
And if they survive their brains spend hours, days, weeks and years even going over and over what happened. The brain in trying to learn from what happened adds more processing than was therein the first place.
Our false recollections. All the things you could have, should have, but didn't have time to think about when really all you had time to do was jerk the wheel and BAM!
And now a bunch of delusional people are trying to apply some false notion of ethics to decision making that should be as simple as stop the car before hitting something. There isn't enough time to consider other options. There never was enough time. People just think there was because our brains work that way.
I am not saying China is a victim... where do you get that? I am critical of America's use of symbolic military power while failing to address the issues of the South China sea constructively.
China has certainly been pushing the South China sea issue. But they need the resources and the other countries have done similar things to lock in their claims. The issue to me is that the US should be helping the other countries solidify their claims instead of just doing drive bys. In some way that would be more aggressive, but at the same time as building infrastructure on those reefs the US should be trying to find a compromise.
As it is now, the US and the regional players are showing little interest in countering the moves on the ground except in a symbolic sense or too late. Military patrols are all well and good, but that is not a solution. For a few million dollars we could have been helping the Phillipines construct and man lighthouses on their reefs, but now we see the Chinese island hopping while we are busy posturing.
As for the cyber war with the US... the espionage was probably a two way street. What is needed there is a closer relationship to agree on how to make it stop. Not more whining about it. And yes, China, the cyber spying is annoying... please stop.
The USA has cognitive dissonance with China:
i.e. We want your (cheap foreign) goods but you can't have our top (computer) chips ...
Thankfully the economies are tied so it is everyone best's interest to keep both healthy.
In the current South China sea dispute we seem to be antagonizing China without offering a potential compromise. I think if China and the other parties got to keep some of the islands and basically divvied up the economic exclusion zones while creating open freely accessible waterways for shipping under international treaty that would be the essence of a compromise that could be mutually beneficial for commerce, fishing and even oil and gas exploration. Instead we are being annoying with "protests" and sending ships through without even helping the other countries solidify their competing claims by building lighthouses or whatever... It is like we are taunting China without any reasonable objective or strategy that could lead to a resolution. That is dangerous.
"Best interest" could go out the window if anyone gets killed in an incident.
This happens when you don't allow export of your chips to someone who has the knowledge to design their own chips.
It gives them the incentive to accelerate development and deployment of their homegrown designs.
Not only do you lose a business opportunity, you're also in danger of losing your technology leadership.
Yes, penny wise, but pound foolish decision. China would never do the same to us because they want us to be dependent on their production.
It is pretty idiotic that our foreign policy and military establishment seem intent on picking periodic fights with China over stupid little things rather than trying to elevate the relationship to become close allies. China and US economies are closely tied. We literally would not have Christmas without China. Much of our equipment is made in China. And for China they have the US to thank for much of their growth over the past 40 years.
And they have a military that could hurt us quite a bit once they turn off our satellites and other technology. Or worse, use our technology against us after they infiltrate it.
Despite fighting a proxy war with China in Korea sixty years ago, we don't have the kind of bad blood that especially poisons their relations with Japan, Vietnam or even Korea.
For the sake of US prosperity and world peace it would be best to find the compromises that can keep us on good terms and get us to better relations and not push us further apart.
As for Chinese human rights... well we are allies with Saudi Arabia which has the worst human rights record on the planet. And we are far less (indirectly) dependent on Saudi oil than we used to be.
LGBT in Islam
That said, Islamic belief and Islamic practice can and must move forward to peacefully coexist in Liberty with the respect for the dignity, privacy and freedom of all people. Islam as practiced by many is a modern religion which focuses on the beliefs and practices of the individual in daily life.
But there is a problem. It is not okay to kill gay people who are consenting adults. It is not okay to kill Muslims that convert to Christianity or otherwise decide they aren't Muslim anymore. Our conflict isn't just with ISIS, it is with a medieval form of ideology that promotes murder and oppression and the countries which choose to allow these practices to fester.
Americans, and all people, need to truly believe in and peacefully promote Liberty for all, both at home and abroad. Tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others doesn't mean you tolerate and support oppression.
Until a robot decides to help someone who wants to commit suicide. Then you are going to have to figure out exceptions... because there always are exceptions, except to the always exceptions rule.
People have been busy figuring out all sorts of exceptions to the rules for thousands of years. What makes anyone think a truly intelligent machine wouldn't break the rules?
"In Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, homosexual activity carries the death penalty. In others, such as Algeria, Maldives, Malaysia, Qatar, Somalia and Syria, it is illegal."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Systematic violence and repression against gay people is prevalent in many Islamic countries, not just among a relative fringe group like IS. On issues of violence against gay people or indeed on issues of systemic repression of many non-muslims we are very much right to note their association and demand reform to spread Islamic teachings that promote peaceful coexistence rather than medieval violence, persecution and oppression.
Islam like any religion has a wide range of beliefs and practices. But Islam as practiced in many parts of the world is also more than just a religion in a modern western sense because widespread Islamic practice it is used to dictate the laws of the government and how they are determined. We aren't just talking about the medieval Islamic beliefs of a fringe group like ISIS, but the template for laws in a dozen or so countries which give primacy or deference to Islamic Law over any contemporary legal system.
In this regard, a more medieval form of Islam is better compared to Liberty and democracy, civil or common law or other political forms versus Christianity or another religion which in their modern forms have been divorced to a much larger degree from government.
Sure, if you look at medieval Christianity or even Christianity from a couple hundred years ago you see that religious institutions, beliefs and political institutions and people overlapped much more frequently. That overlap however has been steadily eroding.
Never has, never will. The revolution submitter seeks would make things far, far worse.
Legal limitations on surveillance in public places are far more likely to be used to suppress freedom of the press and cover up systemic corruption and crime than they would actually protect anyone's privacy. Look at all the laws meant to prosecute animal rights or environmental activists that take video on private property for instance, these "privacy" laws are used to target whistle blowers that expose mistreatment of animals or even contamination of the water supply.
THEY ARE EXPLORING THE IDEA.
It is still disturbing that they considered mandatory online IDs to be an idea worth exploring. The Wannsee Conference was also just some European leaders exploring ideas.
Technically, we are "exploring the idea" in this forum. As long as the general consensus is that mandating online companies offer authentication via government ID is a terrible idea without merit which seriously undermines liberty then I have no issue with "exploring" the idea further to determine all the ways in which it is a terrible idea.
Europe, or rather, the EU, in its current form, is not really much more than a concentration of bribes. Instead of having to bribe a lot of small nations, you have an easy central hub where to insert your bribes.
Aside of that, there is little benefit.
Of course, regulations that enable and protect local small businesses and exclude competition raise costs for consumers and are probably even more corrupting at the local level... so there is that.
To my perspective, good regulations are the ones that level the playing field between local businesses and large businesses with simple rules everyone can follow and don't rely as much on the preemptive discretion of regulators to enable business with licenses and permits (which is where a good portion of corruption is generated). Punishing bad actors, ones that break simple rules on health and safety, should be the focus of regulation.
Bad regulations are ones that go too far in either direction and create a labyrinth of regulation for the purpose of regulatory capture and protectionism of various sorts. Prior certifications, licenses and permits are at the heart of public corruption and regulatory capture and should be avoided for all but a last resort.
Put simply laws that put too much discretion in the hands of regulators undermine the rule of law.
Better to set simple regulations that are easy to follow and enforce, focus on public health, safety and market fairness.
Not by default. Through a manual override, sure.
" I don't see any *good* reason a car should allow a driver to hit another object."
Then you've probably never been shot at while driving your vehicle. Try living in Memphis, some time.
I am not saying people shouldn't be allowed to use their car as a deadly weapon, just that perhaps there should be a big red button to disengage safety controls that says "Allow me to hit stuff"
Toyota has recalled cars because of the gas pedal sticking. If that were to happen in a tesla, the sensors would show the throttle going to 100% and would blame the driver when in fact the car was at fault.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/...
Good point. A floor mat issue or mechanical issue with the pedal would trigger the sensor and make it appear that pressure was being applied to the pedal. Basically you would need a camera pointed at the foot to really see what happened under there.
Maybe they should just install cameras under the dash pointing at the controls with the price of camera modules being under $5.
Technology is about to be mandated that will stop incidents like this; mandatory Automated Emergency Braking is coming in what, 2020? 2025? Real soon now, since all the major manufacturers and suppliers have an AEB solution available. And then "wrong pedal" collisions will be a thing of the past. The car simply won't let you do that.
It's too bad enough of us couldn't be responsible for humans to be able to keep the responsibility of driving, but more and more of it is being taken away.
That is the best fail safe. I don't see any *good* reason a car should allow a driver to hit another object.
Loser pays would also make it basically impossible to sue any entity that has more money than you. The risk would be far too great, even if you had a legitimate dispute.
Let the judge award "loser pays" only after meeting a high threshold. Such as in situations where no rational person would consider it a legitimate dispute.
I agree with making the person suing pay some reasonable legal fees if the case is unlikely to prevail based on an initial hearing. But if the case has enough merit as determined by a preliminary hearing, then this risk should be taken off the table.
Loser pays would tamp down on a lot of people who use the process to punish people.
Make the litigant pay for the person's estimated legal fees up front as they go. An amount could be determined after a hearing which assesses the likelihood of prevailing in court in the next phase of the litigation. Like the process for granting a preliminary or permanent injunction which is based on meeting a certain threshold of likelihood. And then if the person wins they can get their legal fees back. Otherwise you create a perverse incentive to keep the case in court indefinitely if the litigant doesn't have to pay until they eventually lose.
The Snowden effect was that as of this moment what the NSA (or another agency) is probably still doing has been publicly repudiated by most of Congress.
It might be technically legal within the drive a bus through the loopholes that Congress knowingly included to allow widespread surveillance to continue. But next time it is revealed that the NSA or another government body is still abusing its power to enable widespread dragnet government surveillance, then people will be running for cover because no public court is going to give them quarter under the loophole of a vague law that most of Congress is on the public record saying does not enable widespread surveillance.
When interpreting a vague law, then the public record of the people that voted on it matters.
It isn't the great victory for the Liberty, the Constitution and the rule of law that people were looking for, but right now most of Congress is on the record saying that dragnet surveillance is not allowed under the law and that very much matters.
It also makes it more dangerous for the next person to come along and decide to expose illegal covert activities because people are far more dangerous when they are already working outside the law and they know it.