What qualifications should the 'driver' of a fully autonomous car need?
Displaying poll results.16301 total votes.
Most Votes
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on February 28th, 2024 | 8470 votes
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 6330 votes
Most Comments
- What's the highest dollar price will Bitcoin reach in 2024? Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 68 comments
- Will ByteDance be forced to divest TikTok Posted on March 20th, 2024 | 20 comments
Work the way down to no license (Score:5, Insightful)
It would make the most sense to require fewer qualifications as the technology becomes more proven; it could start requiring a driver's license with an endorsement and, as the cars become more capable and the kinks are worked out, go down to no license. But gradual deregulation tends to run counter to a bureaucracy's instincts and when the political process steps in it tends to do so suddenly, so I don't know if the idea would work in practice.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:4, Insightful)
Best to make 'em go cold turkey. But autonomous has to mean autonomous. If the operator does not control the vehicle, aside from its destination, then he should not be held responsible any more then the guy selecting the floor in the elevator.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Of course there'll sometimes be accidents, but the accident rates will be lower than for human drivers.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
"Autonomous cars cant be bargained with, they cant be reasoned with, they don't feel pity or remorse or fear, and they absolutely will not stop...EVER, until you are dead!"
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:3)
But gradual deregulation tends to run counter to a bureaucracy's instincts and when the political process steps in it tends to do so suddenly, so I don't know if the idea would work in practice.
Not to mention that there are other bureaucratic elements (car manufacturers, insurance companies, etc.) that might have an interest in requiring a license, because that would imply that you still have the necessary skills and training to take over in an unusual situation... which also means you'd share liability for the accident in some cases. The possibility of blaming the driver goes away completely if you no longer have proof the driver could even operate the vehicle.
Even if state waive the license requirements, I imagine manufacturers and insurers may still have their own stipulations, like they do in legalese for many products today that basically absolve them of liability if you let a toddler operate a lawn mower or whatever.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
If your car hits my car I don't care if you are driving it or not, I care that someone pays for the damage done. So I think it's more than reasonable to require vehicles on the road autonomous or not to have a named entity who will be required and able to pay up in the first instance for the damage they do.
Exactly how the responsibility should be split between manufacturer and owner is more open to question. I could see an arrangement where the autonomous car has a service arrangement which includes liability cover.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
If your car hits my car I don't care if you are driving it or not, I care that someone pays for the damage done. So I think it's more than reasonable to require vehicles on the road autonomous or not to have a named entity who will be required and able to pay up in the first instance for the damage they do.
Exactly how the responsibility should be split between manufacturer and owner is more open to question. I could see an arrangement where the autonomous car has a service arrangement which includes liability cover.
Be careful what you wish for: autonomous cars are going to contain such a huge array of cameras and other sensors that they will readily be able to prove if you for one split second diverted your attention, strayed from your lane, followed too close, exceeded the speed limit, or committed any other violation (which every human driver does dozens of times on every drive) and you will be summarily lawyered to death to prove you were actually not liable.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
The real question is "will the driver be expected to take over when things go wrong"?
If the vehicle is truely fully autonomous with no expectation of driver input even in emergencies then I wouldn't see any need for a drivers license (I would see a need for liability insurence on the vehicle). If there is an expectation that the driver will take over in an emergency then then driver needs full driver traning and possiblly more (training/testing on keeping their attention on the road even though they aren't actually driving)
I don't really see much middle ground between the two.
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Re:Work the way down to no license (Score:2)
Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:5, Insightful)
and then not absolving them off the responsibility is just cruel. Nobody is going to have the presence of mind to react after they've been lulled by hours upon hours of not having to do any driving. Either the car is autonomous, then the company who makes the car's algorithms or an insurance company must be responsible, or the car isn't autonomous and then it shouldn't pretend to be.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:3)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong. That is the manufacturer's fault for the car not notifying the owner of such problems and attempting to operate anyhow.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Heh, the autonomous car will drive itself to the nearest garage if it detects any anomaly.
Really though, an autonomous car has to be considered like an elevator. And I don't see where a license should be required to select your destination with the push of a button.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Dunno how it is in the US, but here in the Netherlands a driver is obligated to check the car before any trip. Check functionality of lights, check tire pressure, stuff like that.
In my 30 years I haven't seen anyone do that, except before really long trips (holiday). Not for a daily commute.
An autonomous car should have some redundancy in critical parts, at least enough to drive safely to an emergency parking or something like that. It should test the functionality of the sensors before each trip. It should stop safely if a critical sensor gets damaged during a trip.
Same story for brakes. Brakes should be tested before each trip.
If one of the tests fail it should present the owner with an option to send data to roadside assistance, and the assistance should be able to receive the detailed error report from the car so that they know what to send (repair truck with the damaged part or a car ambulance with a rental car) so that the owner can be on their way as soon as possible.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like saying I should be at fault if I'm a passenger on a bus and it crashes. Sure, if I interfered with the driver or slashed a tire before getting on, I'd be responsible. But, if I get on without sabotaging the bus and sit quietly in my seat without distracting the driver, how can I be at fault if there's an accident?
As far as the auto-driving car goes, I didn't write the software or design the hardware. If it passed federal and state guidelines, it's not my fault if it fails. If I've maintained the vehicle properly and installed all of the required software updates, that should be the extent of my responsibility and liability. Also, this is what insurance is for. My insurance pays the aggrieved parties, then goes after the manufacturer if a cost/benefit analysis says they should.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Autonomous cars are going to mostly drive better than humans. That means, provided there is no insurance market collusion, insurance rates should come down, and the insurance companies are going to actually prefer that you let the autonomous car drive.
The first generation of tech might only be 'comparable' to human drivers - e.g. 5 or 10 years from now - but give it another 5 or 10 years, and it will quickly mature way beyond human driving capability.
At that point the primary variation in insurance rates would be based on things like the model, as the more expensive models would probably have a lot more sensors (and more supplementary sensors that humans don't even have, e.g. infrared), more advanced algorithms etc., while lower-cost models might have fewer sensors.
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:3)
Your instinct's reactions are better than a chip's?
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Putting people in an autonomous car (Score:2)
No. The driver should not be expected to react during autonomous mode, but autonomous mode should fail gracefully. I can easily envision scenarios (construction, unmarked road, adverse weather) where the best thing the AI can do is give up, stop, and let the human take over. For those situations, the car should have at least one occupant who is able to drive.
However, the AI should not just dump that responsibility back on the user. I would say that the AI can only hand over control when the vehicle is completely stopped. The human can seize or give up control at any time, but the AI has stricter limits.
Autonomous Taxis (Score:5, Insightful)
No licence should be required, because an autonomous car is effectively a chauffeured vehicle, and since when do you need a licence to be driven around. It's my strong suspicion that autonomous vehicles will first hit the scene in the form of autonomous taxis. First these vehicles going to be fairly expensive and out of most people's budgets, but even if you could afford your own autonomous vehicle would you really want one? Why deal with car ownership when you can call up an autonomous taxi to pick you up anywhere and take you where you need to go, or even schedule pickups so a car is waiting for you when you get out of work. All the liability would be with the taxi company, so you're not responsible for any accidents, you wouldn't have to maintain your vehicle, there's no risk of it being stolen or damaged wile it sits idle outside you house. You'd never have to deal with parking again.
Re:Autonomous Taxis (Score:2)
In some test by the TU delft [vislab.it] the autonomous cars test are now foucsing on how the driver takes over from the car. The coming of autonomous cars will come fluent. First there will be advanced lane asist and takeover of tasks that are easy for computers. And of course the driving in a "train" with minimal space between cars. More and more functions will be added.
Fully autonomous will be a long way to go. e.g. to determine the last street where you want to go might be a very hard task. GPS navigations rarely guides you to the exact position, where to park, and the exact house is a complicated task.
Re:Autonomous Taxis (Score:2)
The coming of autonomous cars will come fluent.
Come again?
Driver and user licenses (Score:4, Insightful)
The computer may have a failure in the middle of nowhere. If the system is well designed the car should stop safely. But Then?
The user may want -- or need -- to go somewhere the computer can't drive, e.g. off road.
Therefore the user should have a driver license. If it is not mandatory, the user must at least be inform that he may be in trouble in some situations. A driver license is not only about road regulation, it is also about the ability to handle a car.
An "autonomous car license" should require some basic knowledge about what the computer can do and can't do, and how to use it: the destination is not always an address.
Re:Driver and user licenses (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Driver and user licenses (Score:5, Informative)
The same as if any other vehicle (whether it is car you are driving or a vehicle in which you are a passenger) breaks down. You (or someone else) calls for assistance and either the vehicle is towed, a mechanic does a roadside repair or another vehicle is dispatched for you to continue your journey.
Re:Driver and user licenses (Score:3)
Driving "off network", yes. If autonomous cars require compatible roads. But when driving "off-road"? Why the hell would you need any licence (or registration or insurance) if you aren't driving on public roads.
The human is just a passenger (Score:5, Insightful)
If the car is truly "fully autonomous" as the question suggests, then the human is just a passenger. Since when do we need a license or insurance to be a passenger? Some age restriction would be nice, so that little five-year-old Jimmy doesn't steal the family car for an automated trip to Disney World, but anything beyond that is just clinging to the past.
Re:The human is just a passenger (Score:2)
Re:The human is just a passenger (Score:4, Insightful)
It does indicate the qualifications that should be required though. I voted for "none", because you don't need a license to use your private chauffeur driven car, which is essentially what this is.
Why not car company? (Score:2)
Well, someone has to have insurance.
Sure, but that should be the company I bought the car from, factored into the price. It's the software the car maker provided making the driving choices, why should I be responsible in any way for the choices it makes.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
Sure, but that should be the company I bought the car from, factored into the price. It's the software the car maker provided making the driving choices, why should I be responsible in any way for the choices it makes.
So if you don't bring it in for service like ever and the brakes fail or you haven't patched the car's software in 10 years, is it still their fault? If you want Google to own that liability, you can also expect Google to set demands.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
So if you don't bring it in for service like ever and the brakes fail or you haven't patched the car's software in 10 years, is it still their fault? If you want Google to own that liability, you can also expect Google to set demands.
I have no problem with that. It's an autonomous vehicle, it can drive itself to the nearest link for software updates or over to the repair depot at night. If repairs are going to take more than my normal downtime or a nighttime emergency comes up, a taxi should be able to come and get me.
I actually anticipate a day when most people don't own their own cars, they subscribe to an on-demand point-to-point transport service instead.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
I actually anticipate a day when most people don't own their own cars, they subscribe to an on-demand point-to-point transport service instead.
Before cars we used to have something like this...they were called trains.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
You might have to switch to a subway / bus / tram and (ghasp!) maybe walk a few 100 meters.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
Not sure where you live where there's a train/subway/bus/tram within a few hundred meters of everyone's house.
I had a set of grandparents that lived 30 km out in the country. The nearest road a bus would have ever used was about 15 km from their house.
Note for the unthinking - autonomous cars aren't just for city-dwellers.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
As CrimsonAvenger points out, not everybody lives near a train depot.
You've also completely ignored the "on-demand" part of the statement. Trains don't depart on your schedule. A train won't pick you up at your front door at 3AM because you have a 6AM flight and the nearest airport is in a city 100km away. A subscription or rental service for autonomous cars should be able to handle that with no sweat.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
I was answering to your comment, which seemed to imply that they are never point-to-point, when the system as a whole often are. And for the on-demand thing: If it leaves every 10 minutes or so, that's close enough.
But shure, if you live out on the contryside, it gets harder, especially during the night. However it's funny that you mention airports, as they are often quite well served by public transport. I have myself several times taken the airport express train or bus to catch an early flight.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
I was answering to your comment, which seemed to imply that they are never point-to-point, when the system as a whole often are. And for the on-demand thing: If it leaves every 10 minutes or so, that's close enough.
I'm not trying to imply anything, I want to proclaim it boldly! Trains are not point-to-point. They don't go from your door to a destination, and don't generally provide direct routes. They don't depart at your convenience, and in the US, at least, they don't depart every ten minutes. In fact, there is virtually no reliable subway/tram/train service throughout the US except for a relatively small number of cities - more on why below.
Even where trains are available, it's not what I meant by point-to-point. When I lived in Boston, I took the subways/trams everywhere. However, the system is laid out as spokes, and to go to some destinations I'd have to ride all the way in to city center and then out another spoke. It made what would have been a 10 minute trip by autonomous vehicle into an hour to hour-and-a-half trip (depending on how the trains were running that day) with transfers. I chose to commute to a summer job by bicycle, 20 minutes each way, rather than lose 3-4 hours out of each day by having to ride the spoke system, transfer to buses, and then still hike a kilometer from the nearest bus stop to the job. However, biking wouldn't have been viable in the winter, nor would it be viable now that I'm older and missing the cartilage and half the ligaments from one knee. But part of my argument here is that the public transport solution wouldn't be viable for me now either - hiking a kilometer on ice and snow both ways daily would now be both painful and dangerous for me.
But shure, if you live out on the contryside, it gets harder, especially during the night. However it's funny that you mention airports, as they are often quite well served by public transport. I have myself several times taken the airport express train or bus to catch an early flight.
The fact that one end of the system is tethered to high-volume points of interest doesn't help people who live nowhere near any of the routes that go there.
The US is very large compared to Europe, and most folks here don't have access to transport systems comparable to those in Europe. Building the infrastructure isn't viable for most of the country because we have much lower population density. For better or worse, these are the reasons why the US has a more car-oriented society. I think autonomous vehicles can potentially have a huge impact here via pooled usage, reducing the need for individual ownership while still providing the point-to-point and on-demand benefits that are currently only available with privately owned cars.
Re:Why not car company? (Score:2)
Re:The human is just a passenger (Score:2)
. . . and that passenger might just hit Ctrl-Alt-Del.
Folks call me up all the time when they have computer problems. Now they'll be calling me with car trouble, as well.
" . . . but I didn't change anything . . . really . . . it just stopped working . . . but I wasn't doing anything at the time . . ."
Re:The human is just a passenger (Score:2)
Completely agree if the car is FULLY autonomous. If it is partially autonomous, eg. it sometimes needs human intervention, then it is a very confusing situation. I would have no desire to own a partially-autonomous car because of the unclear responsibility. If I need to pay constant attention to what the car is doing, then I want to be driving.
Can you debug in single user mode? (Score:5, Funny)
If not, sorry, you can't drive this car.
"Unix is user friendly - it's just picky about it's friends."
Fully autonomous cars won't be ubiquitos (Score:2)
Re:Fully autonomous cars won't be ubiquitos (Score:4, Insightful)
In order for the hardware and software for a fully autonomous vehicle to really be deemed safe to be 100% in control of the vehicle on public roads...
If only humans were safe, 100% in control of vehicles, when on public roads. As a bicyclist, I wish fewer humans drove cars.
Just because the car is supposedly 'autonomous' does not mean it's so sophisticated that it can handle any situation that comes up, especially when most of the other vehicles on the road are not autonomous and therefore must be considered unpredictable.
The Google autonomous cars are intended and have been tested on city streets, which are emphatically not full of predictable autonomous cars. So far, they've been in 1 accident, and the other party was at fault. Humans get into that type of accident all the time.
Autonomous cars are great because they can have much faster reflexes and much deeper memories of how to avoid accidents than humans. Find a way to avoid more accidents, send an update, and all the cars running the same software would avoid those accidents in the future. Contrast that with humans, who decline with age and die, and are replaced with new idiot teenagers all the time. Google is not doing autonomous cars because they want a dystopian future without humans, like those lame protesters say, but because they're trying to save lives. [ted.com]
At this point, the greatest fear I have about autonomous cars is that lame regulators will make it so difficult to approve them, that they never become available to the public.
Re:Fully autonomous cars won't be ubiquitos (Score:2)
For your part, my friend: I suspect you, personally, find driving a car to be a chore that you hate, and would rather just let the deus ex machina take the wheel from you instead, and damn the consequences. If I'm right then you are part of the problem and you're also not seeing the consequences of heading down this particular road. The life you save may be your own; continue driving yourself. Enjoy driving yourself. The life you save may be your own.
Re:Fully autonomous cars won't be ubiquitos (Score:4, Insightful)
There will ALWAYS be situations where any sort of auto-pilot will NOT be able to handle it, and that is why aircraft still have manual controls with fully qualified and experienced pilots sitting there overseeing the autopilot's operation and taking control where necessary or desired.
There's a major difference: In an aircraft, you're always minutes away from falling out of the sky in fiery doom. A car has the option of pulling over and stopping. Also, I've been watching Mayday, [wikipedia.org] and all of the autopilot accidents have been a result of poor user interface design. If an autopilot has difficulty, then a human pilot will have difficulty. On the other hand, the Miracle on the Hudson [wikipedia.org] was facilitated by good use of the autopilot, to make corrections that a human would not be able to handle, in total contrast to that hijacking off Africa. [wikipedia.org]
For precisely the same reasons all motor vehicle operators should continue to be trained, tested for competency, licensed, and should strive to be experienced as drivers. ... I suspect you, personally, find driving a car to be a chore that you hate, and would rather just let the deus ex machina take the wheel from you instead, and damn the consequences.
Certainly, the operator of the car should be experienced and properly licensed. Again, as a bicyclist, I think more people should be using human power to move themselves, and not going around in multi-ton metal death boxes like it's a human right. I drive a manual transmission, so I already appreciate how people are deferring to the car's engineering, especially in boring situations.
Far from being a deus ex machina, an autonomous car is an engineered product. In principle, you can examine its code and analyze how it works. Once it works, it will work the same way every time, unless there are software updates or faults in the sensors. In contrast, your God-given brain is messy and unpredictable. The longer you go without an accident, the more complacent you become. The more safety features you have, the more careless you become. [wikipedia.org] And as long as you go without accidents, the DMV does not bother testing your driving ability, but just renews your license sight-unseen. The current situation is demonstrably not safe.
The big question is whether having the car drive itself would make the humans' skills atrophy. My guess is that it would improve safety, having the humans drive only in tricky situations where they know they have to be careful. And the rest of the time, the computer would be driving with all of the safety techniques that it knows, constantly alert.
didn't vote_programmer drives autonomous car (Score:5, Interesting)
Poll question not valid.
"driver" means, in this context, passenger then?
is the question assuming that the law would apply to *at least* one passenger but not others?
is it asking if all passengers in the autonomous vehicle must have the listed options?
is it about manual override? is the idea that theoretically a law might or might not want the person to be able to "take over"? are we assuming the car will be mandated to have manual override?
or is it asking about the ***person who programs the software***
because that's who's driving the "autonomous" vehicle...the glorious bastards who code & program the thing
Just insurance (Score:2)
If the driver needs to be able to step in at any moment, it's not a fully autonomous car in any meaningful sense, it's just a tech demo.
The only point of a fully autonomous car is so you don't have to drive it. This means (i) being able to concentrate on stuff other than the road, like a book, a movie, or being asleep and (ii) if you're not going to be driving it anyway, why bother acquiring the skill to do so, and the certification to prove you can? Hence, just insurance.
I really can't see the point in buying a car whose defining feature is that it can drive itself, and having to be on stand-by status to take over at any given instant. If that's what we're offered, I would say that whatever Google is capable of cooking up, we're not actually being offered a fully autonomous vehicle.
Missing Option (Score:2)
Like totally missed the elephant in the room there.
[ ] Regular MOT type tests to show that the car is in good working order and that the autonomous systems haven't been interfered with (to allow speeding, murder attempts etc).
Re:Missing Option (Score:2)
Bollocks, one day I'll learn to read.
Stupid poll anyway - 'autonomous' cars don't have drivers.
Next poll:
Should new laws be passed to hold mountains responsible for the people that fall off of them.
[ ] yes
[ ] no
Autonomous car, no passengers (Score:2)
I am considering that the car may be sent (without passengers) to "Go pickup hubby from work" after the spouse has used the car during the day.
In that scenario the car would be just like a "Johnny Cab" without the passengers.
Re:Autonomous car, no passengers (Score:2)
Depends whether it has manual override. (Score:2)
If the car has a way to let the passenger take manual control and override the autopilot, then the passenger has become a driver and should be properly licensed.
While I don't discuss the licensing issues, my book The Reticuli Deception (set about 100 years from now) has several scenes involving both completely autonomous (sole occupant darkens the windows and takes a nap) and not (driver overrides the computer to deliberately cause a collision with the guy tailing someone, then escapes by having arranged for a rental car to drive itself to the next block and be waiting for him). (That's only a minor spoiler, most of the book takes place off-Earth. Caveat, it's a sequel to The Chara Talisman, which come to think of it has one scene with an autonomous taxi.) </blatantplug>
version 1.0 (Score:2)
For car companies, it seems they should have proven the technology out with minimum 5 years of safe driving record in controlled studies (just like FDA would require controlled studies to prove out drug/devices). Basically, you are buying this tech, but you are still responsible.
Okay, but then who would pay for this? Seems like early adopters would be elderly who want to be mobile, but don't have the driving reflexes,the physically handicapped, and those who would just rather be driven than to drive and consider this a luxury purchase.
Let's say the above scenario goes for 5 -10 years, then the tech gets less expensive, and the public becomes more trusting. At that point, V2.0 is a truly autonomous vehicle that can operate without any owner/passenger on board ( you can send it to go pick up relatives at the airport.)
I can see the above scenario working, of course legal details have to be hammered out etc.
I would expect ... (Score:2)
Something tells me that autonomous cars will always have a manual override. There are times when it will be easier to take direct control of a vehicle than to communicate to a computer what you want done (e.g. parking in a particular way to load or off-load cargo). There are times when computers make very poor decisions, either being too safe or too dangerous, because of poor or outdates information. (Consider the periodic quirky routes generated by GPS navigation systems.) There are also people who need to take their vehicle off-road, particularly in rural areas.
Any autonomous vehicle that can be overriden should have a licensed operator. Their license should also have certifications regarding where and when autonomous controls can be overrident. That will be particularly true in the early days, while bugs are being worked out of the system.
Caucasians In Rush Hour (Score:2)
Until I can legally drink a White Russian and chill out with a joint, some tunes and Wii U Bowling while being driven around by my autonomous car, it's not really autonomous is it, man?
License + exceptions for disability (Score:2)
I think drivers of autonomous cars should have licenses. Even if they aren't directly driving, they're still responsible for keeping the vehicle in proper functioning condition.
I do, however, think there should be reasonable exceptions for people who can't get a regular driver's license because of a physical disability such as bad eyesight.
EE (Score:2)
May be some EE and mechanical license to go with it for troubleshooting in case of problems. :P
But if it will be autonomous, the operator will be the one responsible.
Insurance is already a scam. (Score:2)
Insurance is already a scam. Let's not make it moreso.
As a driver who owns two cars, you have to insure both cars if you want to alternate driving them, rather than insuring yourself as a driver, which is pretty much the definition of a scam.
How much autonomy? (Score:2)
First Aid Certification (Score:2)
Define terms, before asking questions. (Score:2)
I don't know what an autonomous car is,exactly as one has never been released. Once you describe to me what is meant by autonomous cars, their capabilities and liabilities, and then I'll tell you what qualifications a human passenger must have.
Right now, its like asking if extra terrestrial life forms should be granted citizenship in the USA. If they are sentient and as intelligent on average as the average voter, then yes. If they are of the intelligence and communication skills as a non-human great ape, then no.
If the car is truly autonomous than why anything? (Score:2)
Here are the main reasons why none of the other crap should be relevant.
1) Old people whose vision and reflexes are not up to snuff
2) Drunk people coming home from a party.
Basically, the entire point of a driverless car is not to give the driver a break - that is stupid. It's not a driverless car if you need someone behind the wheel qualified to drive it. Nor should they be responsible for what the driverless car does.
Driverless cars can destroy drunk driving and old people driving through farmer markets.
Requiring people behind the wheel have licenses is the exact same thing as saying no driverless cars - but you are stupid enough not to realize that the driver behind the car will be watching a movie while the car is driving.
A driver's license of course (Score:2)
And this is where the slashdot idealists come in and say "well if that's the case, we just shouldn't have automated cars. We should only have them if they're completely safe." But be real. What would you rather have: an automated vehicle that works 99.9% of the time, or no automated vehicle at all? I know what I'd choose. Besides, it would be easier to focus on potential hazards if you were able to devote your full mental capacity to it.
lots of insurance (Score:2)
Re:lots of insurance (Score:2)
Or who do you sue when a thousand people get delayed for work, planes or hospital appointments because an autonomous car stopped when it encountered something it was not programmed to handle, like tumbleweed or a policeman directing traffic?
I'm quite convinced we won't have fully autonomous cars until we get roads designed for these vehicles. In which case there might as well be rails.
Re:Age restriction only. (Score:2)
You didn't explain your subject-text. Why an age restriction? There's no age restriction on car passengers. With a truly autonomous car, everyone is a passenger.
If the kid is old enough to understand the controls, they are old enough to be ferried around by themselves. (If they aren't, they aren't old enough to know better anyway.)
Re:Age restriction only. (Score:2)
Re:Age restriction only. (Score:2)
That would be solvable by owner settable restrictions. It should not be qualified in laws.
Re:Age restriction only. (Score:2)
Right, and the next thing you know, little Timmy is off to Amsterdam. What could possibly go wrong? :)
What makes you think children don't already do this with buses and trains?
I wasn't quite confident enough to join in, but some of my friends travelled 150 miles / 250km to London a few times (without parents knowing) when they were 13-14. (Nothing went wrong.)
It might be a bit easier -- no ticket / money needed -- but for the same reason it's also easier to get home.
Re:They shouldn't exist in the first place (Score:2)
Why?
Passenger aircraft already do 100% automated takeoff's and landings about half the time now. Do you object to that as well?
Re:They need to learn (Score:3)
Pilots often don't have a choice. They are required to manually fly a certain number of hours, or make a certain number of landings, in order to maintain their licence.
[It would make sense to have a system where pilots can drill on an instrument simulator mode on their actual controls, while on long-haul flights on autopilot, and have it count towards their qualification-hours. It would not only give them something to do, it would also allow them to simulate more extreme emergency conditions, to gain experience in situations they don't face day-to-day.
Of course, that would create another pilot-error failure mode. Confusing the sim-mode with reality, and vice versa.]
Look! no hands. (Score:3)
Re:Look! no hands. (Score:3)
(let's not call them "drivers").
I already do this. Most people no the road aren't drivers, they're just steering wheel attendants (and I look forward to the time where they are in autonomous cars).
If it has user (let's not call them "drivers") accessible controls, it's not fully autonomous.
Manual controls do not mean that the car isn't fully autonomous. A lot of industrial machines have manual controls that are used once for testing and never touched again in the machines lifetime.
Why we want self-driving cars (Score:2)
One reason is so that people who can't drive themselves can get around more autonomously than if they have to take public transit or taxis. For instance, my mom's vision is no longer what it used to be, and she had to give up driving a decade or so ago because she just couldn't see well enough, especially at night. Yes, she used to have the skills to have a driver's license, but now she's not going to be able to tell the self-driving car to do anything useful until about the time it hits something.
By contrast, I know some other people who have epilepsy, and would be perfectly capable of driving 99-99.99% of the time, but occasionally they're not, so maybe they could help the autopilot most of the time. Usually it's just brief inattention rather than more dramatic seizures, but it's still long enough not to be driving.
I also want a self-driving car so that when I go somewhere, I can then tell the car to go park itself, and call it up to have it come back from wherever it parked when I'm done. So there'd be no driver in those cases.
And then there's drunks. You really don't want their hands on the wheel. Maybe let them hit the brakes if they want to do that before the autopilot does.
Re:Look! no hands. (Score:3)
I'm fine with the idea that an automobile could operate in either autonomous or operator mode, and since we already have some cars that have different performance characteristics depending on what key has been used (one for normal driving, one to open up performance driving) a similar system could allow those without driver's licenses to be ferried around by the car where the car doesn't present them with the option of using the controls.
Take the police cruiser as shown in Demolition Man. That case is a bit extreme in the sense that the operator's controls look conventional except for the collapsing steering wheel, but with the ever growing drive-by-wire concept, if we ever get to where we have full electrical steering without a shaft connecting the wheel to the steering rack, then one could conceivably lock the steering wheel, ignore the pedals, and ignore most of the operator inputs like turn signals and light controls, so that the car could operate itself.
One could even program the car to where it won't move unless the non-licensed passenger is sitting in a certain seat, like in the back, or more importantly, not in the front or not in the driver's seat.
I love to drive, but there have been a few instances when I've been too tired to drive or where I've had something pressing that I needed to do during the time that could be spent driving, and having a car that could drive itself when I needed it to would be a godsend. If I had one of those horrible long commutes, or was constantly driving between major cities, or had a significant amount of work to get done while on the road, a self-driving car could work out very well to let me do what I need or want to do while in motion.
And for people like my in-laws that can't drive anymore, a self-driving car would be a godsend for appointments and other aspects of mobility compared to the buses or dial-a-ride, giving them the best parts of a sedan service without the hassle of scheduling a driver and wasting his time while they're at each of the various stops.
Re:Look! no hands. (Score:2)
If it is anything like gps then I would be screwed. There are places where I live, even entire roads, that aren't in gps so no controls means I can't go some places. Not to mention all the places on gps that have moved or are no longer there. Yes I live in the US, and yes I keep the gps updated.
Re:They need to learn (Score:2, Insightful)
"To let the computer do the work unlike the idiot pilots who insist on actually flying the planes because it's boring to watch."
Pilots should get as much real flying time as they can. When it comes to emergency situations no computer is going to safely land you in the Hudson river.
Re:They need to learn (Score:2)
"I have no information on the subject, but my educated guess is..."
Without information, you cannot make an 'educated' guess. What you made was a guess. And, you guessed wrong.
Re:They need to learn (Score:2)
What the pilot did was extraordinary. Hopefully not unrepeatable as I'd rather a pilot be able to ditch the plane safely in the drink if it can't make it to flat ground, but requiring skills and intuition that were simply not programmed into the computer.
Re:They need to learn (Score:3)
I reckon he really did it to save people on the ground. That the people on the planes survived was a bonus.
Trains? (Score:2)
Re:They need to learn to let it go (Score:2)
I expect autonomous cars would have a deactivation mode built in. Your auto-auto was within n meters of a robbed bank when the alarm goes off? Time to pull over and go to sleep!
Re:They need to learn to let it go (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, governments and corporations will probably ruin this otherwise good idea by filling the cars with backdoors
Surely a backdoor could be really useful in a tight parking spot!
Re:They need to learn to let it go (Score:3)
Automatic cars for a taxi service wouldn't have user accessible controls - unless they're a JohnnyCab! [dailymotion.com]
Re:They need to learn to let it go (Score:3)
Automatic cars for a taxi service wouldn't have user accessible controls - unless they're a JohnnyCab! [dailymotion.com]
Well then, it appears something needs to be done to prevent homicidal acts from the likes of JohnnyCab or anyone else from programming an autonomous car to intentionally kill someone. Maybe the time has come to try to figure out a way to effectively embed in the vehicle's operational core a tamper proof set of laws.
The Three Laws of Autonomous Vehicles:
First Law: An autonomous vehicle may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: An autonomous vehicle must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: An autonomous vehicle must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Re:Fwiw: It's Driver License; not Driver's License (Score:2)
No, mine definitely says "Driver's Licence". Apostrophe and second "c".
the Operator License would need to create a new Class for operating an autonomous vehicle.
Like the way I have to be licensed to ride the bus?
Insurance liability would (naturally) require an additional premium added to your present policy.
Why on Earth would you need anything more than your standard owner's insurance unless the autonomous control increases the risk of accidents?
Re:Fwiw: It's Driver License; not Driver's License (Score:2)
Re:Computers should not be allowed to drive (Score:2)
It can never drive better than what the programmer could predict at the time of writing the program.
Of course, but it can still be damn good. It can be polished to be much more reliable than a human driver.
Re:must be male (Score:2)
Re:Ban them, forever. (Score:2)
Put the car makers under the same strict regulations that the airplane autopilot manufacturers are.
It's the same principle just a different amount of passengers.
four to six instead of fifty +.