Robocars - Autonomous Drive, Self-driving, Driver-less cars

What happens when a giant meteorite falls from the sky and the only way you can save the world is to jump off Tower Bridge as it's rising so you can hit the meteorite direct in its menacing face with your car? What then? How are the manufacturers gonna program for that?

I like Snotters idea, we could lash paupers to the outside of the car and use their etiolated bodies to absorb some of the impact.

Make sure I get a cut off the profits.

Since 1% have 99% of wealth, the cars should seek out the rich and kill them. Wealth redistributed and cars not being driven by cunts, Earth becomes awesome. Problems solved.

The accident avoidance fallback stategy is an issue that has both moral and social issues. Similar "decisions" are not unfamilar. The problem is: there is no general agreement.
Example: While death during pregnany is less common than it once was it is still a threat, on the one the one hand through Eclampsia and other syndromes but also through treatments of cancers and other health issues. When given the "choice" between trying to save the mother or aborting the baby, a Catholic will be driven to save the baby even if it kills the mother, while a Jew will be driven to try to save the mother even if means losing the baby.
These rules will need to be "hardwired" in the motorcars. Shall we have Jewish, Catholic, Muslim etc. motorcars? Shall we have the cars tuned personally to ones own moral codex?
Kill the old lady to avoid a child? Crash into a group of people to avoid a schoolbus? Etc..
A few months ago at CVPR I asked the Google crew about their logic.. their answer was "avoid having an accident" :-)

If robocars are run by a private company on a commercial basis I would have thought that self-preservation would be the default choice, no?

To put it another way - You're transporting your newborn son to hospital for his first postnatal check-up. Robocar A would sacrifice his life to save two of someone else's children in a no-win crash scenario. Robocar B would save you and your son. Which company do you give your business to?

It's never really going to have to unless due to some outside influence, like a drunk driver, gets in the way, the car should aim at drunky.

They should all be armed with vapourising zappers. If a drunk driver drives at them, the zapper switches on and disintegrates the drunk and their car, and any of the passengers that were enabling their crime spree, especially if they're rich.

Armed, intelligent robocars programed to kill, can't wait.

Armed, intelligent robocars programed to kill, can't wait.

No need to wait. Chinese researchers already have been showing autonomous drones with action detection.. Not that intelligent but I guess in PRC the utility function has a low cost to error and a short threshold to decisions..

If robocars are run by a private company on a commercial basis I would have thought that self-preservation would be the default choice, no?

I think the natural utility function would be to minimize the monetary losses. Sometimes self-sacrifice is cheaper.

Not his point.

Cars that are programmed to kill people that aren't its owners in preference to them will sell more units.

Why choose? Aren't they all communicating with each other? Wouldn't they have deadman's switch failsafe brakes that disable the car if something fucks up? You could still have the safety features cars currently have so if someone rammed it, it'd likely protect the occupants. I dunno, I see that video of the Tesla and think "oh they've just filmed one of the 90% of people driving around distracted". Lose a few people in the name of progress - who cares! Get me robocars!

I think that what we're seeing is all the change-averse stick-in-the-muds going "oh, no, no, no, we don't want things to be different to the way they are now, that might be dangerous, unlike the perfectly safe existence we have right now that I grew up with", and soon enough they're all going to be dead from old age or sitting on their arses all the time or car crashes and the robocars will just march forth into being around them.

^they're OK tho, just human error.

The "other" category must be all the paid assassins and the roving gangs of orphans who keep jumping out into the road in front of them. And cyclists, just by existing.

I'd have much more pleasant training rides if cars weren't being driven by fucking stupid humans. The number of cunts that just barrel into RABs without noticing the large, illuminated lump already in front of them is amazings.

Why choose? Aren't they all communicating with each other?

In the future, of course, they will be communicating with the other motorcars, buses etc. but also stoplights--- already reality in some places--- and all kinds of other routing systems but what about, to keep to OUR favorite topic, bicycles?

Bikes and pedestrians do what they do now - whatever they want.

I think that what we're seeing is all the change-averse stick-in-the-muds going "oh, no, no, no, we don't want things to be different to the way they are now, that might be dangerous, unlike the perfectly safe existence we have right now that I grew up with", and soon enough

Hardly.. There is a very big push to electric self-driving cars. A number of countries have even set national goals. Companies too are gearing up. Look at all the "car sharing" companies sprouting up.. many being driven by the makers of the motorcars themselves-- such as BMW with Drive Now--- and many throwing their makers into the business of making motorcars--- Google, Apple, Uber..

they're all going to be dead from old age or sitting on their arses all the time or car crashes and the robocars will just march forth into being around them.

Re-insurrance companies have already gotten into the game so it is really a short jump to making human driven motorcars prohibitively expensive. In the shorter term I think we'll see more and more accident aversion technology and this too will get folded into the "cost to drive".

The comments were about the scare-mongering article not about the manufacturers building the tech: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/

I would pay now for a robocar.

Bikes and pedestrians do what they do now - whatever they want.

And how is a self-driving car to "avoid" contact? Or are they fair game--- objects to sacrifice to save itself and other autonomous vehicles on the road? A child, for example, runs out into a two lane road with cars speeding along in both directions and people crowded on the walkway..

Sensors connected to brakes. Cars stop.

They stop much quicker than humans operating car brakes.

Apart from spotting the hazard earlier, they can control traction and communicate the hazard to other vehicles, preventing other injuries.