Self-driving cars programmed to decide who dies in a crash

 

WASHINGTON — Consider this hypothetical:

It’s a bright, sunny day and you’re alone in your spanking new self-driving vehicle, sprinting along the two-lane Tunnel of Trees on M-119 high above Lake Michigan north of Harbor Springs. You’re sitting back, enjoying the view. You’re looking out through the trees, trying to get a glimpse of the crystal blue water below you, moving along at the 45-mile-an-hour speed limit.

As you approach a rise in the road, heading south, a school bus appears, driving north, one driven by a human, and it veers sharply toward you. There is no time to stop safely, and no time for you to take control of the car.

Prease to read more here:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/11/23/self-dr...

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Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

Quote: "legislation moving

Quote: "legislation moving through Congress that could result in tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles being put on the roads. In new guidance for automakers by the U.S. Department of Transportation, it is consigned to a footnote that says only that ethical considerations are "important" and links to a brief acknowledgement that "no consensus around acceptable ethical decision-making" has been reached."

I feel safer already knowing our elected officials will make the best decisions.

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I never get lost, but I do explore new territory every now and then.

I know this article has this

I know this article has this weeks timestamp, but I read an identical article a year or more ago. I don't know whether they will program collision avoidance maneuvers or not. I know one thing, as a former instructor of Emergency Vehicle Operations for Fire, EMS and Police, as well as Defensive Driving, swerving to the left into oncoming traffic is never an option. Suppose that bus corrected at the last minute and you are now in his lane, who is at fault? How about after you miss the bus, you hit the vehicle behind it head on.

Other than coming to an emergency stop, or allowing the driver to overide and make their own decision, I can't see programming too much collision avoidance.

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Frank DriveSmart55 37.322760, -79.511267

not the way they are programmed

The discussions on this topic generally are entirely free of an understanding of the real way things are programmed. (choosing who to kill...)

Sadly, some fools may make legislation or mandatory regulations imposing requirements on the machines driven by the need to make the public feel better about made-up scenarios. The result will likely be poorer safety performance.

Even more sadly, such considerations may delay more widespread driving by drivers likely to be rather a lot safer than we are.

Autonomous cars don't need to be perfect to be be far better than we are. And they are likely to improve far more as the years go on than we are.

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personal GPS user since 1992

Well said

archae86 wrote:

The discussions on this topic generally are entirely free of an understanding of the real way things are programmed. (choosing who to kill...)

Sadly, some fools may make legislation or mandatory regulations imposing requirements on the machines driven by the need to make the public feel better about made-up scenarios. The result will likely be poorer safety performance.

Even more sadly, such considerations may delay more widespread driving by drivers likely to be rather a lot safer than we are.

Autonomous cars don't need to be perfect to be be far better than we are. And they are likely to improve far more as the years go on than we are.

Exactly! They don't need to be perfect to be better than the majority of buffoons out there texting, drinking, putting on make up, fooling with the navigation system, and whatever else while driving causing thousands of accidents every day. Much like seat belts and air bags which people complained about initially, these will save far more lives than they'll ever kill. Can't wait!!

Impaired Driver vs Self Driving

Which would you rather meet on the road, a self-driving vehicle or an impaired driver, be it a sleepy driver or a drunk or high driver?

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Zumo 550 & Zumo 665 My alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.

tin foil hat?

Do you really think that if you ignore fact that even with 100% self-driving cars accidents will not disappear? And there will be need to decide what should happen in those situations. At some point you have put death sentence on somebody to minimize number of deaths. Or you can do nothing and leave everything to chance.

With self-driving cars will come death sentence for somebody. And to make you comfortable you will not know until last second who was designated to die in fatal scenario. Compare it to flying airplane. You are only a load and your faith is decided without your consent.

To be OK with it just believe like today: it will never happen to you. After all not that many people die on roads comparing to total number of travelers.

Accidents Will Happen

Would Elvis Costello buy a self-driving car?

crash

remember its a computer driven car ! I have had my car computer replaced because it died going down the road and it had to be towed to the dealer to be replaced ! I wonder if it could lock up going down the road at 60 mph on a curve ? I don't have a lot of faith in programmer's today (I have windows 10 pro 64 bit) I do like the advancement's they have made but not enough put my families life on the line with it .

Thanks - now I'm even

Thanks - now I'm even feeling worse.

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Garmin Drive Smart 61 NA LMT-S

since you put it that way ...

Elvis Costello might, but I doubt seriously that I ever would.

I actually like driving. I m, however, aggravated by drivers who would rather be doing anything else but driving. I can usually tell from a safe distance whether someone is distracted or not. My biggest pet peeve is reserved for drivers who stream TV while driving.

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it's the dog's fault

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Garmin DriveSmart 5 My other toys: IMac quad-core i3, Mac Mini M1. MacOS: Ventura 13.3.1 The dog's name is Ginger.

Don't worry

Human programmers never make mistakes. If they do, they can fixed it with the next software update, and the one after that.

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Steve - 2 Nuvi 3597

Don't Ever Plan...

...to buy a self driving car. Any mistakes made while driving will be made by me, not a computer. I used to program computers, and know what a job that is. Also know that the likelihood of developing a large error-free software package is nigh on to zero. So don't want to be liable for other's mistakes.

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Tuckahoe Mike - Nuvi 3490LMT, Nuvi 260W, iPhone X, Mazda MX-5 Nav

big numbers, big opportunity

John Thornhill, writing a column in Tuesday's Financial Times on the driverless car topic, cites the number of human deaths yearly in auto crashes as 1.25 million. That is much more than I would have guessed.

The opportunity for lives saved by converting even a small fraction of the world's miles driven to self-driving cars which are only moderately better than we are at driving safely dwarfs a lot of life-saving efforts that get a lot of attention and a lot of money.

Added to that is the considerable burden of diminished capacity living among those injured but not killed.

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personal GPS user since 1992

Can't wait

Car crash..Driver blames car, mfg blames software (outsourced to India company), software company says not my fault, lawyers gets involved big settlement and auto prices go up.

Lawyers get majority of class action settlements.

Same thing over and over for all the various types of accidents.

Congress gets involved limits settlements sets new safety regulations auto prices go up. .

Software patches become a daily update prices go up.

Accidents go down lawyer rates go up.

What did I miss Oh yeah insurance rates go up again.

Have to find a new way to tax since most of the new cars will be electric. However they decide taxes will go up.

And finally electric rates go up.

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garry

might be safer taking a

might be safer taking a shuttle to the moon. At least they have lots of redundancy and can fix things from 200,000 miles away.

Duct tape!

Duct tape!

Anything can be fixed with duct tape.

Sounds

like fodder for Stephen King.

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TomTom built in and Garmin Nuvi 1490T. Eastern Iowa, formerly Southern California "You can check out any time you like...but you can never leave."

I can see it now..

Your Great grandkids come to you and says..

" WOW, you really use to drive a car??!! "

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Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

Another reason I'm I'm glad I'm 70

Hopefully be dead before all of this comes to be. See it every day slowly creeping up and peeps accepting it without protest. We have self driving cars being tested now, but still no decision on who is responsible, as said above, the Owner, the manufacture, the software or a component?

Possibly but...

ericruby wrote:

Would Elvis Costello buy a self-driving car?

...only if it was This Year's Model.

1,000 Internets to You!!!

BSideTheCSide wrote:
ericruby wrote:

Would Elvis Costello buy a self-driving car?

...only if it was This Year's Model.

Well done!!!!!