[Closed] Good BBC article about future driverless cars and their ethics.

However bearing in mind the power of the motoring lobbies, there may be unpleasant consequences for cyclists. I suspect one of the ways that will be used to reduce the risks will be to legislate bikes off through roads.

I just wonder who's interests are being served by hyping these hypothetical vanishingly improbable scenarios rather than focussing on the inevitable massive improvements in road safety when fully autonomous vehicles become widespread. (They don't even have to be universal, herd immunity arguments will probably apply when they are a sufficiently large fraction ).

Given it's shown that the current cars handle bikes well what's the issue?

Because an autonomous car won't beep the horn or force a cyclist off the road, so if you take primary you'll actually hold the car up, safe in the knowledge that the red face bundle of rage in the passenger seat can't make it run you over! Some people are genuinely worried that the uppity pedestrians and cyclists will just start stepping out in front of cars knowing that the car will always stop.

Incidentally I don't think that car manufacturers would have any incentive to be biased against cyclists and pedestrians as injury costs are often massively higher than vehicle damage.

Of course there may be occasional problems with sensors not seeing us but drivers already do a pretty solid job of that when it suits them!

thecaptain - Member

I just wonder who's interests are being served by hyping these hypothetical vanishingly improbable scenarios rather than focussing on the inevitable massive improvements in road safety

Our interests. Forget cars and road safety for a second. Imagine true general AI running on your phone. It can interpret your facial expressions, your voice, your heart rate, the people you are talking to, the content you are viewing online and it will know (better than you or your best friend) what you really want to see hear and do. It can read you like a book and it can sooth and entertain you with advice and solace tailored specifically to your emotional needs. It will truly understand you better than any other person ever could.

Oh and it's owned by Google; and its primary goal is to be the perfect engine of distraction, designed to waste all of your time and interpret your emotional instability to sell you products through targeted advertising.

poopscoop

My single worry with AI is that I wish it were being designed by better minds. That's another debate entirely though.

That shouldn't be a worry, the IT juggernauts are head hunting all of the greatest minds in the world as soon as they come out of uni. They are mining all of the smartest people in the world. The problem isn't that they lack intelligence, the problem is that you've got armies of geniuses racing to beat each other with the soul aim of winning and there's moral or ethical compass guiding them. There's just the desire to be first and the promise of financial reward.

Cougar - Moderator

But driverless? We don't yet have driverless trains (the DLR aside), and they're on bloody rails. If trains need drivers, cars surely do for the forseeable. Rail we can control, we could readily introduce driverless trains on selected routes (HS2 anyone?). Roads were never designed for that sort of thing, they're horribly complicated by comparison.

It's basically here. We just need legislation to catch up with technology. It'll be like stop start initially, your car will hit inner city traffic below 15mph and go into auto drive or its gps will detect that you're on a motorway and it'll go into self drive. It'll be like stop start.

Some people are genuinely worried that the uppity pedestrians and cyclists will just start stepping out in front of cars knowing that the car will always stop.

This - what is going to stop bicycles and pedestrians ruling the roads especially in cities 🙂 likely to be rules restricting them 😥 or complete segregation...

Driverless trains will never happen, they’ll be strikes all over the place ... just look at Southern Trains for a model of how to piss off the public whilst the employees try in desperation to keep thier jobs.

You’ve got a whole load of public against automation, explaining the benefits to idiots gets nowhere and leads to fear and confusion and referendums based on lies and deceit... you don’t have to look very far back in history to find plenty of people are against anything they don’t understand.

The DLR went through only because it was built in the first instance as driverless, but there was still plenty of opposition to it , even the “thought” never mind the practicality and benefit.. even now all these years later they still encounter opposition and have guards on just to control the public and scan cards..

HS2 is still in “pipe dream” mode, scope and approach have yet to be settled and they’ve not even thought about making that driverless, and they won’t because the general public feel “safer” with a human blob on the stop button..

So, trying to convince humans that driverless cars are only a couple of years away is futile.

Half this population are happy living in fear and threat, you’ll never enlighten that half..

Good luck with your arguments and proposals, for they’ll fall on the ears of idiots.

Yep people get in the way of progress 😉 1992 Tech running driverless trains in Vancouver
http://www.vancouversun.com/Inside+SkyTrain+control+room/10092529/story.html

It's partly why part of the conversation needs to be about universal incomes and other ways to contribute to society.

[I]tjagain - Member
Cougar - don't planes fly themselves these days even auto land?
[/I]

Yup!

I'm not convinced Google is really that concerned about UK or anywhere else, RTA fatalities.

Which then begs the question, "[I]WHY[/I]" are they pouring money into this? $$$$$$$$$$$$

bikebouy - Member

So, trying to convince humans that driverless cars are only a couple of years away is futile.

Half this population are happy living in fear and threat, you’ll never enlighten that half..

Good luck with your arguments and proposals, for they’ll fall on the ears of idiots.

Audi A8 with traffic jam pilot. You won't have to argue or convince anyone - they'll want to buy it.

[I]jimjam - Member
Audi A8 with traffic jam pilot. You won't have to argue or convince anyone - they'll want to buy it.
[/I]

Yeah!
[img] [/img]

Driverless cars is a utopian ideal and nothing more.
Agreed on the drop down gadgetry from them can assist in today’s and mid term society ideals, lane assist, headsup displays, speed limit indication and distance control.
But..
Speed limit signs and SatNav and speed cameras have been here for sometime now, yet speeding is still taken with a pinch of salt and driver applied in irregular bursts. The threat of fines and points and license removal has little effect on these infringements, so try taking a human driven car off those people and hand them back a driverless vehicle.. the human would be head butting the headsup display when the vehicle hits max 30mph in a 30mph zone.. it would be like watching a pork chop in a blender for the outside observer.

Back in the 50’s when the atomic age thinking became a movement, in human transportation and living, there was plenty of idealism’s and surveys and focus groups for this sort of idealistic vision.. it’s no surprise that today in the beginning of the enlightenment era that we continue to moot the subject and seek technological answers to the most basic of humans needs, transport.
Yet the same arguments come up, the same technology and ideals mooted, answers to utopian ideals regurgitate endless loops when simply the answer is this...

If humans could drive accurately and according to conditions, apply consideration to others and their own well being, maintain and keep maintained the vehicle they operate, share and assist others in thier quest for reaching destinations it’s all that is required.

We currently live in overcrowded road and transportation networks because successive governments couldn’t “sell” the utopian ideals that are being talked about now. So a patch solution is being mooted, driverless cars are one of many but because these freedom processors are so personally linked to humans any changes mooted are challenged and/or ignored because of fear or threat. So all that is happening is governments look 6mths ahead, take no consideration of transportation pipeline expectations, ignore basic maintenace of road network infrastructure, encourage individual vehicle usage and tax and try to control the outfall when it all ends in 1800 deaths a year on the road network.. which whilst a high number is a tiny proportion of deaths when considering the sheer amount of journeys and movements we humans make.. so it’s almost and acceptable compromise. The shock and awe over these death figures is forgotten once the “want or need” to jump in the car to go to Tesco’s or head to the beach is the overriding factor.

HS2 for all its flaws and lack of global consideration would be far better a prospect [i]if[/i] it was designed from the outset to become driverless, and accept that consequence and development are required throughout its technical build and social need and accept that.. as is it’s a simple glam bauble held over the public to gauge reaction to the prospect that the UK should be doing something to ease transportation.. and the UK lags way behind any other western democracies in that forward thinking consideration aspect.

We live in an era of reactive governments, not progressive forward thinkers.

We’re just the affected who want to get somewhere to do our shopping.

bikebouy - Member

Driverless cars is a utopian ideal and nothing more.

Yeah it'll never happen.

For someone for whom driving is a means to an end sure, but I enjoy driving. To me that sounds like one of the most tedious things imaginable. Fortunately it's not going to happen, certainly in my lifetime.

Genuine question - of the last, say, 10 times you drove a car, how many of them were actively enjoyable?

My last 10 are distorted by a recent holiday, but normally it would be 0/10 for me, and my wife's commute would render it almost constantly 0/10 for her.

Driving CAN be enjoyable. But most of the time it's a chore IMO.

Yep come Friday I'll drive for 2hrs up a featureless highway then fight some traffic before a long country road that will be full of logging trucks probably.
Most of my miles in the UK were on the m6 or 62,even the back roads were slow and busy. The UK either needs to cull a serious amount of travel, vastly expand its roads or look to a more innovative solution

Genuine question - of the last, say, 10 times you drove a car, how many of them were actively enjoyable?

Going to get some chips. In the dark. No traffic. It was OK.

So 1 out of ten. I drove to North Wales at the weekend and all the way just wished I was cycling. Then looked at all the other cars and still wished that I was cycling, only somewhere quiet.

My father enjoys driving and will spend all day driving around, never even getting out to even look at something or explore any further. I've literally spent whole days driving in silence with him as he 'wanted to show you something' and it turned out to be a 'nice view' (allegedly as now it's cloudy/obscured) from a car park/pull in. The ten seconds later we're off for another 1.5hr drive home. Can't think of a more complete waste of precious time! So I bought him a bike ;). Result - spent two hrs with him yesterday, cycled along the sea front, did a bit of exploring, boot sale, coffee at a seafront cafe. Had more fun and proper father/son companionship in 6 miles than 60 in a car. Bonafide!

The whole "who would the car decide to kill" things is all backwards anyway as the whole point of automation like this is to never get into that situation.

You don't plan or program the software to make the choice "who to kill" you programme for "how to avoid" and in the worst case "how to limit (if inevitable) impact".

The first part is the bit where we make significant gains over humans. If you program for 'avoidance' the instances of 'inevitable' become vanishingly small. And the scenario you program for is bringing the vehicle to a stop as quickly and safely as possible within the rules of the road/environment without creating additional danger. A last resort option so to speak, where all previous attempts at avoidance and mitigation have failed the answer becomes 'just stop!'. Anything beyond that runs into the deeper societal issues of assigning (different) values to individual lives, and that's a rabbit hold we can't really afford to go down...

Here's a though for you; Imagine if such a system were programmed and approved legislatively, and it decided that 'person X' should be the one to die in a situation, do we now also expect humans driving manual cars to also obey that rule? even if 'person X' is them?

If it can be done right it's a decision that never needs to be made. ie: getting to the point of such a decision means all your existing programming/decisions have failed, it's an exception case and should be treated as such.

There's a (fairly convincing but morally difficult to accept) argument to say if the situation happens where such a decision [i]could [/i]be made it [i]shouldn't [/i] be made. It should default to 'just stop as quickly as possible' which is the default human behaviour and avoids having to justify who you decided to kill, because no such decision was made, it just defaulted to standard 'try and stop'.

My dad has always enjoyed driving. And rather than spending an evening in watching the box would announce I am going for a drive when I was young,
And I would go too as I liked spending time alone with him.

People don't just try to stop, you instinctively swerve too to avoid an obstacle.

Folks just keep posting up the same dull videos of armless individuals gawping down the same roads, doing the same thing without actually doing much other than driving.. You will need to focus your own mind to the fact that despite the number of videos posted the defining factor is...

There is a Driver sat in the Drivers seat...

So, take away the tech and you still have a human sitting in a traffic queue but now doing nothing because the person behind the wheel is still technically Driving.. so, no mobile calls, buggering about with radio stations, eating, reading texts..

It's well know that the Tech is edging Towards driverless cars but they'll never get the go ahead because people Fear them.. post all you like about "look mum no hands" "ohhh, look mum I'm not driving I'm just sitting here in a car with a film camera angled towards me whilst i take my hands off the wheel"

So, please post another of these oh so fabulous videos and again state " but look, they are driverless" because we all know that Can Be Achieved, but it won't.

Heaps of stuff I'd be happy to while my car got me to my destination, like having a kip, doing some work or reading. Some people love to drive, well guess what cars are going to get more dull, GPS will write you a ticket and the price will go up a lot.
Add in less dead people and it's a real win.

bikebouy - Member

Folks just keep posting up the same dull videos of armless individuals gawping down the same roads, doing the same thing without actually doing much other than driving.. You will need to focus your own mind to the fact that despite the number of videos posted the defining factor is...

There is a Driver sat in the Drivers seat...

There is a driver in the driver seat because legislation requires it, not because the driver needs to be there. That's it. The tech is already here.

VAG, BMW, Mercedes, Ford, GM are all developing autonomous cars as well as Google and Tesla. These giant multi national companies aren't spending money on this for the craic. Along with EVs, this is the next generation of car tech.

Everyone is going to want a car that will do the drudgery of traffic jams and motorway commutes for them. Some people will still want sporty manual driving cars to play in, but the majority will be happy to surrender more control to the car so they can play on Facebook and snapchat.

If you can't foresee how we will go from the current situation where you or I can (bank balance willing) buy a Tesla or an Audi that can drive itself (within legislated speed limits and road conditions) will change in time to simply become an Audi or a Tesla or a Ford that will simply drive itself then I can't help you.

People don't just try to stop, you instinctively swerve too to avoid an obstacle.

Yeah, they're the ones you see in those videos going sideways into oncoming traffic.

Genuine question - of the last, say, 10 times you drove a car, how many of them were actively enjoyable?

Sorry, I didn't realise there was going to be test or I'd have taken notes. (-: I don't know - perhaps a better question might be when was it last not enjoyable? Really long slogs up and down the M6 can be tedious when it's 50mph for long stretches and chocka with traffic.

But you miss my point a little though I think. I don't just enjoy driving in a "go for a nice drive in the country" kind of way, I enjoy the act of driving. Like, you might enjoy watching TV - nice big telly with the surround sound on the go, curled up on the sofa with a nice bottle of red, log fire on the go, it then doesn't really matter if the programme you watched turned out to be crap.

I enjoy reading the road. I like people-watching. I like to try and predict what's going to happen next from people's little tells and road position attitudes. I enjoy trying to improve my driving: smoothing out roads; changing gears efficiently; thinking about what's coming next; judging relative speeds of other vehicles to get to a motorway exit without carving anyone up or sitting behind a truck for half a mile; hill-starting without rolling back; coming down a hill without touching my brakes while the car in front's brake lights are in disco mode; reverse parking like a boss; rolling up to a quiet junction and seeing if I can get it to roll to a stop and hit the line without needing to either accelerate of brake; etc, etc.

I enjoy driving, even if the programme is crap.

Will you have to be in it at all.
Could take it's self Off for an mot or to be serviced.
Could I send it over to my sisters with her phone she left behind earlier.
Would I need to insure it or will the operating system provider have the insurance.

Country pubs may make a comeback as drunk driving won't be an issue

I have avoided two accidents by swerving around while braking, to be fair if I had been paying attention in the first I would have needed to do neither the other was on ice and my abs saved my bacon allowing me to steer around

People don't just try to stop, you instinctively* swerve too to avoid an obstacle.

Did you completely not read any of the stuff prior to that bit?

You know the stuff about avoidance, and mitigation, and 'just stop' being the [i]absolute last case option[/i] that only gets used when all other actions have been taken?

😕

I have avoided two accidents by swerving around while braking, to be fair if I had been paying attention in the first I would have needed to do neither the other was on ice and my abs saved my bacon allowing me to steer around

Perfect example of a situation an autonomous car should never get into...stop thinking like a human, the cars won't 😉

*you also hit on one of the main point there, humans act on [i]instinct[/i], ie: the decision 'who do i kill' is not one that ever gets made, by that point they're not making rational logical decisions, they're just trying to avoid or stop. A driverless car will have made the logical and rational decisions based on available inputs long before the human and already be avoiding, hopefully gracefully...

If driverless tech has done it's job properly the instinctual bit never happens, it's been reacted too or mitigated before it's an issue.

So, take away the tech and you still have a human sitting in a traffic queue but now doing nothing because the person behind the wheel is still technically Driving.. so, no mobile calls, buggering about with radio stations, eating, reading texts..

So you're saying the worst case scenario is that people are just as bored and frustrated, and unproductive while travelling, but the roads are safer? sound like a pretty good worst case scenario to me.

It's well know that the Tech is edging Towards driverless cars but they'll never get the go ahead because people Fear them..

Well I wasn't around to experience it personally but I'm reliably informed that there was a fair degree of fear when steam engines were introduced, and trains, and cars etc.

Fear is a barrier I'll grant you that, but it's not an insurmountable one.

because we all know that Can Be Achieved, but it won't.

not with that attitude 😉

I have no vested interest in the tech or anything, I just think it's going to happen whether we want it to or not. And that probably it'll be a good thing overall (eventually).

I think their would have to be a set in stone scale of who would cop it in certain unavoidable death situation as there will be deaths. As if each manufacturer worked under there own system you could end up being sued for millions as in if you was driving a ford it would have reacted differently in that situation to an Audi. The ford may have chosen to save the two school girls who ran across the road with out looking where the Audi may put the drivers safety first at all costs ploughing through the school girls rather than mounting the kerb and taking out a lamppost.

chip - Member
I think their would have to be a set in stone scale of who would cop it in certain unavoidable death...

It should always be a case of the people with the weapon being sacrificed, ie the people in the car.

Only that way will we get car manufacturers not compromising where they can. (eg VW emissions)

It should always be a case of the people with the weapon being sacrificed, ie the people in the car.

I can hear the stampede of people running up to buy that right now.

because we all know that Can Be Achieved, but it won't.
....not with that attitude

You are absolutely right, but that’s the rub.. people’s attitude won’t change for decades.. when the current Fear Mongers have finally dribbled on thier bibs is when the world will change.

And honestly I support driverless vehicle transport systems, I advocate new technology to improve human existence, I support innovation and application thereof.

I’m just being pragmatic and outlining the social change and attitude change required. And I don’t think it’s in most of the current human psychology to grasp change of this nature.

This change is too far away, or perceived too far away, unachievable in the immediate term.. and that’s the rub.

be interesting to see how fast or slow it does develop...

I know exactly what you're getting at, I just have this nagging feeling it's gonna happen anyway.

I’m just being pragmatic and outlining the social change and attitude change required. And I don’t think it’s in most of the current human psychology to grasp change of this nature.

I disagree. Once you have reliable cars that you can just sit in and go to sleep/read a book/post sunset photos to instagram/etc they'll sell like hot cakes. I don't particularly mind driving, but the 5 hours I spent yesterday in heavy traffic coming back from the coast would have been far more pleasant if I could have let the car do the work. My car's about 2 years old, I imagine my next car will be autonomous.

I’m just being pragmatic and outlining the social change and attitude change required. And I don’t think it’s in most of the current human psychology to grasp change of this nature.

This change is too far away, or perceived too far away, unachievable in the immediate term.. and that’s the rub.

Again on the safety aspect the kill somebody option is the last ever resort, how many times have you had to make that decision or reaction while driving?

Removing the human errors and distraction from driving reduces the chances of accidents in the first place. I'm sure nobody is advocating going back to no seat belt laws just because people wearing seat belts still die.

Will it double park while I nip into the offy for a bottle of blue nun, then on spotting a traffic warden scarper, go round the block twice till the wardens gone before resuming its place on the double yellows.

chip - Member

Will it double park while I nip into the offy for a bottle of blue nun, then on spotting a traffic warden scarper, go round the block twice till the wardens gone before resuming its place on the double yellows.

No but it will reverse itself out if someone has parked too close to your car and you can't get into it.

Will open its door roughly on the way out leaving a satisfactory parking dent in the offending vehicle

These giant multi national companies aren't spending money on this for the craic

dissonance - Member

These giant multi national companies aren't spending money on this for the craic

Its worth noting that several share the same suppliers.

Small wonder google are trying to get in on this. I was just googling a bit more about this and it seems that SAE (society for automotive engineers) have five categories of autonomy for cars.

[i]
Level 0: Automated system issues warnings but has no vehicle control.
Level 1 (”hands on”): Driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be ready to retake full control at any time. Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type II is a further example of level 1 self driving.
Level 2 (”hands off”): The automated system takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering). The driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the automated system fails to respond properly. The shorthand ”hands off” is not meant to be taken literally. In fact, contact between hand and wheel is often mandatory during SAE 2 driving, to confirm that the driver is ready to intervene.
Level 3 (”eyes off”): The driver can safely turn their attention away from the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. The vehicle will handle situations that call for an immediate response, like emergency braking. The driver must still be prepared to intervene within some limited time, specified by the manufacturer, when called upon by the vehicle to do so.
Level 4 (”mind off”): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control.
Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.
[/i]

The new Audi A8 will be the first production car with full level 3 autonomy, and no doubt Tesla won't be far behind with a firmware upgrade.

"In 2017 the Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim to be able to do level 3 self driving. The car has a so called Traffic Jam Pilot. When activated by the human driver the car takes full control of all aspects of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 kilometers per hour. The function only works on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic."

Ford and GM are aiming to skip level 3 and roll out levle 4 cars in 2021, and Holland has passed legislation to allow large scale testing of fully autonomous (and completely empty) cars on its roads.

Small wonder google are trying to get in on this.

I'm looking forward to the Seat Slumbero.

Pack the car Friday evening, set your alarm for 1am, shamble out to the car in your dressing gown and slippers, fall asleep again in the lay-flat seats and wake up early doors at Sennen. Spend a day or two surfing or wotnot, Fish and chips and a few pints of ale Sunday evening, sleep all the way home again.

dissonance - Member

Level 3 vs 4 for me is meaningless. Sorry but "intervene within some limited period". Do you really think you would be able to be half asleep and then be able to take over the car in, pretty much by definition, panic mode and avoid a crash? If I was "driving" I reckon I would be a statistic.

I think the difference would come down to public infrastructure which is informing the car where it is and what it can do. As you join a motorway the car would receive a signal at a certain marker informing it that it's safe to go into full auto, as opposed to the car guessing based on gps. Or perhaps more simply a formal agreement to what constitutes the level of road where cars can go into level 4.

Cougar - Moderator
'It should always be a case of the people with the weapon being sacrificed, ie the people in the car.'
I can hear the stampede of people running up to buy that right now.

That's the point.

If it's compulsory then buyers will be putting the pressure on the manufacturers to make cars which are in fact safe for everyone, as opposed to cars which are safe for the contents and will make the decision to kill someone else (ie one of us) to save the passengers.

As cyclists we should insist on it.

But you miss my point a little though I think. I don't just enjoy driving in a "go for a nice drive in the country" kind of way, I enjoy the act of driving. Like, you might enjoy watching TV - nice big telly with the surround sound on the go, curled up on the sofa with a nice bottle of red, log fire on the go, it then doesn't really matter if the programme you watched turned out to be crap.

no, it was a genuine question. My suspicion is that most people, if asked "do you like driving?", would answer something along the lines of "Yes.... not all the time though..... come to think of it, most of the time it's not enjoyable at all. Monday to Friday commuting. Or when the kids are fighting. Or the slog home from a weekend away. Or going to Tesco. But in principle, yes..."

Clearly that's not you. But I was genuinely interested to see if you actually glean any enjoyment from an average week's motoring - because personally I am more like the above and I think a couple of the other posters that responded are too.

It seems a bit like the electric car debate - although plenty of people say they could never have a car with a 150 mile range, 94% of all journeys are below 25 miles, so clearly electric cars could replace a large proportion of the existing cars on the road, so long as people had access to longer range vehicles when needed. Similarly, a lot of people would consider themselves to 'enjoy driving' but I'll bet plenty of them, if offered the chance to have a driverless car with access to something fun the once or twice a month they get to actually enjoy it, would probably take that*. Or at least, I would 😉

*this would then raise the issue of our country A-roads being full of people that are completely out of practice because they haven't driven a car for 6 months and now want to throw an M3 around a few bends. But that's a separate discussion! 😆

Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.

From "Silicon Valley":