It really isn't as big of a legal hurdle as you might think. Especially if you accept liability insurance wise for any mistakes that the AI makes. Voila, you now have covered that AI under your insurance, only instead of paying more like you would normally if you put another person under your insurance, you pay less because you put an AI under your insurance.
Besides, if your overall goal was to encourage assimilation of this feature, even if you didn't use it, having it would make your insurance go down the same way having "The Club" or Lojack does. I'd get one even if I didn't plan to use it just for the insurance bump. Next thing you know everyone has the function, manual driver or not, and then they can do some nefarious bullshit that makes manual driving illegal, and then automotive fascism can begin.
edited 9th May '12 1:32:36 PM by Barkey
That's another thing that bothers me. Making someone who's effectively a passenger liable for the AI's driving.
Consider my mind officially boggled. I would love to see that legally tested over here though. There are a lot of senior cops who got there by doing people for drunk driving.
It'd be looked at as a convenience feature. If you want it, you'll know up front that you have to agree to sign your AI to you liability wise. If it's worth it to you, then the option is open. If it isn't, you don't have to.
I'm all about not twisting anyones arm over crap like this. I personally wouldn't use it much, but every now and again I would, and it'd be convenient and good to have. I would be pissed if I was forced to use it though.
I've gotten a lot of people for drunk driving, I've also reported to lots of drunk driving accidents, thus I see this feature as an overall good thing in that arena. I appreciate that for people like me who are alcoholically inclined, there'd be a way to get home that doesn't involve an expensive cab fare or dragging your buddy along as a DD.
Better yet, turn taxi cabs into this. Go to a station, press a button to hail a cab, and it auto-drives to your location. Then swipe a debit or credit card for the charge, specify the destination, and go.
edited 9th May '12 1:37:47 PM by Barkey
If the AI is reliable enough, generally speaking, that could actually turn out to be convenient. Just set up an insurance system which will take care of the damages caused by the AI — paying for it less than you'd pay for an insurance for driving yourself, probably — and let it drive.
Honestly, I hope that this sort of thing becomes commonplace before I have to drive a car. I took my driving license, but I never ever considered buying a car or driving it around — I am mildly terrified by the idea of hurting other people, and luckily enough I've always been in cities with excellent public transportation systems.
edited 9th May '12 1:41:54 PM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I rarely drive myself, but when I'm forced to it's usually either open freeway in deer country, or windy-ass backwoods highways on sketchy terrain. They're both situations I'm really not eager to test an AI on.
My view: It's entirely new legal territory and I am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.
Popcorn anyone?
Driving long distances... a self-drive suddenly looks really good for that, too. I remember the hell of 3-day drives to get places in South Africa. And, let's just say parts of South Africa are rather... empty. Good luck finding a hotel or anything.
If all you need to do on a mostly open road is program the destination and leave it to the car? You can take it easy and not fugue-state yourself silly on the hypnotic, yesterday-today-tomorrow roads.
"Decent rail network" at an affordable price, please.
edited 9th May '12 2:24:56 PM by Euodiachloris
Now I think of it, being drunk in the car might be a problem if the car buzzes you and complains "I can't find a way out of this. Advice please."
I'd rather have a decent rail network and leave it at that, but I'm in England.
Better yet, specifically make a bright yellow light on top of the car come on when self-drive is on, and the driver is drunk or considered occupied/"afk".
Apparently ours are decent-ish. We just don't hear about their bad rail services, especially off main lines.
edited 9th May '12 2:26:34 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnYeah our train system is kind of a joke.
From experience, most of the time when there's a danger stopping is the right thing to do. The only exception I can think of is that it's the middle of a crossroad and people might not see me and crash, but if all the cars got AI that would over-ride the drive and stop when there's an obstacle not even that would be a problem. I can see buggy AI-cars being a nuisance for stopping all the time and not going anywhere, but them increasing the danger... Unless the situation is so extreme and exceptional that an AI cannot handle it (and thus why we wouldn't a manual over-ride) I can't see that very likely.
Wait, you said we wouldn't have a manual override?
I cannot see people buying self-drive cars with no manual override. They just wouldn't sell.
I am most curious of the idea of a self-driving car developed by Google. Not only it can drive you back home, it already knows where you live.
"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"Yeah screw that, I work 200 yards from the Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes I just wanna jam to my tunes and drive by the coast. I'd feel awfully awkward and silly if I were doing that without my hands on the wheel and my feet on the pedal.
Let's put it this way, if the pedal wasn't an option I'd want to play air guitar on the roof.
I was more thinking that there would be some means of turning off the AI for the auto-stop, given that is probably a feature that is semi-independent of the AI that controls the actual driving.
Anyway, getting too far ahead of myself. We don't yet now how exactly this is implemented.
What would you like to know about how it is implemented? I did a course taught by the designer last year.
Is it it going to have some kind of auto-stop when it picks up obstacles even when it is in manual mode that you can turn off? Or if I shut down the AI will that be off as well?
If you switch off the AI then the AI is off. It isn't programmed to interfere when in manual mode. In self-drive mode, if things get crappy it slows right down and works things out the old fashioned way.
Huh, so stopping suddenly in the middle of a crossroad will still be a problem then. I can't assume that other cars are going to stop by AI which is quicker than human.
Stopping in the middle of a crossroad is a problem with humans too. Trust me, in January I got rear-ended because I stopped hard when people at a junction ahead started moving erratically.
Nevada has issued a licence to a car that can now legally drive itself with no meatsack aboard. What makes you think a passenger in that car is going to be legally considered a driver?