Self-driving cars are already deciding who to kill

a reply to: Plutron

Good luck with that.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: LuXTeN
Would you trust your life to a handful of strangers? A hunk of metal that drives itself? Is it worth it or do you live your life in the fast lane tempting fate?

Don't we already trust our lives to a handful of strangers?

We trust the machines that monitor our lives in hospitals.
We trust the train to not come off the tracks.
We trust the thermostats, smoke detectors and CO2 monitors in our homes.
We trust the brakes in our cars as we drive down mountains.
We trust our ovens and microwave counter-tops.
We trust x-ray machines, MRI's.
We trust elevators.

Every day we place our trust in machines that have been programmed by people.

Thus is life from the moment we open our eyes, until the moment we close them forever.

You see the difference here is that people doing 'most' of those things you've mentioned haven't put you into a fast moving metal box on wheels where you can't just get up and walk away from it, can you.

As for trains, they've got an adequate track record. Poisonous leaking gas, you can't control that. Cars being controlled remotely? No Way not for me. You have completely NO control over that one, none.

Big Difference!

originally posted by: LuXTeN
a reply to: jappee

And why do you think that's a fat No?

When I say population control, I'm referring to the fact that in twenty yrs or so, this technology could be used against people. Think robot cop!

Sure but why population control? Population models are just not playing out as people thought in the past...same with global warming. All these models speak doom and gloom and things are just not panning out that way.

Take population control. Why kill people when science in a very short period of time will be able to completely turn off the reproduction capability in both men and women, so we may have a situation where you would need to apply for a child and then you could have 1 or 2, but you will need to meet finical, medical requirements. Doesn't sound pretty with today's standards but could be a norm in the future.

Even without this above we have seen that as a society evolves the desire to have children dwindles due to personal goals and cost. Today many young people do not even want to get married and do not see kids in their future either. Many western countries have stagnant population growth and some even have a declining growth like in Europe and Japan.

New models predict 11 billion in 100 years or so with Africa actually having the largest growth making up most of the difference between 7 billion and 11 billion. Older models had us at 20 billion by 2050 and with 1/2 of the world starving even at 7 billion.

a reply to: Xtrozero

It may only be my personal opinion, but population control as in Controlling Where people come and go.

As for killing off large amounts of human beings, sure there are lots of ways to do that. But there are evil people at the helm who probably enjoy slowly inflicting pain on others for their own sick and twisted entertainment.

And, I don't believe the earth has no room left. That's a lie the people in power would have us believe.

originally posted by: LuXTeN

And, I don't believe the earth has no room left. That's a lie the people in power would have us believe.

We have already proved that. The older projections of India was the population would starve at 400 million...they are 1.2 billion today, but like a lot of other place outside of Africa and south America population is stabilizing or reducing due to just the nature of how humans think today. We do not need a make a heard of kids for free labor as it was in the past with farms, factories etc.

What happens with poor software design or coding, failed sensors or computers, unknown short comings in algorithms which cause the vehicle to do unanticipated things.

Fun times ahead.

a reply to: LuXTeN

What's dangerous is that China, North Korea, and other unfriendly nations can exploit that in case of war against the US. For example if the US and North Korea go to war, all North Korea has to do is hack into the self driving system thus weakening the US.

a reply to: LuXTeN

These car are a bad idea. I like the idea of KITT as much as the next person, but let's be realistic here! When we drive, we can pick up clues from pedestrians, and anticipate a likely problem, such as them stetting into traffic, from not paying attention, or for whatever reason. A car cannot possibly be programmed to interpret signals we can't even name out loud, and only sense.

a reply to: JD163

All 4 people I showed the video to said the same thing, myself makes 5.

Maybe we are more alike then we think.

originally posted by: roadgravel
What happens with poor software design or coding, failed sensors or computers, unknown short comings in algorithms which cause the vehicle to do unanticipated things.

Fun times ahead.

Or a time when enemy cyber-militants, terrorists, foreign or domestic psychopathic hackers find a way to control thousands of vehicles simultaneously?

Thousands of vehicles accelerating uncontrollably, at lethal speeds...

Just because they can.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: JD163
What do you choose when you are faced with no good choice?

The situations they describe are actually the same; in both cases, a person has to choose to kill someone, to save others. Doing nothing is a valid choice, too, because the person being asked to act didn't cause the dilemma, and isn't responsible for the deaths of the five, but would be asked to be responsible for the death of the one. Plus, who are the five? Who is the one? Unrealistic situation, really.

Ok so talking about the programming deciding whether to hit a pedestrian or steer into oncoming traffic.

Imagine yourself as being the occupant of the "oncoming traffic" vehicle, and its a stranger in the car about to hit the pedestrian. Do you trust them to do something amazing for the good of everyone? Probably they'll notice the situation too late, do something wild in panic, hit and kill the pedestrian AND steer into your traffic lane, killing themselves and you.

Alright that's maybe worst case scenario, but you know what I mean. It's fine to say "I don't trust the machine" but do you really drive around right now going "wow all these other drivers are REALLY good drivers, and so predictable!"

At least the self driving car will use a mathematic understanding of physics and the car's abilities to do its best to minimize the situation. And if your car is self driving too, maybe the cars are communicating and as their car starts swerving to miss the pedestrian, yours is braking and also swerving to create room, and the result is that the pedestrian is unharmed and a minor collision between two vehicles.

That's what I think anyway. Ideally I think that we should have had a comprehensive rail network instead of a road network. We could have had automation a long time ago and fatalities would have been far lower from the beginning.

Do You trust that the other drivers always concentrate on driving?
www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: LuXTeN

These car are a bad idea. I like the idea of KITT as much as the next person, but let's be realistic here! When we drive, we can pick up clues from pedestrians, and anticipate a likely problem, such as them stetting into traffic, from not paying attention, or for whatever reason. A car cannot possibly be programmed to interpret signals we can't even name out loud, and only sense.

Sensors and inter vehicle communication, link up to a local traffic network, computers that can calculate billions of factors in micro seconds and respond faster then then your brain neurons firing off,...of course this is just a hypothetical future situation....the attention span of humans vary,get distracted, mental tiredness .....in such a situation,.....which would you prefer?

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: JD163
What do you choose when you are faced with no good choice?

The situations they describe are actually the same; in both cases, a person has to choose to kill someone, to save others. Doing nothing is a valid choice, too, because the person being asked to act didn't cause the dilemma, and isn't responsible for the deaths of the five, but would be asked to be responsible for the death of the one. Plus, who are the five? Who is the one? Unrealistic situation, really.

Its a hypothetical situation, in an ideal world, we all would have perfect knowledge, but in the real world, that is a luxury, ...time to think and analyse each situation and consider the outcome for each possibility,....a real world example would be a child falling on to the tracks of an on coming train,...instant reaction is required

Taking no action is of course also a valid choice,...but if you were to pick that choice, what you are saying is I rather not be responsible for the death of 1, then to save the lives of 5,....yes, its no fault of yours,....but would you ever question yourself later,...would the thought cross your mind that you could have save the lives of 5?.........lets say instead of 5, its 50 lives at stake,....would you have done the same? not be guilty of 1 death,....and let 50 perish?

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: JD163

All 4 people I showed the video to said the same thing, myself makes 5.

Maybe we are more alike then we think.

I would like to think so,...but sadly a sample size of 5 has no statistical significance I'm afraid,...

That situation that you present,...if I could switch place with the 1 life in the first scenario, that would be my choice, ....but that was not an option,....all 5 of us made the same choice, but it would be interesting to see the rational for each of us,....why we choose to do so,.....for me personally is .....Better to die then to live a coward ....ayo gurkhali!

originally posted by: lordcomac
Just wait, soon after these cars are commonplace, the rich and powerful will be able to buy priority status in which the network will gladly sacrifice a dozen of us regular folk to save the rich.

That actually might happen. Look at what those criminals in Chicago did with the stop-light cameras + corrupt politicians.

Hah hah, but look at it this way, there will always be some little warped twerp who didn't get enough milk in school or something or maybe mommy didn't let him play enough with his xbox (in his thinking about things), who will figure out how to hack the traffic network, and ultimately causing horrific accidents in the mundane order of things...just for kicks or just to brag about it via the social-intercranial-chat-net!

Yep.

originally posted by: JD163

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
a reply to: LuXTeN

These car are a bad idea. I like the idea of KITT as much as the next person, but let's be realistic here! When we drive, we can pick up clues from pedestrians, and anticipate a likely problem, such as them stetting into traffic, from not paying attention, or for whatever reason. A car cannot possibly be programmed to interpret signals we can't even name out loud, and only sense.

Sensors and inter vehicle communication, link up to a local traffic network, computers that can calculate billions of factors in micro seconds and respond faster then then your brain neurons firing off,...of course this is just a hypothetical future situation....the attention span of humans vary,get distracted, mental tiredness .....in such a situation,.....which would you prefer?

Not that far in the future. I read almost every week in industry magazines about some new intra-vehical standard that is being developed or a modification of the Car-Area-Network protocol, using some version of 802.xx wireless layer. The electronics industry and the automobile manufacturing conglomerates see vehical electronics as a huge new juicy market place. Auto-driving cars are just the tip of the future electronics applications that are being planned, right now. Daily.

Is it good? Seems all the corporations and the feds in EVERY country want to know what their public does, where they go, how fast they get there (insurance statistical profiling), what they buy, how much they paid for something, what they look at, how long they look at something, what foods are eaten, how many times they flush a toilet, how many phone calls, to who, when, where....it goes on and on. Its the Mark of the Beast, soul-less thinking for us, spying on us, regulating when and how we receive our money, how much the guv takes, how much to charge for fuels...computers never forget (unless it happens to be the IRS computers or Hilary Clinton's computers). Government + InterNet (aka 'computers') = Mark of the Beast.

Is it good?

Who is protecting our digital civil-liberties? It aint the guv.

plutron

originally posted by: LuXTeN
Would you trust your life to a handful of strangers? A hunk of metal that drives itself? Is it worth it or do you live your life in the fast lane tempting fate?

All valid questions we must consider here. Would cars like these be used for unbecoming means to further population control? No doubt in my mind that they would.

Trust is a sacred thing, so do you think lack of control over your well being, is it worth the risk of possible injury or death?


uk.businessinsider.com...

Hi LuXTeN,

>Would you trust your life to a handful of strangers?

The inference in your question is in essence regarding the safety-assurance quality of the of the operational design of control-system of an automatically steered/braking automobile...auto-driving 'car'. Its a robot. If it were a NASA gadget, I'd be fairly certain that **MOST** of the possible safety concerns would likely be identified, addressed and remedied before the rubber hits the pavement. But experience has repeatedly shown that the automobile industry is primarily interested in profit while safety has through-out the years been shown to take a back seat, unlike the highly scrutinized aerospace and aircraft industry whose main concern has always been safety.

So your question and concern regarding safety has merit in my opinion. However, fortunately, it is not the automobile industry that is the motive-force pushing for the deployment of robot-cars, but is the electronics industry. While it seems obvious to me, that the insurance companies will very closely investigate robot-cars safety, as any problems will result in lawsuits cutting significantly into their profit base.

So what does all this mean? California DMV recently delayed approval for robotic-car testing, until the guv agency can determine true safety value. And it is likely that the Ca DMV politicians are trying figure out how to extort more juicy tax money to help fund all the democratic welfare programs that are being sucked dry by the huge illegal alien populations in California, according to a local news report I read. Did you know that most DMVs now have police powers? Or that they can take posession of your vehical, to auction it off to pay tardy registration fees? We own nothing of value in the US. Miss a couple tax payments on the house you expended thirty years buying and see what those cheesy government politician beaurocrats do.

Ad rem, so it could be dicey regarding robot-car safety, but I think insurance companies will keeps things profitable. The strangers that worry me the most, aside from all those cheesy, politically correct, dishonest, deceitful, lying, corrupt, stupid managers that are elected politicians...are the doctors.

Well enough babbling for now.

plutron

All vehicles will be self driving soon, it is unavoidable.

It is avoidable and it will be avoided. The manufacturing process has flaws, always did, always will. The companies will be sued out of existence soon enough and the remaining will abandon this insane idea. Can you imagine at trial, bringing up the lobbying part of pushing this 'technology''? The jury will crucify them.

It will be enforced by the states.
a reply to: watchitburn