Google is to start building its own self-driving cars

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Rooster1

I was right about that saddle
I wonder how these will deal with cyclists?
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See
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27587558

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John the Monkey

Frivolous Cyclist
Location
Crewe
However the legislative framework and insurance/liability issues demand they behave, I suspect.

This was quite an interesting piece on them;
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/...der-should-robot-sacrifice-your-life-save-two

"It happens quickly—more quickly than you, being human, can fully process.

A front tire blows, and your autonomous SUV swerves. But rather than veering left, into the opposing lane of traffic, the robotic vehicle steers right. Brakes engage, the system tries to correct itself, but there’s too much momentum. Like a cornball stunt in a bad action movie, you are over the cliff, in free fall.

Your robot, the one you paid good money for, has chosen to kill you. Better that, its collision-response algorithms decided, than a high-speed, head-on collision with a smaller, non-robotic compact. There were two people in that car, to your one. The math couldn’t be simpler.

This, roughly speaking, is the problem presented by Patrick Lin, an associate philosophy professor and director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University. In a recent opinion piece for Wired, Lin explored one of the most disturbing questions in robot ethics: If a crash is unavoidable, should an autonomous car choose who it slams into?
"
 
but but but for all the what-ifs, didn't they show it did 100,000 miles without incident which was demonstrated to be far better than if a human drove it? In fact, I remember reading the only real crash of the driverless car was when.....you guessed it......someone was driving it at the time!
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
[QUOTE 3104602, member: 9609"]I wonder how autonomous vehicles will deal with wildlife, will there be a setting to reflect your own morals, for instance on a quiet road with no other vehicles nearby, a hare runs out, will the car do an emergency stop, brake a little to give it a chance or just splatter it, ? and can you set the controls to reflect what your own preferred option would be.[/QUOTE]

Avoid, scare or splatter.

Like all things these days, there would be little pictograms for you to set the control to. Happy hare, startled hare, splattered hare.
 

Davidc

Guru
Location
Somerset UK
At least it's Google not Apple or Microsoft.

An iCar would need its own specialist charging lead and be incompatible with non Apple roads, the Microsoft one running Car 95 up to Car 2000 and including Car ME would crash so often as to be uninsurable!
 

Tin Pot

Guru
At least it's Google not Apple or Microsoft.

An iCar would need its own specialist charging lead and be incompatible with non Apple roads, the Microsoft one running Car 95 up to Car 2000 and including Car ME would crash so often as to be uninsurable!
Whereas with Do No Evil Google, everything you do in or with the car will be accompanied with adverts, and be monitored and recorded in the States.

Great.
 
OP
OP
Rooster1

Rooster1

I was right about that saddle
I just had a scary thought, assuming these things will be constantly connected to the interweb, what are the chances of hacking the cars and taking control.

The new computer hacking game Watchdogs suddenly seems quite real...the game depicts an underworld where technology controls everything.

WatchDogsScreenshot05.jpg
 

Davidc

Guru
Location
Somerset UK
Whereas with Do No Evil Google, everything you do in or with the car will be accompanied with adverts, and be monitored and recorded in the States.

Great.
Of course. Compatible with the rest of the world, stable, and accessible to the NSA, GCHQ, and anyone who'll pay for the data.

Same as everything else connected to the internet (Web, email, files, what you stream etc.) in our interconnected world which makes Orwell's 1984 look very tame!
 
I just had a scary thought, assuming these things will be constantly connected to the interweb, what are the chances of hacking the cars and taking control.
I don't kow but would assume the running would not be controlled by the web but by on-board computers/controls. The web control may say things like....drive to this address and it would do so. Probably no more dangerous than a taxi
 

jazzkat

Fixed wheel fanatic.
While I'm sure there are plenty of 'big brother' issues that will keep human freedom/rights people going for a long time, if it takes the 'couldn't be bothered to concentrate' and the 'not very competent' drivers out of the equation then I reckon the roads are going to be better for it.
 
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