
U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers - apo
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-autos-selfdriving-exclusive-idUSKCN0VJ00H
======
Flammy
Driver ID J039532 'Joe', a set of learning algorithms, has been licensed to
drive multiple vehicles at once from both in vehicle computers and 'his' data-
center based 'home'.

Out of the 1000s of instances of Joe running around, in the wild, a handful
have gotten into situations where he has had points penalized against his
license following existing state law. Joe exceeds his points limit and his
license is suspended after 2 days.

... This could be interesting.

~~~
rashkov
Is this the beginning of algorithmic personhood, then?

~~~
oh_teh_meows
Not in the traditional individual sense, I think. All AI drivers across the
whole world will seamlessly exchange and synchronize with each other their
learning experiences, resulting in self-driving vehicles that improve at an
exponential rate.

It's basically an AI collective, whose 'brain' scatters across data centers
around the world.

~~~
jsudhams
Wouldn't left side driving in other countries screw the learning?

------
ashwinl
The specific letter from NHTSA to Google:

[http://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/Google%20--%20compiled%20resp...](http://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/Google%20--%20compiled%20response%20to%2012%20Nov%20%2015%20interp%20request%20--%204%20Feb%2016%20final.htm)

... along with an abbreviation I have yet to see previously:

>> self-driving vehicles (SDVs)

... and their definition of a Level 4 vehicle:

>> Google describes its vehicles as having what NHTSA's May 2013 Preliminary
Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles calls Level 4 Full Self-
Driving Automation. According to that Statement, a Level 4 vehicle:

>> is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor
roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the
driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be
available for control at any time during the trip. This includes both occupied
and unoccupied vehicles. By design, safe operation rests solely on the
automated vehicle system.

~~~
taralx
In case people are wondering:

"SDV" has been in use since at least 2011:
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10460039591121716...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10460039591121716316)

The level classifications appear to date from 2013:
[http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/U.S.+Departm...](http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/U.S.+Department+of+Transportation+Releases+Policy+on+Automated+Vehicle+Development)

~~~
Carrok
In case more people are wondering still:

"SDV" is not an acronym but an initialism. TIL that in today's thread about
TIL:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11069206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11069206)

~~~
aidenn0
In American English it's pretty well accepted that Acronym includes
initialisms, and in fact the word initialism is hardly ever used.

~~~
Carrok
Wow, didn't mean to offend anyone, thought it was a cool bit of info.

------
anarchy8
Wow, I'm surprised the legal world is catching up to this so quickly. You
would think that the law would be a larger barrier than it has been so far.

~~~
thrownaway2424
This is progress, but not much. Driving, licensing of drivers, and regulation
of auto insurance is almost wholly dictated at the state level. What the
federal government considers to be "a driver" is nearly irrelevant.

~~~
ajdlinux
It's relevant for the purposes of federally-mandated vehicle safety standards,
is it not?

~~~
aidenn0
Pretty much all the NHTSA enforces is whether or not a safety feature is
present in a vehicle. They could, for example, require that all new vehicles
be equipped with an AEBS, but they don't typically tell states that they must
allow certain vehicles on the road, and in fact individual states are
generally allowed to adopt extra standards on top of the federal ones.

~~~
derefr
It's interesting that drug policy gets pushed to a federal level—because drugs
"potentially cross state lines"—car safety policy doesn't. Are there really no
states where the majority of traffic is from out-of-state vehicles?

~~~
aidenn0
What can be federally regulated seems to be entirely a function of the supreme
court makeup at the time that it is tested in court.

------
rdxm
if you spend any real amount of time on a bike interacting with traffic you
quickly come to realize that 99.5% of the humans behind the wheel shouldn't be
driving, so it's hard to see where there would be any noticeable difference in
quality of operations between human and autonomous.......

~~~
ams6110
By the same token many many cyclists should get their own heads out of their
asses and obey the traffic laws as they are supposed to do.

~~~
marincounty
Out of all my years driving, I've never been really concerned over a
bicyclist, even when they go through stop signs, or hang on my lumber rack.
Yes, a lot don't obey traffic laws to a tee, but it's a bike. They do not have
the mass, nor size of a automobile. They just haven't been a concern for
myself.

I honestly don't get the outrage towards bicyclists. I think it's more
psychological? Personally, I have found the most out of shape individuals
complain about cyclists the most.

~~~
vvanders
I think it's more hypocrisy, if you're going to get out of shape due to
drivers not obeying the laws then you better damn well follow them yourself.

I've almost hit bicyclist blowing stop signs multiple times. While they don't
have the mass of a car you can bet that in the case of an injury there's a
high probability that the driver is still going to be on the hook for
insurance + damages.

~~~
coryfklein
If a biker's mental ruleset says "Cars need to stop at red lights. Bikes may
carefully proceed through red lights.", then it's not necessarily hypocrisy
IMO.

If that same biker, when driving a car, runs through red lights then I think
that is a more condemnable hypocrisy.

------
lazaroclapp
When Asimov wrote about robots, he imagined them being fully sentient way
before getting any legal rights (see e.g. "Evidence"). I don't think before
this I would have ever bet on the process going the other way around...

~~~
andy_ppp
Companies have more rights than human beings now and have done for a long
time; I'd suggest that robots also will be considered more important for the
whole of society and will therefore get considerably more rights than you
might at first expect.

Adam Curtis' documentary becomes ever more relevant:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_\(TV_series\))

~~~
true_religion
What rights do companies have that human beings do not?

~~~
andy_ppp
They have a favourable taxation system (I'd love to be able to only pay tax on
the money I haven't spent; instead I pay on my revenue...).

A quick Google so far reveals:

[https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-
liberties/repo...](https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-
liberties/report/2012/08/13/11974/big-business-taking-over-state-supreme-
courts/)

[http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/corporations-over-
peo...](http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/corporations-over-people-
again/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood)

Political contributions and lobbying, things like the TPP, TTIP, the IMF, etc.
etc. are all pretty much set up to think about businesses over human lives.

EDIT: This is a good one...

[http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-
companies-b...](http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-
become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution)

~~~
make3
the American political contributions system gives way to much power to
corporations & needs to be fixed

------
rdlecler1
"It noted existing regulations requiring some auto safety equipment can not be
waived immediately, including requirements for braking systems activated by
foot control."

I guess you just need a little motorized foot that can control a little brake.

~~~
sleet
Reminds me of how Thomas Peterffy's engineering team skirted the rule that all
trading orders had to be entered through the keyboard. They built a robot with
rubber fingers that typed entries into the keyboard.

And thus high-speed trading was born.

~~~
ghayes
Couldn't he have built a keyboard with high quality macros or multi-letter
keys, too?

------
Klasiaster
So and if these devices are hacked to injury people nobody can prevent it or
is even forced to take responsibility as it's the fault of the device and not
those of the owners/creators?

~~~
jonknee
That can absolutely happen today and we're not freaking out about it. The
bigger concern are the actual hundreds of thousands of people killed and
maimed every year by the fault of other humans behind the wheel, not
hypothetical evil geniuses.

------
mrharrison
I've been following this closely and think we are headed to self driving cars
a lot sooner than we think. Obama has been making sure the regulators have
been getting the money, GM is working with Lyft to have self driving cars in
Austin. [http://popsnip.com/topic/882/Selfdriving-cars-race-
towards-o...](http://popsnip.com/topic/882/Selfdriving-cars-race-towards-on-
demand)

~~~
conductr
I agree. I commonly have the debate with friends who don't follow it as much.
It's widely known that Google, Uber, etc want this to happen. However, the
general perception that I hear is we are still 10-20 years away. My argument
is ~2020 is more realistic.

Most people I talk to don't realize Google has been working on this for a
decade (or more) already and the tech is actually really good. Also, safety is
a common point many people mention. When I mention how unsafe human drivers
are, it's interesting to see how many people never consider that angle.

I'm hoping my current car is the last one that I own. That would require the
whole self-driving-Uber thing to come to fruition within next 5 years, but I'm
hopeful.

------
andy_ppp
Is each car going to have to pass a driving test - how is the inspector meant
to know if a computer is checking it's mirrors and indicating correctly!? ;-)

~~~
dragonwriter
This seems to have to do with federal law which underlies NHTSA's regulation
on required safety equipment, not laws regarding licensing, etc. Without
something like this, regardless of state laws on autonomous vehicles, all US
street-legal vehicles, even if fully autonomous, and even if the state had no
requirements for human control as an option or backup, would have to be
equipped for human control.

Who state law governing things like driver responsibility would treat as the
driver of a fully autonomous vehicle -- and whether they would allow such a
thing at all -- is a separate issue.

------
jhbadger
"It own itself?" "Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the
mainframe." "That's a good one," the construct said. "Like, I own your brain
and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citizenship. Sure. Lotsa luck,
AI." \-- From William Gibson's "Neuromancer"

------
Animats
This isn't a big deal. The NHTSA defined levels of autonomous vehicles back in
2013 They are roughly:

Level 0: manual.

Level 1: some automation, maybe radar cruse control. (available now)

Level 2: smart automatic cruise control plus lane keeping (Available on
several high-end cars now. Tesla is at this level, not Level 3)

Level 3: automatic driving good enough to handle ordinary driving tasks and
route planning. (Google, Cadillac/CMU have this in test) but driver sometimes
has to take over manually.

Level 4: full auto, all road conditions, driver not needed. (nobody really has
this yet)

Now, the NHTSA is discussing modifying the federal safety standards so that,
when Level 4 is achieved, vehicles which achieve will comply with federal
motor vehicle standards.

Whether to allow autonomous vehicles on roads is a state matter. California
DMV currently allows this in test, with manufacturer test drivers only, and
requires reporting of incidents. Current DMV thinking is to stay with that for
three years, see how things are going, then reevaluate. There's some whining
about this from Google, but realistically, Google doesn't have the technology
to go beyond that yet.

The accident reports are on line.[1] Almost all of them are from Google, and
most of them involve someone rear-ending a Google car which was driving
cautiously. Except for one incident.

Cruise (YC W14) had a crash with a parked car last month, driving on 7th St.
in San Francisco.[2] The report indicates that the vehicle swerved to the left
under automatic control, then corrected to the right, then the driver took
over manual control, and then hit a parked car at 20MPH. Both vehicles
damaged, no injuries. The reported location [3] is across from the SFPD's
Southern Station and a popular parking place for police vehicles. They hit a
parked Toyota Prius.

I've written before about the "deadly valley": automatic driving good enough
that the driver stops paying close attention, but not good enough to drive
reliably. Cruise just demonstrated this. You cannot rely on the human driver
to suddenly take over from the automatic driving system.

[1]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auton...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/autonomousveh_ol316)
[2]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/bc21ef62-6e7c-4049...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/bc21ef62-6e7c-4049-a552-0a7c50d92e86/Cruise_Automation_01.08.16.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)
[3] [https://goo.gl/maps/DoNdYSV8cgq](https://goo.gl/maps/DoNdYSV8cgq)

~~~
jayjay71
Cadillac/CMU actually spun out into a company called Ottomatika which was
acquired by Delphi.

------
autoreleasepool
This is refreshingly progressive news

~~~
shadytrees
and to think it only took an inordinate amount of lobbying by corporate
interests

------
khgvljhkb
We who browse HN like the idea of self-driving cars, but does anyone have a
nuanced perspective on their usefulness? I don't know much about AI compared
to many here. It has been said that things which humans learn at very young
age are hard to automate (identifying things you see, walking, social things)
while things we learn as adults are easy to automate (accounting, telegraphs,
file cabinets).

Car driving definitely contains elements that we learn as kids (seeing things
in motion, identifying what is a human and what is a rock) while some things
are learned as adults (what does that sign mean, how to count KM/H, how
transmission works).

Are we really close to autonomous vehicles on the streets?

~~~
thomasahle
For one thing, the truck market seems incredibly ripe for automation. That
should be a fairly easy, profit driven decision. Not many feelings involved.

Except for protests from truck drivers of course.

~~~
chrischen
Pay off the current generation of truck drivers and tell the next generation
to not pursue a career in truck driving. That ways we won't waste millions of
dollars arguing with them when what they really want is to be paid (but
they'll make up bullshit reasons for about how automated truck driving is
bad).

~~~
Spivak
I really like this idea. Continue paying all your drivers to be ride along
with the autonomous car for safety reasons and an emergency override. They'll
probably get really low insurance rates for having a human assisting. And when
they leave or retire don't replace them. That's about the smoothest structural
unemployment transition I've ever heard. It won't happen though because just
firing, and fighting the protests/lawsuits is probably cheaper.

------
jjangsangy
Good to see progress being made on this front! I guess this means that makes
the scores

US Gov: +1 Google: +1 Tesla: +1 Uber : -1 Robots: 0xffffffff

~~~
dtparr
Is your robots' score signed or unsigned?

------
rawTruthHurts
Looks like an open door for all kind of legal tricks for companies, the kind
of trick corporate personhood achieved.

------
kriro
Issuing and revoking AI licenses (driver's licenses or others) seems like a
very good use case for the block chain. You can predefine rules for removal
etc. There's a bit of literature about automatically executed contracts on the
block chain and this use case seems very similar.

------
ocdtrekkie
Given that statistically, Google's self-driving cars are more dangerous than
the average human, and if Google's computers were a driver, it's license would
already be revoked, it's a little weird the government is willing to take this
step.

Then again, they've contributed to about 200 members of Congress, several
senior White House positions are filled by Googlers...

~~~
bsder
> Given that statistically, Google's self-driving cars are more dangerous than
> the average human,

Come to Southern California when it rains and lets see you say that.

The difference is that autonomous safety will continuously improve while human
safety has actually been going backwards.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I live in Chicago. Get on my level. ;)

Seriously though, you're also missing the fact that AFAIK, Google
doesn't/can't drive these cars in rain. According to a Slate article in 2014,
they also can't drive when it's too sunny, because it messes with the sensors.
It goes without saying it's never seriously been tested in snow. From my
understanding, self-driving cars are mostly tested during the day in fair
weather, when humans are also at their safest as drivers.
[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html)

Also, cars are getting safer, fatalities from cars is actually going down. I
managed to find a version of this article that is less blatantly liberal
propaganda, because I want to talk about the auto statistic:
[http://www.lowellsun.com/opinion/ci_29325302/cars-getting-
sa...](http://www.lowellsun.com/opinion/ci_29325302/cars-getting-safer-guns-
not-so-much)

~~~
greeneggs
It isn't just driving in the rain that's a problem; puddles after the rain
are, too. From an article 2/6/2016:

> Some objects are hard to figure out, though. Heavy rain, for instance,
> confuses the cars. Google postponed The Bee’s first planned test ride
> because heavy rain had left puddles in the road, and the cars aren’t sure
> how to react when the car ahead splashes water into the air. If confused,
> the cars are programmed to just pull over and stop.

[http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/back-seat-
dr...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/back-seat-
driver/article58899473.html)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Whoa, there's a huge fact in here. A Googler is clearly quoted at the bottom:

> “The day I’m very excited about is the day where we are just as safe as
> human drivers,” he said.

That's a distinct recognition that Google is aware their cars currently are
not.

