The self driving, especially Tesla, is being promoted as being along the lines of "do whatever you like, the car will cope". The public, rightly or wrongly, are forming the impression they can read a book, chat with passengers, do makeup, eat lunch and completely ignore what's happening outside.
What it actually is, of course, is cruise control plus. If it were promoted as such we'd be less likely to have folks making hands off videos trying to find the limits of the system.
When, as will undoubtedly happen, we get true self-driving we're going to have to accept new failure modes and deaths as a result. People will die as a result of AIs going out of known parameters. Perhaps innocent pedestrians, perhaps we'll find they're especially bad with children or cyclists. We may require legislation that in certain weather, road or other conditions self-driving must be disabled.
It took an awful lot of years, miles and deaths to get to the exceptionally safety conscious aviation we now have. If we're just passengers will we start to expect a similar level of safety with self-driving?
Sitting in the back of the magic car with iPad whilst it takes you from any door to any door is, sensibly, still a good way away.
The self driving, especially Tesla, is being promoted as being along the lines of "do whatever you like, the car will cope". The public, rightly or wrongly, are forming the impression they can read a book, chat with passengers, do makeup, eat lunch and completely ignore what's happening outside.
What it actually is, of course, is cruise control plus. If it were promoted as such we'd be less likely to have folks making hands off videos trying to find the limits of the system.
When, as will undoubtedly happen, we get true self-driving we're going to have to accept new failure modes and deaths as a result. People will die as a result of AIs going out of known parameters. Perhaps innocent pedestrians, perhaps we'll find they're especially bad with children or cyclists. We may require legislation that in certain weather, road or other conditions self-driving must be disabled.
It took an awful lot of years, miles and deaths to get to the exceptionally safety conscious aviation we now have. If we're just passengers will we start to expect a similar level of safety with self-driving?
Sitting in the back of the magic car with iPad whilst it takes you from any door to any door is, sensibly, still a good way away.