Agreed you have a few very good points there. Asimov lives! But to
the robotics laws, it would be important to add a rule as it applies to a
driver: the requirement to stop and where possible, render assistance if
involved in a collision. Maybe they don't have that requirement in the
US? (You might get shot?)
Having had the unpleasant experience of having seen a number of accidents
of this kind, I am no longer amazed about the way vehicles with momentum or
more properly, parts thereof, can continue to find their way to points well
beyond the actual point of impact, even after passing under a truck..
I've seen no evidence, however, of seeing one such continue with engine
running and wheels holding traction. Maybe that says something for Tesla
design? And maybe that's inappropriate and should have a robotic law to
govern it.
On the other hand, driver-less train systems seem to have pretty good
records.. And one is then tempted to say the answer is to get rid of all
human controlled vehicles, on the understanding that the only vehicles in
the system are fully controlled and in automatic full-time communication.
Last I heard, the company which may have survived its ill fame, Patricks,
had proved to have an unusually good safety record for its fully-automated
container loading and unloading system at various terminals. Mind you,
that could just be because no humans are allowed into the area when
operations are under way.
Now if we could just get humans to avoid getting into vehicles so much, and
burning up fuels and public money on roads....
But no, that would require optical fibre everywhere -- obviously a silly
idea.
-Peter M
-Peter M
On 4 July 2016 at 19:13, Stuart Burnfield <slb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Peter -
IMO two important things went wrong:
(i) Autopilot didn't 'see' the trailer and so hit it.
(ii) After the impact Autopilot didn't 'realise' it had just been
involved in a major accident *and kept driving*!
Tesla tries to minimise (i) by implying that a human driver wouldn't have
done any better, so it was just terribly bad luck.
Tesla doesn't comment on (ii) at all AFAIK, probably hoping no-one will
notice.
IMO a human driver would have noticed a tractor-trailer looming up in the
windscreen and *tried *to avoid it. What then?
- Car swerves in time, misses trailer, drives on safely.
- Car doesn't quite swerve in time, clips trailer, car is damaged but
driver is OK. Driver stops safely to check out the damage..
- Car doesn't swerve in time, hits trailer, driver is impaired or
unconscious or (as happened) killed. Car coasts to a stop or more likely
coasts briefly till it hits something and then stops.
In none of these cases does the car serenely carry on cross-country,
patiently waiting for a road to reappear in front of the sensors so it can
start making driving decisions again.
Does Autopilot not have a failsafe mode?! "If things go seriously bad,
stop as soon as possible consistent with not hurting anyone or damaging
anything." In other words:
1. Avoid harm to humans.
2. Avoid damage to the car and to other valuable things, except where
this would conflict with the First Law.
3. Obey your programming, except where this would conflict with the
First or Second Laws.
To put it in Aussie V8 terms, what's needed is a Three Laws of
Monarobotics. Tesla surely has some version of them built into its
prototype. What happened?
--- Stuart
----- Original Message -----
From:
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:
"austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent:
Sat, 2 Jul 2016 10:44:15 +1000
Subject:
atw: Re: OT I hate it when I am this right
Stuart:
On your response to b.), point 2. is probably not particularly relevant.
No driver is going to control any operation of the car after it had had its
top half sliced off.
On 1 July 2016 at 17:29, Stuart Burnfield <slb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Peter said:
a.) Do we know a human driver would have avoided this collision?
It's hard to know for sure but it sounds like the answer is probably yes.
Despite the sleazy, deceptive, blame-the-victim wording by Tesla's Mouth of
Sauron, it's hard to imagine Mr Brown or even a minimally attentive driver:
1. Not noticing a trailer swerving in front of him and cutting him off
2. Continuing to drive, "leaving the road, striking a fence, crossing a
field, passing through another fence and finally hitting a utility pole
about 100 feet south of the road"
