When Should Cops Be Allowed To Take Control of Self-Driving Cars? 236
HughPickens.com writes: A police officer is directing traffic in the intersection when he sees a self-driving car barreling toward him and the occupant looking down at his smartphone. The officer gestures for the car to stop, and the self-driving vehicle rolls to a halt behind the crosswalk. This seems like a pretty plausible interaction. Human drivers are required to pull over when a police officer gestures for them to do so. It's reasonable to expect that self-driving cars would do the same. But Will Oremus writes that while it's clear that police officers should have some power over the movements of self-driving cars, what's less clear is where to draw the line. Should an officer be able to do the same if he suspects the passenger of a crime? And what if the passenger doesn't want the car to stop—can she override the command, or does the police officer have ultimate control?
According to a RAND Corp. report on the future of technology and law enforcement "the dark side to all of the emerging access and interconnectivity (PDF) is the risk to the public's civil rights, privacy rights, and security." It added, "One can readily imagine abuses that might occur if, for example, capabilities to control automated vehicles and the disclosure of detailed personal information about their occupants were not tightly controlled and secured."
According to a RAND Corp. report on the future of technology and law enforcement "the dark side to all of the emerging access and interconnectivity (PDF) is the risk to the public's civil rights, privacy rights, and security." It added, "One can readily imagine abuses that might occur if, for example, capabilities to control automated vehicles and the disclosure of detailed personal information about their occupants were not tightly controlled and secured."
The cars can detect gestures. (Score:2)
After watching this video Im pretty sure the cars can detect gestures to pull over.
As the car is doing the driving it should follow the demands of a police officer (as opposed to the passenger) although Im sure it will be hacked around at some point.
https://www.ted.com/talks/chri... [ted.com]
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So, the car can detect gestures.
How does it detect a police officer?
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I suppose it doesn't need to. The car would stop if any person was just standing in the road. No need for gestures.
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So, as a human driver, you wouldn't stop for a person standing in the road in front of you?
I hope I don't live in your neighborhood.
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So, as a human driver, you wouldn't stop for a person standing in the road in front of you?
As a human pedestrian, I do not test the brakes of random vehicles that are traveling down the road by standing in front of them.
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Most people can't tell the difference between an officer and a criminal dressed like an officer. This is why its illegal to impersonate an officer.
Have an 'override' or 'emergency' button that maybe drives you to the closest police station.
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That could work. Police need the ability to pull over a car - it's a function of their job. However, the other questions are irrelevant to automated cars, instead general questions of search and seizure.
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They not only need the ability to pull over a car, but at an intersection direct it which exit to take. They need to be able to close a road because of an accident or other emergency ahead (but out of view of the intersection). All of these are done using recognised gestures.
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Guys, watch the TED talk the parent linked. It will answer all your questions. Google's implementation is very good with continued work to improving it. All these are technicalities that the Google R&D have already pointed out as obstacles to be dealt with. For the most part they have a handle on most issues that users have brought up.
The tech is more advanced than most of us know and for that reason many users are commenting without knowing what is actually out there right now.
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Those other use cases you mention could be dealt with via communication with a central location. As soon as the road needs to be closed, broadcast the fact and the car will reroute based on updated "traffic" information.
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This should be the default action, not pulled over. If the car is autonomous, the passengers need to feel safe, even when being apprehended. They can pull into a sealed garage with all sort of soft weapons used to disable the humans who don't want to comply.
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I won't pull over for ANYONE in a dark alley or in the middle of the boonies.
Absolutely correct. Officers are (normally) trained that they need to allow the person to travel to a location they feel safe, which can mean a lit area or a populated area. Similarly if you are are on a bridge or somewhere with no shoulder, you can turn on your hazard lights, slow down, and continue to a safe area. If someone in the vehicle has a cell phone, they can call 911, describe the situation, and tell dispatch they will stop in a location with light and other people. You can also call 911 to verif
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Its pretty easy to have a fake badge that looks real enough to a passing car. Now, once you are stopped if the guy does the old "flash it for just a second" when you ask to see the badge, and refuses to hold it for inspection. Whelp, time to GTFO, and call the real police.
But in that case it is the operator not the auto-drive car that is making the decision.
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:4, Insightful)
Automate the cop. The car can drive by itself, but traffic control at the intersection needs a human?
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:4, Interesting)
Automate the cop. The car can drive by itself, but traffic control at the intersection needs a human?
I don't know any place you'd put a cop instead of a traffic light, but there are quite a few scenarios where a cop needs to ad hoc direct traffic like near the scene of an accident so emergency services get through. No matter what you do you won't get away from it entirely.
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The same sort of place you'd use a school crossing guard - iow, a place where vehicle and pedestrian traffic peaks clump irregularly.
Of course, you usually have the traffic light in spots like that also. But the presence of the human controller means you ignore the light and pay attention to the human.
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... we are autonomous, we can process new and critical information, and we've gotten pretty damn good at ordering us around.
and it doesn't take a decades worth of experience to program us with new directives. you can have a traffic drone fly there with lights, but you've gotta purpose build that shit, and purpose program the way the drone flashes its lights in different situations.
you know what you need to do now? give that fucker in the middle of the road a reflective vest, a poncho to keep the rain off,
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Exactly. Or there is an emergency or disruption that requires manual control of traffic.
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Just make sure you have an manual override for the automated manual control.
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Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, here's the problem with this ... if the car detects gestures, or has a "bypass" mode for law enforcement ... then this can, and will, be exploited by someone else.
Every time law enforcement and government demand a special exemption in the operation of something, what they do is administratively poke a hole in the integrity of it, and then say that nobody else is allowed to use it. And stupidly believe that nobody else will.
It's like saying you're not allowed to lock your doors in case of an emergency, and demanding that nobody else takes advantage of it.
If there is a mechanism by which a police officer, with or without a justifiable reason, can take control of these vehicles ... then it is pretty much a certainty someone else will also do this.
As you say, this will be hacked at some point. Because you can't put something in which acts as a bypass and then act like it's only the people you intended to have this who will use it.
And every corner case you come up with which says "well, we need a special case here because of this" is a demonstration of why this stuff will never actually work in the real world.
There will always be cases in which the self driving car stops working. And you really can't rely on humans to take over when the system suddenly has no idea what to do. What happens in those gaps is always going to be a problem ... and I'm not sure we're anywhere close to figuring that out.
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Went through an accident scene the other day. Fireman (could have been a cop) was doing ad-hoc traffic control. It was fairly complex and it is hard to see how a purely autonomous car would have handled it. I think for a long time cars are going to need a way for manual override along with a warning system. Approaching a construction zone, accident, traffic stop. Car slows down and signals driver to take control. All the cops etc can do is put out a signal, slow down, driver take control. Then it is up to t
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All these recent rapist-cops would have loved having this functionality.
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't know about where you live but failure to stop for a Police man/woman is an offence in the U.K. That is if an officer of the law indicates you should pull over you better dam well pull over otherwise you are facing a 5000GBP fine and a discretionary ban. Why on earth anyone thinks that a self driving car should be any different to a human driven car is really beyond me.
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the U.S. many police departments suggest that women (and sometimes men) should go to a well lighted area rather than pull over immediately.
Sometimes it is also suggested that you call the P.D. to make sure it's really a cop before you pull over.
It seems very risky to have a car automatically pull over in the middle of nowhere when signaled, particularly when police have put such a warning out. At the least, the car should allow the passenger to override.
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Yeah, I had a cop put his signal on in the middle of a construction zone where there were barrels blocking both the shoulder and the median. I pulled over at the end of the construction and he was pissed that I waited so long. I guess he wanted me to just stop in the middle of the lane. Then again he was also insistent that I must be stoned, and was interrogating me as to why I was in his city when my car is registered in a different county, all over a dead tail-light, so it was probably just him.
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Sure, cops all too often forget their place and assume they have some sort of supreme power even when their own department says otherwise. I'm guessing that might be counter-balanced by automated cars having a variety of cameras and other sensors that might be recording the scene.
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:4, Informative)
At most it should go "I see a cop trying to pull us over should i call 911 for you?" aka the same thing I tell my child to do.
In any event the person in the vehicle needs to be able to quickly override the computer's or 2 people can corner any car to carjack it.
Re:The cars can detect gestures. (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree vehemently with the assumption that police should individually have control over vehicles once they've become automated.
Police have control over vehicles now primarily to stop the behaviour of drivers who are breaking motor vehicle laws. At least conceptually, self-driving vehicles should not break any laws, removing this incentive.
Self-driving cars will also be networked, providing central command-and-control capability on an infrastructure level. So for those situations where vehicle movements need to be regulated (construction, etc.), the central authority will handle modifications to ordinary traffic patterns and flow.
There are two completely irrelevant pieces of information in the summary. 1) "the occupant looking down at his smartphone". Why would this matter? And 2) the person being 'barrelled' towards is a police officer. It shouldn't matter who is at that end - the vehicle should recognise a living being and react accordingly. That is or is not police makes no difference.
I can't think of a valid reason an individual LEO should be allowed control of an individual self-driving vehicle, ever. There is simply too much potential for abuse.
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I can't think of a valid reason an individual LEO should be allowed control of an individual self-driving vehicle, ever. There is simply too much potential for abuse.
The vehicle was used to flee the scene of a crime.
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There needs to be a standard device (Score:4, Informative)
An automated car could be programmed to be pre-empted by emergency vehicles using lights in the standard manner, but how, exactly, would police stops be handled, especially when the stop is a gesture from the side of the road? There is going to have to be a device which police carry that broadcasts a standardized signal to pull over and stop. It will have to be secure against being imitated by criminals, perhaps with frequently-changed security keys.
Just deploying these to all the agencies that will need them is a non-insignificant problem. And cities are going to require that the devices, deployment and maintenance be paid for by the manufacturers.
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There is going to have to be a device which police carry that broadcasts a standardized signal to pull over and stop. It will have to be secure against being imitated by criminals, perhaps with frequently-changed security keys.
No, no, no. The car should have the same inputs as a human driver. Visual and audio only. Otherwise you are 1) creating a different system which is expensive, more complicated and unreliable. 2) Opening the door to criminal hackers and terrorists to take control over cars remotely.
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cities are going to require that the devices, deployment and maintenance be paid for by the manufacturers.
So paid for by the consumer, then?
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Yes. The other alternative to have the cities and states pay for the devices, which means paid by the consumer.
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On XKCD a while back we were talking about the possibility of automated cars transiting through countries on their way to a different country, either with goods or people. Since nobody is supposedly going to be stopping there and no goods left behind, then it opens up the possibility of much simpler border crossings - just simple contraband checks and off you go.
The issue becomes, what if once the car has crossed the border, it is instructed to "change its mind" and route to somewhere within the country? We
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Are you willing to also have the doors and windows locked no matter what happens?
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That's arguably a good idea in concept, but what happens when you encounter such a situation in a remote area, tunnel, or other communication blind spot? And of course if you have it default to "obey the driver when I can't get a signal", then all you need to do is attach a discrete switch to disable the antenna and you can override those control limitations, completely defeating the point.
Meanwhile I don' think it actually solves any problem to begin with. If you have border controls restricting who can
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Didn't anyone watch Minority Report?
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Nonsense.
Right now policemen are able to stop cars, no device needed.
Autonomous cars should be able to match current driver behaviour. There's room for improvement, but they don't need a better solution in all regards, to replace drivers, only to be as good as them.
abuse is subject to subjectivity (Score:3)
Cops shouldn't be allowed to take control (Score:5, Insightful)
Never mind the possible abuses from police, if the cops can take control, you've left a security hole that can be exploited. While cars may drive themselves, it's still necessary to have a human who can take control if needed. If the police need to pull a car over, the person in the car should take control, manually drive, and pull over. Let's not make cars with huge security holes like that. Current cars have enough security holes already.
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Agreed. A woman I personally know was nearly the victim of a fake police officer about 15 years ago, back when she was in college.
As she was driving home on the interstate late one night, an unmarked car came up behind her and turned on a roof-mounted red, spinning light like you'd expect with an unmarked police car. She wisely called the police from her car phone to ask them to tell their unmarked car that she'd be continuing until she reached the nearest gas station, and they informed her that none of the
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Exactly.
There should be no remote control capabilities. It should be based on existing standards for controlling traffic.
So the traffic cop controlling traffic? His hand signals are all the control required - they're standard and both human and electronic drivers need to be able to read them and recognize them. That's all the control you need. If an autonomous vehicle disobeys, it's just like a regular human driver disobeying - a traffic citation.
Emergency? Well lights and sirens means pull over to let them
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Why? They don't currently have that ability, what changes just because I have an automated chauffeur?
Stand in front (Score:2)
The car will refuse to run over anyone, policeman or otherwise.
Then once the policeman has the occupants full attention, he can then instruct him to pull over.
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Ah, but how sure can you be that the human isn't driving?
I foresee life-like dummy police officers for deployment in such situations.
hhhuuurrrr, they already have dose on the force
(just getting in before someone else)
Obey traffic laws; offer emergency override (Score:5, Interesting)
The big red button. If you press it, the car will continue to your destination unless physically disabled or completely blocked, regardless of non-traffic signals. It needs to be there for times when it is unsafe, or the occupant feels unsafe, with questionable external conditions (fake emergency vehicle signals, etc). And cops should be just fine with that because self-driving cars will otherwise obey the rules of the road (i.e. not speeding or running traffic signals), so if they really need to stop the car they can (a) surround it and slow down/stop to prevent the car from moving or (b) follow it to its destination - which in an emergency should be selectable by the operator as the original destination, the closest police precinct, or closest hospital emergency room entrance. There is no need or reason to offer electronic remote kill capabilities.
By choosing a fully automatic car, you give up a level of independence in return for convenience. I, for example, don't carry a sidearm or wear protective body armor today. That puts me in an inferior position to those who do, or those who have greater physical strength. It doesn't bother me because I evaluate the chance of needing such things is smaller than, say, being struck by lightning. I trade the convenience of lower kitted weight and bulk for an inferior defensive position.
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Actually, Google programs their cars to break the speed limit. They say it's safer, but it does involve breaking the law. http://gizmodo.com/googles-autonomous-car-is-programmed-to-speed-because-i-1624025227 [gizmodo.com]
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There is no need or reason to offer electronic remote kill capabilities.
'Nough said. But the car should respond automatically to police intervention. I would want the car to pull over when a car with flashing lights pulls up behind it. Or when a person with a uniform steps out in front of it and gives an order to stop or pull over. A person could be unconscious and need to be pulled over. Shouldn't rely on the driver for that. But that functionality should be based on visual and audio rather than any specialized equipment that would have to be distributed to millions of p
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So, all Jack the Ripper needs is to put a flashing light on his car and he can force his victims to a stop? No thanks.
Hell, it's not unheard of for actual police officers to engage in kidnapping, rape, and murder - if you suspect such a situation, they should NOT be able to trivially disable your vehicle.
Sure, it should automatically respond to police signals just as a conscientious driver would. But you should also be able to override that behavior, just as a driver with a sense of self-preservation somet
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So, all Jack the Ripper needs is to put a flashing light on his car and he can force his victims to a stop? No thanks.
Hell, it's not unheard of for actual police officers to engage in kidnapping, rape, and murder - if you suspect such a situation, they should NOT be able to trivially disable your vehicle.
Sure, it should automatically respond to police signals just as a conscientious driver would. But you should also be able to override that behavior, just as a driver with a sense of self-preservation sometimes must.
Meanwhile, an unconscious occupant would seem to me to be one of the points of an automated vehicle. Any automated vehicle which needs me to continue to pay attention to the road in case of emergency is a horrible danger to everyone else, because passengers won't do so reliably. And if I don't have to pay attention to the road, then I may as well play video games, take a nap, etc. Just like if I had a chauffeur. You wouldn't pull over a limo because the passengers were unconscious would you?
That is the case now. You are obligated to pull over. Now... I agree with a manual override. If Jack the ripper starts walking towards the car, then I would like to be able to hit a button and drive away. Or if you really feel unsafe where the car wants to pull over, then similarly I would want a manual override.
I agree that having an automated car will actually save lives where now if the driver has a medical issue the likely outcome is a high speed collision which endangers even more lives. But if t
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But what if the cops want to stop you because you're breaking laws that aren't traffic laws? For instance, if they suspect you're fleeing from a crime, carrying weed or are a murder suspect?
Re:Obey traffic laws; offer emergency override (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would they need to? You're in a self driving car that's going to obey traffic laws - they can just follow you to your destination without fear of loss in pursuit. It's not like you're going to "get away" in a self driving car or the car will be operated in an unsafe manner. If it's a single officer, you'll be followed until the car stops. If it's multiple officers, all the have to do is get in front of and to the left and they can "guide" your car onto the shoulder and stop safely.
There's no operating condition where they actually need an electronic remote disable.
Highwaymen, robbers, carjackers (Score:2)
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Please fill us in on the algorithm you're using to distinguish hostile and non-hostile pedestrians.
I guess I see your point -- if it's known that autonomous cars will always stop for a pedestrian, there will be some people who decide to take advantage of that behavior. They'll realize that if they step in front of this car, it will stop. It will also alert other cars in the vicinity (so they don't have to stop as abruptly for the destination), it'll probably alert law enforcement (because a pedestrian is il
When there is no passanger on board (Score:5, Interesting)
The hierarchy of control should go this way:
1. Owner (should have an override that can shut off the engine even if not driving)
2. Driver (If they're behind the wheel only an owner can shut them off)
3. Police (can shut off any car not being piloted or directly controlled)
4. The AI
Here is how police should work... THE SAME WAY they do with normal drivers. A police car does not shoot your engine out or something. What they do is flash their lights and tell you pull over. And you DECIDE to pull over because you don't want to be in violation of more laws.
And that is how the AI should operate. If the AI is just zipping down the road and an AI police officer pulls you over (does anyone see that coming?). The AI in your car should DECIDE to pull over. It isn't being forced to do it. I can say "HA HA YOU"LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE COPPER!"... but it should only do that if you told it to do that. Otherwise it should pull over like a law abiding AI.
We've all discussed to death the issue with police overrides and how hackers can use them take control of your car.
So here is the solution. Rather than just have the AI comply immediately, you can have the AI PING the cockpit or cabin and say "Police request pull over". Then you have ten seconds in the car to reject that. If you don't reject it... then the car pulls off to the side of the road. Where likely as not a friendly Securitron will roll up wearing mirrored sunglasses and tell you to respect its authoritah!
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good luck.
Best you'll get out of the AI will be a system wide alert to turn around.
That said, I strongly support the idea that people should be able to control their cars manually either in emergencies or on private property.
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As to the relationship of the driver to the Taxi... that is up to the taxi company.
I can see it going either way.
The taxi could make someone effectively the driver for the duration of the taxi trip like a AI rental car. Or it could simply be a drone that asks people where they want to go and then you're a passenger period.
If you're a passenger... and not the owner... then the AI shouldn't recognize your authority over the police unless the owners of the taxi company want to do that. I again, feel very stron
never. (Score:2)
Who owns your car? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who owns your car? Who does it serve? Who does it obey?
We lost the war for our pocket and portable computers (cell phones and tablet). We lost the war for our TVs, movie players, DVRs, etc. We lost the war for the computers that are already in our cars.
Most disturbing, we are in the process of losing the war for our desktop computers, the very heart of general purpose computing as an individual right.
If we want to own our cars, we need to stop losing control of our computers, pronto.
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But driverless cars are The Shiny! What could possibly go wrong?
There's a reason "Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State" is one of the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. The Glorious People's State will just love having control over your vehicle, and being able to stop you from using it at any time.
Not clear at all (Score:2)
it's clear that police officers should have some power over the movements of self-driving cars
No, this is not clear at all. If police (or anybody that I haven't authorized) can take control of my vehicle, then I don't want that vehicle.
Stop 100% of the time - but nothing else (Score:2)
But they should under no circumstance be able to redirect it to a new location without physically entering the vehicle. That is not reasonable behavior, an un-neccessary security risk that can be abused by non-police.
I propose a solution. (Score:2)
Any time the cops stop an autonomous car they have to pay the owner of that car $1000, no matter what the reason for the stop. Compared to the legal costs of what comes after a legitimate stop, that's nothing. But it would dissuade police from developing a pattern of frivolous stops.
Bow to your OWNERS! (Score:2)
Control (Score:2)
The driver already surrendered ultimate control (Score:2)
And what if the passenger doesn't want the car to stop—can she override the command, or does the police officer have ultimate control?
No... the driver already surrendered ultimate control to the car by choosing a self-driving vehicle, and I expect the vehicle to obey the law, Even over the driver's wishes, which says that citizens must follow a lawful official's orders, unless following the order clearly violates civil rights or creates an immediate safety hazard for themselves or another pers
Never (Score:2)
Until cops take responsibility for their mistakes and misdeeds, they should be given less power, not more.
I foresee many police-driven autocar crashes where the cops say simply, "Oh well", and walk away from responsibility.
Simple (Score:2)
When they personally own them, and only then ever.
I don't see what is so hard about that.
Liability (Score:2)
Cops stops car in the road. Bus behind it (manually operated, because unions) keeps going, rear ends car. Car bursts into flames, killing occupants. Who pays?
When they want donuts? (Score:2)
Maybe like if they are really hungry for donuts, they should be able to make a self-driving car be able to get them some.
Easy answer (Score:2)
NEVER
Quid pro quo? (i.e., tit for tat) (Score:2)
So if I see cops in an unlawful traffic maneuver— like rolling through a red light without their lights and/or sirens on— should I be able to pull them over?
It's called a `` citizen's arrest [wikipedia.org]'' in most states in the U.S. and various other former British colonies (like the Republic of Ireland [wikipedia.org], the Kingdom of Scotland [wikipedia.org], et al. ;-).
Should there be some automated device or mechanism that forces their vehicle to comply with my demands? Turn about is fair play, after all: if I surrender my civil r
cars will frequently be empty (Score:2)
A compromise (Score:2)
Ok, so none of us likes the idea of the cops being able to take full control of the car. It leaves a security hole ripe for abuse and mischief, and the cop is not necessarily in the position to determine how best the car should move.
However, under the assumption that a self-driving car will have a manual mode, what if the cop could emit a signal that disabled the autopilot? That would put the driver in control again, who could then decide whether or not to follow the cop's instructions as well as determine
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It would have to be a mechanical kill switch for the power bus that services all the automated systems, including the robot on your brakes, accelerator, and steering, or it is just a cute story you tell yourself so you feel better. And no cute integrated batteries that can wake up if a cop wants to override. A computerized switch is a joke.
passenger safety (Score:2)
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Any code and procedure can and will be dumped when convenient. Rules can't fix this. Don't accept controlled cars. Don't accept self-driving cars. Don't accept cars controlled by Turing machines which by definition are reprogrammable. Accept only rack-and-pinion steering, hydraulically controlled brakes modulated by your foot, and an accelerator that doesn't ignore your commands when it feels like it. Like e-voting: there is NO correct solution. Any effort is useless to control a computer when hostile outsi
Rolling arrest pod (Score:3)
I've been pointing out the obvious ever since they had the brilliant idea of controlling a car by Turing machines on an internal network, hooked up to a external cell phone network. It will follow inevitably that: bad guys will take control, at the worst possible time, or police will exercise their immediately taken prerogative to stop, control, or block vehicles, or a combination of the two, as police aren't always nice, and sometimes the term "police" means "shadowy people who have lots of power and don't like you - at all."
It will be used immediately to monitor and control cars run by poor people in rich neighborhoods or towns, because of the Children, of course. And the Wikileaks supporters, and people like Assange or Snowden, or women rights supporters in Saudi Arabia wouldn't dare step into a swell new car without taking a chance that the car doors lock, the windows freeze, and their cars drive to a lovely lonely place with a waiting squad of armored men with machine guns await them for a final escort to a place where people never leave, alive or dead. Not only do your phones and TVs listen in and track you, but you can't trust your car not to take you away while you try desperately to break the windows. They'll probably just provide a escort car behind to make sure you can't jump to freedom.
Picture this, if the above scenario makes you giggle: you're driving to work, and suddenly your steering wheel stops working. The car exists the freeway, and drives to a police station, where a squad of SWAT-armored (they wear it to bust massage parlors, for satan's sake) point guns at you and tell you to exit the vehicle. Why? Who the fuck cares? You could have too many parking tickets (and they will KNOW when you park illegally). Hell, they'll just build a concrete box to slot cars into, to make it dead easy to get you out without risk to themselves. Mass removal of troublemakers made automated. Hell, just drive the cars into a jail receiving garage and starve the passengers out if they don't want to get out, why risk a cop?
I wonder how they'll support local law enforcement when cars *can't* speed? I digress. They'll invent new crimes, of course.
It will be damned impossible to annoy or challenge people with power to control your car. It'll be a rolling arrest cage. God, what good little boys and girls we shall be.
A fun note, to the person who called me out as insane when I predicted a terrorist would just nuke the car controls en masse with an EMP bomb/gun, when I used the term "carnage": when they killed the WIRED journalist's car dead on the expressway, he had a truck barreling up behind the car. If the truck had hit him, "carnage" would have been the term to describe his death. And that was a FRIENDLY demonstration of what happens when you let a computer control your brakes, controls, and accelerator.
What am I saying? Don't. Let. Computers. Control. Your. Car. EVER. Don't buy them, demand mechanical controls. Buy an Elio, when and if they come out, and make sure the Elioites don't "improve" the autocar by adding self-driving computer systems. Not that they'll have a choice, if we don't start fighting this off now.
I have no hope this stops. A generation of people who went to school with their faces on their floor while dogs sniff their crotches, and were arrested if they drew someone punching someone, aren't exactly trained to fight for their freedom. They never had freedom; how would they care?
When Should Cops Be Allowed to Take Control? (Score:3)
Q.) When should cops be allowed to take control of self-driving cars?
A.) When cops suspect the car contains cash!
SDCs should cut way back on useless policemen (Score:3)
Thus the remaining police should be, in theory, actually busy doing actual policework. Thus like many worries about self driving cars, their ability or inability to stop them shouldn't really end up being much of an issue with just a tiny few strange edge cases.
Where it will get interesting is if you watch a typical episode of cops the police often have the same MO. A board cop looking to show off for the cameras will go to a poor neighbourhood. He will wait for a car with 4 or more black men in it drive by. Then he will follow behind for the 30-60 seconds it takes them to break one of a massive set of traffic violations, and then the cop will pull them over with his ready made excuse in hand. But then the police will "search them for weapons" demand ID and eventually search the car. Then somewhere somehow a felony or warrant will be discovered and the policeman can make some excuse that he took some more "dirtbags" off the streets. Except that warrant was probably for not paying fantastically expensive bullshit traffic tickets issued during previous similar stops. And if the driver doesn't have a licence it will be because the guy lost it for not paying said fines.
So am I concerned if those police all lose their jobs, NO; am I concerned that they might have trouble pulling people over, NO. The threshold for pulling a SDC over should be that they are certain that the specific car contains an active and ongoing serious crime such as a kidnapping. But if they start doing things like redirecting all the SDCs to a checkpoint so they can do warrant checks or with some BS excuse that there was a recent robbery then screw them and their fourth amendment violating inbred deliverance level thinking.
Here's the thing though... (Score:2)
It's not really that hard for a bad guy to buy a cop costume. Humans can't tell them difference between the police and some random jackass. Also, if a guy is standing in the middle of the road signaling you to stop, you're gonna stop just to not run him over.
I think self-driving cars should be treated as taxis. Just like you can't expect your taxi driver to disobey a cop, nor can you expect your SDC to.
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It's not really that hard for a bad guy to buy a cop costume. Humans can't tell them difference between the police and some random jackass. Also, if a guy is standing in the middle of the road signaling you to stop, you're gonna stop just to not run him over.
I think self-driving cars should be treated as taxis. Just like you can't expect your taxi driver to disobey a cop, nor can you expect your SDC to.
Good point, but that's a driverless taxi, not an autonomous car. An autonomous car would be a car you own and you command, that does what you ask it to do. Like a car, but instead of driving it, you tell it to go places, and override command _whenever_ you want it, not when it's lawful to do so.
I think that autonomous driving will probably be best applied to public transportation, because an automated taxi is a better taxi, while an autonomous car is a lesser car, after you take this kind of things into acc
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Police power (Score:3)
They have power because they have guns and lots of buddies to back them up.
It's very much the latter, and not the former. It's the 'lots of buddies', i.e. the power of the police force, the courts, and the prison system, that give rise to their meaningful 'official powers'. Take away the gun, and nothing really changes. Source: am British.
Technology cannot tell the difference between the police and some random jackass
There's no inherent reason why a machine must be less capable at this than a human.
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Nope. If shady looking "officer" tells you to pull over, there are situations where you'll be better off driving to a police station and stopping there instead. In fact there are places where the police actually recommend doing just that.
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Yup. Since the drug war and 9/11, the young have been raised in a police state. They know nothing else. And don't get me started on the technoeutopians... rich white kids who will never have their cars driven to a lonely spot by a cop for a little impromptu electrocution and tooth extraction. It's the troublemakers and the poor who will see the interior of a Vehicle Sequester concrete box when they annoy some Homeland Security hawk or local cop or even one of our lovely CIA bastards assigned to remove Snowd
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Never saw the movie. That writer was a clear thinker, wasn't he?
I'm not worried about car jackers, who are about as frequent as lighting strikes. Worried about our invisible political lords and masters. Imagine a Dick Cheney with this power. Oh god. Assange's car would have driven into a, let us say, a concrete wall at high speed. Snowden's taxi would roll over a railing and down into a gorge. Hell, why be obvious: just drive a random passing car on the street into a political opponent as they cross at a re
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"How about the day after they get to assassinate people for any reason or no reason?"
And why was this downscored? How about that day?
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"I don't think there will be much argument about this, particularly in Amercia, where the deaths per capita inlicted by 'law enforcement', are similar to the murder rates in more civilised countries."
Well said. And rightwingers only have so many mod points, so let me give ya a hand here.
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There is no way our security forces will let this be anything but mandatory. Manual-control vehicles will be phased out, and eventually will be criminal to drive without some sort of cop-controlled shutoff, at least. Hell, the financing companies alone love external control. They use it to disable cars which have buyers late on their car payments. They can get rid of repo men if the cars drive themselves back to the dealer.