[ExI] Autonomous car ethics

[William Flynn Wallace]

  If a squirrel
or dog darts out, the car brakes hard but doesn't swerve to miss.

I cannot fathom why swerving is not included in the software.  It is the
tendency of the average driver in a tense situation to just slam on the
brakes, but many situations call for steering out of trouble, as I have
been told by a race driver.

Now I can see the hazard of swerving when one is on a multilane road in Los
Angeles.  Otherwise, no.

If just slamming on the brakes is the only method I see millions spent on
replacing air bags - which, incidentally, have been known to kill people.

bill w

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 3:01 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 25 June 2016 at 20:06, spike wrote:
> <snip>
> > OK so as self-drivers become more common over the next few years, we
> need to
> > give the car ahead of us a little more room, unless we have auto-braking.
> > Note that one of the unintended consequences of anti-lock brakes is that
> it
> > might have caused the car with it to have less risk of hitting a Detroit
> in
> > front but increased the risk of being hit by a Detroit from behind.  If a
> > prole has that feature and the prole behind does not, the guy up front
> can
> > get maximum braking every time.  In the transition period while some cars
> > had it and some didn't, you have this paradoxical increased risk.
> >
>
>
> Another thought is that once self-drivers become common and the algos
> have improved and there is automatic car-to-car communication, then
> there will be no need for speed limits or traffic lights. The algos
> will always drive safely according to the conditions, but that could
> be at very high speeds. It would be amazing to see them performing
> beyond human capabilities.
>
>
> BillK
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