[ExI] michigan pole-vaults california on self-drivers

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] michigan pole-vaults california on self-drivers

On 7 September 2016 at 15:30, spike  wrote:
.
>
>>... http://phys.org/news/2016-09-michigan-require-human-self-driving-cars.

http://phys.org/news/2016-09-michigan-require-human-self-driving-cars/

>>... Then we can get used to them as delivery vehicles and such.


>...If they are going to use them for deliveries in Detroit they may not
need drivers, but armed guards would be a good idea!  BillK
_______________________________________________

What if... we came against that problem.  If we have a version of this which
is intended as a delivery truck, we don't need windows, we don't need
pneumatic tires (a rougher-riding no-air tires would work if it is
delivering groceries and packages.)

It would be easy to stop any self-driver: bad guy just stands in its way.
It stops in the middle of the road, bad guy two stands behind it, bad guy
three bashes the windows with a crowbar and takes the packages.  So imagine
a version of this which is a rolling bank vault: heavy plate steel, no
glass, no door handles, no clear way to get to the goods.  Breaking into the
thing would be like robbing an ATM.  We can accept the weight penalty, since
they don't need to accelerate quickly and handling doesn't matter.
Something like this would be too heavy to surround by a dozen homies, hoist
and carry it off the road, break into it at their leisure with a cutting
torch or jaws of life.

That would work perhaps but would be an expensive delivery vehicle.

One ready market for this thing is bar-hoppers.  They know the cost of
visiting half a dozen oases in the same evening and know the risks of
operating their own Detroits.  The local constabulary can spot that kind
from 100 meters.  In the Google cars which have been motoring about Mountain
View for several years, the occupant has the legal status of operator.  In
this experimental version (which I have only seen once) there is no steering
wheel and the occupant has the legal status of a passenger.  So he or she
may be drunk, stoned, underage, unlicensed, blind, stupid, any or all of the
above.  But in the man-rated version, I would think you would need windows,
and possibly all the usual comforts provided by current Detroits.

Now I can see a bunch of things that can go terribly wrong.  For instance...
human operator knows to go around certain neighborhoods.  If you tell your
rolling computer to go to a certain destination, will it know?  And if it
doesn't know, it goes thru by most direct route as identified by Google Maps
(a company which doesn't know the area and doesn't understand the entire
scenario, being up there in toney Mountain View.)  Cuts thru, car stops, bad
guy in front, bad guy in back, third bad guy with a goddam crowbar, you're
dead.

Who is at fault there?

spike