While the idea of having a car drive itself is truly fascinating
and seemingly absurd, the project for their development has been up and going
for nearly a decade as testing for these vehicles have gone underway. These
cars hold the ability to perform actions just like the human brain, sometimes
in a quicker manner too; although, just how much trust can we put into a piece
of technology? At what point do we as people say, “No thanks, I can do it
myself”? While I am ecstatic to admire the equipment at work, these
self-driving cars are a hazard in the making. Driving is one aspect of life that would be
better if robots were to stay out of it.
“During the week ending March 8 [2017], the 43 active [self-driving]
cars on the road only drove an average of close to 0.8 miles before the safety
driver had to take over for one reason or another” (Bhuiyan). While these
partial self-driving cars are still being developed and tested, how are
self-driving car developers such as Uber able to predict the circumstances that
may occur during a drive? People are putting their full trust and lives in the hands of these car
manufacturers so these cars must be able to perform perfectly; however, the
true safety these types of cars hold can never be fully satisfied as improbable
and environmental factors cannot be calculated. Even though people
incapable of driving may finally be able to use a car, the advancement of
self-driving cars should be halted because of the car’s incapability to adapt,
potential security issues, and impending technology issues.
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| The basic blueprint for a self-driving car |
First,
self-driving cars should be banned from the roads because of their lack of
adaptability. As of now, there is no algorithm in place to deal with human
interactions in place. One of the top ways to make human-automation interaction
safer is to “design automated systems that cooperate, coordinate, and
collaborate with human operators” (Sethumadhaven). This means, for example,
that if there were a road closure and an officer were directing traffic instead
of the regular stoplights or stop sign, the car would be incapable of proceeding
in the proper manner. Depending on the extent of “self-driving”, the driver
would have to take over the car if that were to be an option: this means that
drivers would still have to get a license, resulting in people incapable of
driving unable to use these cars. In addition, it is unknown how quickly the
GPS would be able to be updated (Sethumadhaven), which could lead to further
problems when trying to get to the desired destination.
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| Would self-driving cars be able to make judgment calls? |
Furthermore, a lot
more problems may arise when it comes to the car’s technology. Protecting the
massive camera found on top of the car may cause further difficulties along
with the one’s previously mentioned. Not only is that giant, expensive piece of
equipment exposed to being damaged by people, but also environmental factors.
In fact, heavy rain and hail are able to directly damage the screen while
events such as sandstorms or blizzards are able to disrupt the cameras. If even
one camera is dysfunctional the whole car and everyone in it is in trouble. There does not even need to be a storm: what if the cameras just fail to recognize something is happening? To
add to these problems, 99% of all roads are unable to be driven on since the
proper data has not been collected (Bhuiyan), so how long will it take to make
that percentage lower? While they collect more data to make these cars more
universal, they can hold onto the release and further analyze the downsides and
make the right call to postpone the project, since stopping the production is
inevitable.
This video is a news report of an occurrence of a self-driving car crash
Aside from the
technological approach to the problems of these self-driving cars, there is the
thoughts of the general public. I interviewed my dad on the situation on the situation
to see what he had to say about the safety of these cars. “I for one would not want
to own a self-driving car,” he says, “I would rather be in control than to put
all my trust into a computer. While the idea is mind boggling, the reliability
and maintenance required is too much. He concludes by saying, as a driver
himself, he would feel less safe driving a normal car around self-driving cars
over regular cars. Is our trust something we will have to give whether we like
it or not? Whether you get a self-driving car or not, the performance they have
will still have an effect on you.
As of the writing
of this blog, cars are not allowed to self-drive without a licensed driver behind
the wheel. It is not clear if at any point the DMV will permit the driving of
the car with a child in it or an ill person incapable of driving at the moment.
The rule should not change as self-driving cars should not be given that much faith,
because at the end of the day that is what this whole argument is about. That
is all there is left to do at this point: trust. Trust that everything works
out and there are no problems; or, trust the DMV opens their eyes about the
problems surrounding self-driving cars and make them illegal, since companies
like Uber themselves will not stop their development themselves.
Sethumadhaven, Arathi. "Self-Driving Cars: Enabling Safer Human-Automation Interaction."
Research Digest, April 2017, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1064804617697283
Works Cited
Bhuiyan, Johana. "Uber's autonomous cars drove 20,354 miles and had to be taken over at every
mile, according to documents." Recode.net. Mar. 16, 2017,
https://www.recode.net/2017/3/16/14938116/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-internal-metrics-
slow-progress
Greenberg, Andy. "Securing Driverless Cars From Hackers is Hard. Ask the Ex-Uber Guy Who
Protects Them." Wired.com, April 12, 2017, https://www.wired.com/2017/04/ubers-former-top-
hacker-securing-autonomous-cars-really-hard-problem/
Research Digest, April 2017, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1064804617697283
