Part 8 - The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak

Something a little different for today, or rather several things.

By now I think that most people, at least those that have the capacity to think about it, are well aware that autonomous vehicles are a when, not an if.

To a large extent the technology is but pretty much there now for a lot of manufacturers and most plan to have this on the road in full production vehicles by 2020.
China may have it in use earlier as they don't have to worry about pesky little things like lawsuits and public opinion.

So lets get away from the technology aspect and focus on the factors that will stop places like my home in Western Australia from being early adopters.

There are a number of factors that need to be urgently addressed before we get rolling :-)

• Public acceptance and education
• Road laws to cover the vehicle liability in the event of an accident
• Laws to cover the owner and or manufacturer liability
• Laws to cover where autonomous vehicles can be used 
• Laws to cover the software protection and data sharing of the vehicle and infrastructure devices

There are a lot of other considerations as well but what immediately jumps out, to me at least, is the fact that (pardon the pun) there's no one driving this.

The Western Australian government has already stated that this technology is inevitable but apart from a single low speed automated bus being tested by the RAC there is no government push that I am aware of to get ahead of the curve.

When you think about the huge change that this technology will bring to society, and the massive savings that governments stand to make because of it, then you start to wonder why this isn't being looked at from the highest levels.

What we need is a coordinated approach between federal and state governments to come up with a national standard with a common time frame to develop laws that can be applied across the country.

Until we get that the manufacturers are in the driving seat, literally, and that might not be a good thing. As with any technology, once it's out there it doesn't go away, so if it becomes available, people will use it legally  or not.

Now for something completely different......

It has long been said that life imitates art. In the case of technology this is so very true.

Probably due to the fact that science fiction tends to act like brainstorming. In a brainstorming session you say whatever you think no matter how stupid. What happens is that someone thinks about that idea and it sparks other ideas from a path that they normally wouldn't have gone down. It produces creativity.

At the time that Star Trek came out and Kirk first uttered the immortal words "Beam us up Mr Scott" into a miniature hand held device that could communicate to a spaceship, I was hooked. My mother however scoffed and said "they'll never make a radio that small".

Remember the original Motorola flip phone?

But they did, and far far more.

Can you remember life without mobile phones or the internet? Now you have the internet on your phone and instant communication and video from anywhere whenever you want it (Netfix not withstanding).

Automated vehicles have been portrayed in film since the earliest days and have recently become much more familiar as the tech of today is starting to look very much like the tech portrayed as the future.

2015 didn't bring us the flying car or holographic projecting film ads, but it did bring us a basic, but limited hoverboard.

As Lao Tzu said, "A Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step".

We don't have a fully functional, general purpose hoverboard but we do have a starting point and that's the biggest step, the rest is mere detail.

Just to digress once again, it is an exciting time to be alive. 

Truly exciting.

I grew up in a time where the only entertainment we had at home was a radio, books and board games. A very occassional movie if we were really lucky.

Later we got television and that opened up the world. When the first satellites went up and the costs started to come down we started to get video news from around the world within 24 hours of it happening.

When I watched, live, a space launch at the beginning of the space race from what was then called Cape Canaveral, I was so awed with the technology that allowed me to watch that in real time that I decided there and then that technology and communications was to be my career of choice.

When I watched the first man walk on the moon live (no it wasn't faked) I was a trainee Technician and the whole class and teaching staff watched it on black and white TV in Perth Western Australia and thought that this was the pinnacle of science.

From there is has been more and more technology in a faster world.

Now we are at a turning point where tech is reaching maturity and devices are beginning to blend together (think phone, TV, book reader, newspaper and internet on one device). The computing power is now reaching the stage where anything is possible, Hell I have a computer controlled 3D router in my shed.

We now have 3D printers in the home, instant streaming TV and music, news instantly from anywhere in the world, cars that drive themselves and robots making appearances as receptionists and automated factories.

Medical science is changing our lives on a daily basis and life expectancy is now stretching out.

When I was a kid people at the age I am now were old, today we're just getting started, I have no intention of departing this mortal coil anytime soon.

There's just too much to see, do and be a part of.

No I'm not going anywhere just yet, I want my hoverboard and flying car.

Part 7 - Privacy, the cost of freedom?

It was announced today that Shenzhen in China is going to issue 200,000 electronic ID's to vehicles with a pilot of 8 installed for the first test as a pilot that could lead to real time tracking of all cars.

If this is successful it will eventually be rolled out to all vehicles in China.

The reasoning for this is that China wants to lead the world in autonomous vehicles and as a part of that wants every vehicle to be able to talk to every other vehicle and road infrastructure.

This is pretty much essential to have automated vehicles know what is going on around them as that is the basis for decision making. As automated vehicles move onto the road they need to know the status of vehicles surrounding them as well as the status of the roads and roadworks.

If an autonomous vehicle knows that the car next to it that wants to change lanes is manually driven, its response may be different to what it would do if the car was in autonomous mode as people, unlike autonomous cars, are unpredictable and don't always make rational choices.

This sort of system is essential, and a great start and of course similar systems will be required around the world for many of the same reasons but the implementation will most likely be very different.

I said similar systems will be required but it will most likely be similar only in the sense of knowing what vehicle and road conditions are like but the social and political structures between China and western democracies are very different.  

Consider the possibility of a government being able to instantly know the location of any vehicle at any point in time, tie this in with police and transport department databases and you know who owns the vehicle and all their details.

Law enforcement agencies would be in seventh heaven and crime detection would be far easier and faster with computer evidence being presented in court. 

A great leap forward, Yes? maybe.

In Australia now we have the Attorney General passing laws for metadata retention and access by law agencies when most other countries are getting rid of theirs as well as increased powers for border protection and deportation laws. All of which are lauded and said to be for the greater good of the people and, after all If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

What happens if the government changes and we get a government that doesn't care about civil rights or personal privacy and we have a ready built system in every car that can track any person of interest at any time. Political opponents and possibly innocent suspects from metadata trolling or for any other arbitrary reason can be tracked in real time, anywhere on a whim.

For China, as a totalitarian state to introduce this technology now must give pause for thought to the west to decide if we can really afford or want to give up this level of privacy.  

This technology can be introduced without the tracking facilities but it will ultimately be decided by legislators and we have to hope that it is done with human rights in mind as well as law enforcement interests, but the way the world is going at the moment, human rights are starting to come a poor second to perceived security risks.

Autonomous vehicles have a great future but this is just one of the obstacles that will slow the implementation in the the west and will debate this for some time.

China will just do it, cause they can.

This technology in cars across the country will give China a great starting point (privacy issues not withstanding) and a huge head start in implementing this technology nation wide. The west will not have this in place for years for many reasons including privacy as mentioned, but for another more pragmatic western priority - who will pay for it?
Most likely not the government, and why should I pay for it so others who can afford automated cars can benefit?

When you think about it, the totalitarian state has a distinct advantage in implementing any technology as they can override any rules or privacy concern for "The greater good" of the nation.

If the state wants it, the state can have it. In the west we have to convince people and sell them the benefits as well as educate them to accept that the technology will be a benefit to the people and not be outweighed  by the cost or social implications. There has to be a clear cost/benefit return before it will get of the ground.

Education has to be a major factor, people don't want a car to make decisions for them, after all I can drive better than a computer, can't I?

Selling safety is an easy way to go. Back in the seventies, and yes I am speaking from memory, the road toll was horrific. In Western Australia there was a road death at least every day. Now there is half that and the population and number of vehicles on the road is far larger than it was then.

What made the difference? In large part it is technology. Seat belts, air bags, breathalysers, ABS, ESC and crumple zones have reduced the road toll significantly.A small collision 40-50 years ago often had a fatal or serious impact on the people involved, today the same collision is a minor thing with little or no human damage but thousand of dollars in (easily replacable) vehicle damage.
Progressive automation will drop this death and injury toll far lower than even todays' level.

This is a key selling point.

Today, in our local paper there is a major article asking to what can be done to reduce the road toll? Recently we have had a spate of country road deaths.

Perhaps one of the ways to reduce this is to have government spending more on autonomous implementation, raising awareness and spreading the safety message that way. Maybe then we can start to achieve a real, permanent, sustainable reduction in the number of people killed on our roads and end this carnage for once and for all.

We live in hope.

Part 6 - Morality, I've heard of that.

Hi again, first off the rank this week is the first ever crash of an autonomous vehicle where it was the vehicles fault, sort of.

The Google Lexus was doing around 2 mph and the bus about 15 mph, hardly speeds to cause much drama but enough for some people to say that proves that this technology is far from ready for use on the roads. Given that Google AV.s have done more than one and a half million miles of  automated driving and this is the first time that they have been responsible for an accident, to me, would indicate that this is a very mature technology indeed. I would hazard a guess the that distance with human drivers would not be so accident free.

Just on that subject the actual incident itself is interesting.
According to google the car was in the far right side of the lane to allow vehicles to pass on the left within the same lane when it encountered sandbags that it had to go back to the centre of the same lane to pass. It assumed the bus would give way to it as it was in the same lane but the manually driven bus continued to pass and the car scraped its side.

Morally, the bus was probably in the wrong but the car should have waited, fickle things drivers.

I was going to explore where the cheaper cars are in autonomosity (new word attributable here?) but frankly its too hard to sort out at the moment as I don't have a lot of spare time so I am going off on a tangent.

One of my colleagues at work started talking about something that gets a lot of attention today and a lot of people consider this to be a key to the whole autonomous thingywhatsit.
That discussion centres around the "Moral Conundrum".

In a nutshell you have the scenario where your AV is driving along, a truck is coming in the opposite direction and a kid runs out in front of you. The moral conundrum is what does the car do, swerve in front of the truck and kill the autonomous passengers or hit the kid. This comes up time and time again with slightly differing scenarios but with the same underlying moral dilemma and seeks an answer.

Personally I think it's a crock because it only looks at a thought out moral choice, one which an AI can't make and one which a person in that situation can't think fast enough to make anyway.

Lets run through this given today's level of technology and perspective.

You are driving along, a truck is coming the other way and a kid runs out in front of you. What do you do?
A deep and meaningful intellectual discussion with yourself over the moral situation doesn't get a look in, not enough time as instinct kicks in and your brain sends a message to hit the brakes, hard. This action takes time and you are now closer to the kid and you just might have time to react further, or you may not.

This now comes down to 2 things.

1. How fast you, as a person is capable of thinking, and
2, How modern is your car. Do you have ABS, ESC, or any other safety features that would allow you to take evasive action while braking.
If you have an older vehicle you are already committed as it is now in the hands of fate if you hit the kid or the car slides in front of the truck. End of story.

If you have modern safety features and can think fast enough you may be able to swerve and the human reaction would be away from the immediate danger, the child, without thinking of the truck hurtling toward you. All of the actions so far have been instinctive, split second reactions pretty much without intellectual thought.

Lets jump forward to an automated road where your Johnny cab is driving, an automated delivery truck is coming toward you and there is a stream of automated vehicles behind you and the truck.

Your lidar picks up the kid running toward the road, long before a driver would have seen it, and calculates an intersection trajectory. Based on that it immediately initiates deceleration based on optimal calculation. Within microseconds it has alerted the truck to the situation and all the vehicles behind which start to brake in synchronisation. The truck braking alerts all the vehicles behind it as well. As the child was detected well in advance the chance of a collision has now been reduced to minimal and the vehicle can decide, based on the actions of the child whether to brake harder or resume speed. If the child continues then avoidance decisions can be made based on all the collision calculations. Warning alerts (horn, siren etc) can also be initiated automatically during this process.

Given these two scenarios one thing is abundantly clear, the chances of survival of all the participants is greatly enhanced by the level of automation, just as ABS has saved live, ESC has saved live, seat belts and airbags save lives. AI calculation and response is far faster than human reaction and can keep calculating during an emergency and has the advantages of not suffering brain freeze trying to sort out a moral dilemma and because of that will most certainly save many more lives.

As I have said before and will say again (mainly because I probably forgot that I said it before, but I digress) Automated vehicles will not stop all road deaths. There will always be situations that can't be foreseen, or human error, acts of nature and increasingly, deliberate human intervention through malfeasance (nice word) or terrorist activity.

However 400,000 people throughout the world die every year and millions more are injured in motor vehicles. Automation will stop more than 90% of that over time.

So the only true moral dilemma is how fast can we get there and save these lives?