Autonomous vehicles have long been poised as a life-saving grace where being on the road is concerned. Car makers like Toyota, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Kia, to name a few, have all long been believers of the self-driving car, optimistically championing its rightful place in our future.
Yet, you’ve heard it all before, and have probably wondered about it yourself, “could autonomous vehicles ever really be safer than humans?” What if a driverless car decides one time that in an attempt to save its own passengers, it must take a course that crashes into a crowd of pedestrians?
Scary, isn’t it? That’s the precise sentiment shared by critics and skeptics of autonomous vehicles around the world. How can you blame them, too? Do you truly believe that a computer would be capable of making a rational and ethical decision in a split-second’s notice?
At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Automotive News caught up with Gill Pratt, head of the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), to quiz the expert about this. To explain, TRI is an organisation funded by Toyota Motor Corp. with a special focus on artificial intelligence and robotics.
Pratt says that, “I think it’s important not to get too hung up on these extraordinarily contrived rare cases where we have the mistaken belief that human beings actually solved the problem well. Human beings don’t solve the trolley problem well.”
For those of you who are unaware as to what the “trolley problem” is, it is simply a question that asks what would you do if there was an unstoppable trolley on its tracks and headed towards killing a crowd of five people. You have a switch that could change the trolley’s course, redirecting it towards where just one person stands on the tracks. Which would you let die? The original five, or the alternative one person?
The TRI boss firmly believes that humans and computers are capable of making the same mistakes. But in the greater scheme of things, however, Pratt says that the odds favour computers to do the safer job.
Acknowledging that computers are bound to make mistakes here and there, Pratt says, “as part of this drastic reduction in fatalities and accidents (thanks to autonomous cars), there are still going to be some cases where the car had no choice, and it’s important that we as a society come to understand that.”
He continued, “I do worry a lot about the learning curve in making sure we don’t mistakenly think the machine is better than it is and certify it to operate in a set of conditions beyond what it actually can do in a safe way.”
“I think it is inevitable that there will be a learning curve in autonomy as well. It’s not a Toyota issue. It’s not any other OEM’s issue. It’s everybody’s issue.”
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Driver or got no driver, Malaysian Toyotas have no VSC, unlike the same car in overseas.
This is how UMW cheats Malaysians
When came into Malaysia, it becomes the most dangerous driverless car.
UMW strip lots of safety off, but throw in some TRD kits
hahahahaha
Driverless + Brakeless
The most popular Proton models Saga and Persona also no vsc, so? With these car, your life and bank account are in danger.
Saga & Persona??u’ll get what u pay. Iriz now has VSC standard for each variant. But people still complain. Dun know what they want.Always seek loophole and expect the quality like a Ferrari.
Driveless cars imo is the biggest waste of time and money. I only fear that this nonsense will end up in our cars in the future making car prices necessarily high.
Well, that is an interesting question really. It will depend on how it was programmed. Some autonomous systems now can even predict what another driver/car might do, before it happens. It’s not just based on reaction to an event, but also involving probability and impact of an event occuring, and making the necessary accident mitigation measures, just in case. This is previously, something only a person’s intuition can perform. The AI out there is amazing and pretty creepy too (The Terminator comes to mind). I just hope the statement “safer than humans”doesn’t end up as as “so why need humans in the first place”.
The days of driving for the sake of enjoyment is slowly coming to an end. BMW even made a self drifting car a few years back. Now anybody can drift like a pro.
This technology was featured in Beyond 2000 some 20 years or so ago in its infancy. Now it is finally hear. The test was on a very highway driven in a developed country where drivers tend to be orderly. I wonder how would this automated driving system fair in Malaysia when you have bike darting in and out on the highways. They should try testing this on the Malaysian Highways :O
And then we deal with the moral and insurance conundrum.
Can a driverless car make the selfless decision to kill you the driver instead of running into some school children at the side of the road?
When a driverless car ends up in a crash, how will the insurance work? Obviously it insures the driver, not the car.
Food for thought?
no, they can be hacked and perform some bad things
I might add, malaysia’s drivers are the most idiotic and selfish in the world.
Kopi-o licence, and semua-boleh-kawtim authorities….made driving in malaysia more dangerous that ever…..
I believe sending ppl to coffin, who trust u bullshit