Michigan may soon allow self-driving cars on the road

[FrodosPet]

Source: WDIV Local 4 Detroit

By CHRIS ISIDORE
Posted: 9:34 AM, August 27, 2016
Updated: 9:48 AM, August 27, 2016

~ snip ~

Now a bill in Michigan proposes to allow these cars to hit the road without a human at the wheel. The legislation is being proposed as an economic development measure to keep and attract research and development jobs in the state. The state Senate's economic development committee will hold a hearing on the bill on Wednesday, and its sponsor says it has bipartisan support that should make passage fairly easy.

"I want to make sure we plant the flag here and we maintain the lead in terms of automotive research and development," said Mike Kowall, the Republican state senator who introduced the measure.

Kowall said the bill would allow the self-driving cars on any roads in the state, including interstates and U.S. highways. He said there's no federal law prohibiting the cars, but that right now every state requires a car to have a driver.

The Michigan law even specifies who is on the hook if a self-driving car has an accident -- according to Kowall, the liability will rest with the automaker and its suppliers.

~ snip ~

Read more: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan-may-soon-allow-selfdriving-cars-on-the-road

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Ready or not, here they come!

[montana_hazeleyes]

1. I don't know what to think about all this.

But who ya gonna honk at if one cuts you off or something.

[FrodosPet]

3. 200-300 miles a night in some of SE Michigan's worse snows!

I rolled the New Year's Eve 2007-2008 snowstorm hard: 18 hours of white knuckles. Super Bowl storm last year - I surrendered at 10:00 pm (11 hours). And plenty of others as well.

This is going to be interesting (and a bit tragic for the people who will end up dying in situations where most humans driving would have been safe).

[Fred Drum]

21. are you saying the average moron would drive better

and "most humans"

did you type those words

[bucolic_frolic]

5. They simply don't understand Americans

it will be a badge of honor to challenge, test, play chicken with these robotic cars

even more so to have an accident with one.

I still think it's one of the dumbest ideas ever.

People will slow down to 35mph just to have a look-see

[tazkcmo]

6. You said it.

Driverless cars will be like a red cape to a bull for some drivers. An open challenge to mess with them.

[7962]

9. Imagine the lawsuits if one is at fault in a wreck. Imagine one being hacked,

or several in the same area being hacked. And you KNOW damn well someone will do it
i see nothing but trouble

[MADem]

14. The automaker is on the hook in this proposal.

I think they aren't planning on using them commercially (yet).

I think this is more in the way of testing on public roads.

I know they are talking about doing convoys of trucks with just one driver leading three, four or five trucks along the highway.

[Fred Drum]

22. please, fuck with an autonomous car

they do record thier motions

most people say, "i was driving good"

prove it

[LanternWaste]

32. No doubt, the same was said by hose and buggy drivers of Ransom E. Olds and Thomas B. Jeffery

No doubt, the same was said by hose and buggy drivers of Ransom E. Olds and Thomas B. Jeffery as the two began mass production of their automobiles. Most certainly, they also though it was the "dumbest ideas ever..."

[bucolic_frolic]

33. Transposing time periods and technologies

really is one of the dumbest ideas ever.

[madville]

7. They'll eventually be much safer statistically than human driven cars

If they aren't already, we'll see what the studies say. With half the idiots on the road either texting or drunk, it may be something to look forward to.

[Igel]

25. For a while the studies will be useless.

Take the pot studies. It looks at adults. Alone. With blood THC levels at relatively high levels and no blood alcohol. In cities. Not at rush hour. And basically just says that they drive more cautiously, i.e., more slowly.

Therefore they're safer.

THC has serious effects well below the levels studied, for more than 24 hours. The studies don't look at what happens as a result of those cars driving more slowly. Driver X goes slow, Driver Y cuts around him and gets in an accident, and Driver X is not responsible at all for the problem. Cities, no ditches. And, of course, most pot users drive around alone, sober, not at rush hour and know they're being monitored. The condtions of the study make the conclusions non-generalizable to the real world, which is often the problem with such studies.

Right now we have predictions based upon what the technology is likely to be and how other drivers interact with them, looking basically just at the safety of either the isolated driverless car or scenarios in which the road is filled with driverless cars. As in often the case, in the rush to get what we want we forget that people are people and they have to be taken into account first, not last, and when a democracy has a small number of people telling the majority how they have to act and revise their thinking it's no longer a democracy. I know some Democrats like that, but I insist on the capital because they're simply not democrats to my way of thinking. It was the same sort of naming with things like the German Democratic Republic.

[longship]

8. Right! That won't work where I live.

First, no paved roads. No shoulders on the paved roads that exist. In other words, no out if it goes wrong.

Second, lots of snow in winter. And the snow drifts can be a bitch.

There will never be self-driving cars here in rural Michigan.

And driverless cars in Detroit? Has anybody in Lansing ever driven in Detroit? Have they ever even visited Detroit?

[msongs]

10. great news! nobody will have to get drivers licenseses anymore. if one class does not need them

then no class needs them. voila! massive cuts to the bloated state drivers license rackets

[jessewalkeratpdx]

11. Some central issues?

An automated vehicle is essentially a collection of computers controlling a set of sensors and actuators. As such our model of computation requires us to think about it as a Turing machine. Rice's Theorem guarantees that this system will always harbor yet another formally undecidable predicate (aka "bug&quot -- the rules of logic and the system specification together are too weak to reason about all possible behaviors of the vehicle in all possible settings -- and hence we literally cannot reason about what the vehicle will do in every circumstance. This is no different than a smart phone or a PC, but our inability to understand the full range of behavior of an automated vehicle a priori can lead to the unintended damage or destruction of property, injury, and even death, something unimaginable for a PC.

To me, therefore, it seems that the central issues raised by this technology are (a) what level of property damage and destruction, injury, and death are we as a society willing to pay to enjoy its benefits, (b) how will victims of this technology run amok be compensated, and (c) who will assume the liability for the unintended consequences? My major concern about this kind of technology is a consensus building dialogue regarding these questions is not taking place before the technology is deployed.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. To err is human. Human drivers have bugs: perceptual, cognitive, ethical, bacterial, viral, ... nt

[MADem]

13. In the near term, though, you'll still have to "drive" your self-driving car.

It's not like you can crawl in the back seat and have a nap.

The operator will still be in charge of the vehicle.

Eventually, the bugs will be worked out, but we're not there yet. Rainstorms, snowstorms, fog, etc. can all interfere with the efficacy of these things. That said, thus far, anyway, they have a better driving record than humans.

Big picture, I think they're wonderful. I don't look forward to the day when I will be happy to have one rather than drive myself, but I would have loved to have this technology available for my grandmother and great grandmother, who, years ago, were always dependent on the good offices of others to do their shopping and errands and doctor's appointments--it would have given them so much more autonomy and freedom in their later years.

[Fred Drum]

17. i can crawl

google...take me home

[jessewalkeratpdx]

27. Perhaps I was unclear

Let me say I am not against autonomous vehicles; based on the available empirical evidence, they will probably lower accident rates significantly and and improve our lives in major ways. No; I am after something else.

My first point is rather that, at least in computing, we have well developed models for reasoning about both the opportunities and limitations of the technology, and we have to accept both to maximize the benefits and minimize the problems that can stem from its adoption. This theory informs us there will always be unanticipated behavior in all sufficiently complex systems -- this is inherent in the complexity of these systems, and not just due to sloth or inattention or inexperience or negligence or whatever. Airplanes still crash; trains still derail; nuclear power plants still experience meltdowns, even with the most careful considerations and procedures in place.

My second point is this implies that there will always be some risk of harm to the human beings using a new technology, and so our society needs a discussion to reach a consensus about the cost-versus-benefits trade-offs around this technology. We have obviously reached something of a consensus for human driven vehicles, as we accept 30,000+ deaths each year from automobile, as well as much higher injury numbers and huge dollar amounts in property destruction, to reap the benefits this form of mobility gives us.

As an example, when vehicles do become fully autonomous, then it seems unlikely that passengers can be responsible for the accidents that inevitably will occur. So does this mean owners of these vehicles don't need collision insurance -- any liability falls upon the manufacturer? Most of us would probably like this, but what about for a situation which no one could reasonably anticipate? So maybe this technology won't be economically viable unless liability is spread around the ecosystem more broadly? We can anticipate that manufacturers are likely to prefer a model based around shedding liability for collisions to the wider ecosystem, and will squeal like greased pigs unless they get their way.

As a second example we can expect that firmware running in these futuristic vehicles will be vulnerable to malware (firmware in existing vehicles already suffer from this issue), as the engineering approach being adopted across the automotive industry is closer to that used in the commercial software development than avionics. If we want to lessen the malware threat then we probably need the automotive industry to change its basic engineering approach, but this will lead to higher costs. Would we accept higher costs to reduce the risk of ransomware interrupting our cross-country trip to demand 100 Bitcoins or face death? Probably. But how much additional cost are we willing to accept to substantially reduce malware attacks against our vehicle?

In our culture we tend to think about innovation from either a Utopian or a Luddite perspective. Manufacturers usually embrace the Utopian position, to maximize their markets, while the Luddites tend to react against social injustices arising from technology whose advocates failed to give even cursory consideration to the broader implications. I hope we can avoid both extremes.

[MADem]

29. I rather think everything you've mentioned is why this law is desired, you see.

Those American automakers, who are traditionally based in Michigan, are doing their research on this technology--I'm glad they're "in the game" because the more people trying to make this work, the better.

The wonderful (!) thing about that state is that it gets more than its fair share of shitty weather, and thus, is the perfect test bed to work out the kinks in these machines, be it weather foul or fair.

The purpose of the law is specifically to aid research--I should imagine they'll be including hacking in their bag of tricks as they roll these things out on the road and see how it goes.

[bananas]

35. Welcome to DU! There are very few here who understand theory of computation and it's relevance.

Those were well-written posts, hope you contribute more.

[FrodosPet]

37. This is definitely one of the best posts I have seen on the subject

Thank you for your input.

[Helen Borg]

15. Sure, let's test them there.

Fine by me.

[Fred Drum]

16. WHAT .. humans are allowed to drive

how fucked up is that

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. We already have them in Michigan.

We have cars that "drive themselves"' while I nod off into micro-naps, while I read and reply to very important (ha!) texts, while I change into my plaid golf trousers, while I read the morning newspaper.

The new self-driving cars should be no more dangerous.

I hope they're "perfected" before I get too old to drive myself. They'll offer a degree of freedom to geezers such as myself.

[Fred Drum]

19. you're already too old

NT

[Enrique]

20. "right now every state requires a law to have a driver"

I'm surprised states felt the need to pass such laws. Were they passed looking ahead to a time when there would be driverless cars?

[MADem]

30. This law is for automaker research.

I wouldn't be surprised if, near term, these driverless cars have cars with drivers following them around.

[MrScorpio]

24. Well, that's going to freak out the wife, for sure nt

I can hardly wait.

[olddad56]

26. It is Michican, what could possibly go wrong.

[LiberalLovinLug]

28. What could possibly go wrong?

[former9thward]

31. Said the makers of horse carriages in 1905.

[LiberalLovinLug]

34. Touche

But tell that to Mr. Pickwick!

[MowCowWhoHow III]

36. The Simple Solution to Traffic