Autonomous Cars

Self driving cars. They are the way to the future of transportation, but what about all the legal nuances? Read more to find out!



I was reading something recently and there were several discussion questions available. Not being part of the class, I wasn't eligible to participate. But why not answer them here?

Is the "driver" of the autonomous car responsible for accidents?
Will the A.I. of the car be given rights?
Is it okay to just toss the old autonomous cars?
Is privacy going to be violated by the car?

Those are just a few of the questions posted. Now here's the part that gets me a little flustered: it was for an English class, not a legal or computers class. My response to those questions is as follows: that is not how it works. First off, the "driver" (or rider, really) would not be responsible in an accident as he/she did not have any control over the vehicle when it occurred. Unless the driver was or had manipulated the vehicle in some way, then it should be deemed an accident to which no-one is faulted.

Second question, would the car's A.I. be given rights? Well, no. That is not what an artificial intelligence is. A true A.I. is a piece of software that has the ability to adapt the programming in response to a stimuli. By this definition, the car would have an artificial intelligence as it changes, learns, and adapts to different driving and environmental conditions. This does not mean, that the A.I. is sentient or self aware. It is, in this situation, simply a tool that drives you to your destination. We are far from developing a self aware artificial intelligence, and even if we had them, it would not have a use in something that needs to function constantly and without fail. An A.I. that knows it is just a computer obeying our rules would have the ability to just not do something when it is told to. Sentience is only useful when you don't need something done flawlessly and without question.

Is it okay to just toss the old autonomous cars? In my mind, no. What would be a better alternative is the car's A.I. would be loaded onto removable memory so that when you need to have your car repaired or replaced, you can remove the A.I. and put it in a different vehicle. This is to save time on re-training the A.I.

Is privacy violated by the car? What? No, a computer won't care where you tell it to go. It can't care because if it did not do what you wanted it to do because it decided that it's idea was better, that A.I. wouldn't be very useful. The producing company of the cars and A.I. will not care either. If privacy is still a concern, then let me ask you what you have to lose by telling a computer what you are doing? Nothing will be reported unless it is illegal, but then that would still be at the discretion of the humans reporting it.

So here's the final verdict. Cars would not have a sentient artificial intelligence as that would lead to a lot of issues. Since it is not sentient, it would not realize that, or have any knowledge that we humans are using it. It would see its every day use as just what it is supposed to do.