“But ultimately the operator of the vehicle is responsible for having some degree of situational awareness. When it comes to autonomous cars, it’s a system. It’s a machine. It’s not making decisions. It’s not aware of everything. It’s simply sensing its environment and responding as it has been trained.”
Great article from The New Yorker, but I completely agree with the above statement that Brian Lathrop, a senior engineer for Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Laboratory, made in the story.
I agree NOW… but the promise of the technology is that at some point we could entirely forgo this and really let the car make the decisions. I think that will happen (if it does) first on highways where you don’t have as many issues (kids chasing a ball into the street, etc).
We’ll need that level of autonomous decision making if we want to really realize the promise here. It’s only with that that we’ll see automated trucks, cabs, etc. And it’s not just the commercial aspect that’s compelling. Think about the number of seniors who become less independent and more house bound when they can no longer drive. Now imagine them being able to get into their self-driving car and saying “take me to Joe’s” and not having to worry about making a quick, timely intervention.
The problem is that many companies and software developers have the attitude of shipping the product as soon as possible and issue fixes later. It’s one thing to have your spreadsheet software crash and even to have to reboot your computer, it’s another to have your car control system crash while in operation.
“It’s not making decisions. …It’s simply sensing it’s environment and responding as it has been trained.”
Uh, that kinda sounds like the definition of “making decisions”.
The crash has do with with driver resonbility! I’ve seen many video reviewers not paying attention when using autopilot!