The Shape of Code

The UK Department for Transport: Seeks views on a regulatory framework for the safe testing of self-driving cars on UK roads.

I was driving home one Christmas and saw an obviously drunk man trying to work up the momentum to cross the road. I honked my horn and flashed my lights, he fell backwards into a large puddle on the muddy grass. It is unlikely that a self-driving car would have acted as I did, perhaps the drunk would have stepped out in front of the car when it was too close to brake to a stop before colliding with him.

What should the default behavior of self-driving cars be when somebody steps out in front of them, when breaking while driving in the same direction will result in a collision?

The simplest technical solution is to collide with the pedestrian.

If the road is clear, an improved solution is to include ‘change direction’ to the list of possible actions for the car to take. This could still result in an accident, but one that only damaged the car and not any people.

What if the road is not clear, perhaps there is a large lorry coming towards us and lots of large trees on my side of the road. In this case, I don’t want ‘change direction’ included in the list of possible actions.

What if a couple of school children step in front of my self-driving car and it is not safe for the car to change direction? Does the government require the car software to make a cost/benefit decision about who gets priority in the minimize pain and suffering calculation? I don’t fancy my chances against a couple of school children in that calculation. I can see the government delaying implementation of that feature until self-driving cars become established.

There is a positive benefit to having cars make cost/benefit decisions about life/death/serious injury, it will reduce traffic by encouraging people to share cars (sharing increases the human value of the car contents, making it less likely that they are the ones to suffer).

What about user options. Will I be able to show the car picture of family members and instruct it to give higher priority to them than non-family? The people in the car coming in the opposite direction that I collided with to avoid hitting a family member might be a bit put out that it only happened because I had changed the default collision priorities.

You have until 11:45pm on 19 September 2014 to send the Department for Transport your views.

The government are obviously keen on this idea; they are offering funding “… to towns or cities to develop testing grounds for driverless cars.” Plenty of opportunities for cutting youth unemployment here.