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Comment by pfortuny | Hacker News Reader

You are not taking into account the risk of trouble (non-negligible)... Driving includes solving problems like lack of oil, crashes, etc...

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Crashes don't matter very much, since a human vs a machine isn't going to change anything in that regard. Let's assume lack of oil implies mechanical issues (since... you know, fill it with oil before it leaves). In that case it's vastly cheaper to dispatch a mechanic when a problem arises then it is to have a fleet of drivers sitting in a vehicle.

Crashes in the sense of having to deal with the other driver, insurance, police, moving the vehicle away from the road... Those things that are easy for a human to do.

Robberies should be question #1.

An autonomous vehicle can be designed not to be hijacked.

Simply remove all user controls, or lock them unless an authorized user is sitting in the seat.

If the vehicle stops for an 'emergency' reason, notify someone in central command immediately. At that point they can monitor the situation.

If the vehicle is stopped under an emergency, and notices that its door panels are being broken into, then it can notify central command so they can call the police.

All the while, it's recording from every angle possible.

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On the other hand, regular trucks have a driver who has to leave the vehicle to take care of human business and can be kidnapped or threatened into any number of actions that'd help a robber complete their work.

Except for "remove all user controls", those are all things that can be done on a non-autonomous truck.

Seems like an autonomous truck should be harder to rob than a normal one. If you want to hijack a normal truck you just wave a gun at the driver, kick him out, and take the wheel. An autonomous truck won't feel threatened by a gun and may not even have any human-operable controls.

But you can crash it without worrying about adding a capital offence to your criminal record.

Obviously the solution is to teach AIs how to use guns.

(Do military drones already have this? Could trucking companies legally send in armed security drones when they detect a robbery in process?)

I doubt armed security can legally do anything beyond defending themselves as it is, let alone sending drones.

I guess they'll just wire the truck to alert police and turn on lots of cameras. Police might respond quickly... at least until the number of false alarms (truck hits a hole a bit too heavy, alarm goes "ROBBERY!!!11!") stays low enough.

New NRA tagline:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good AI with a gun

Careful dude, Michael Bay might hear you.

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