> passengers on the smart bus complained that it was not intelligent enough to move out of harm’s way as the truck slowly approached
Didn't someone point out in the thread for that, that backing up would've technically been breaking the law?
Didn't someone point out in the thread for that, that backing up would've technically been breaking the law?
It's weird if you think about it, but from a logical standpoint, whether or not you broke the law is often undefined.
For example, what if a light breaks right in front of you and is now stuck on red?
Self driving sensors are better than eyes, but it is possible for there to be a situation where the car can’t know if it is safe. This probably has been thought about more by the designers than by all armchair critics combined, of course, but even if not then the law is the lowest common denominator of backside-covering.
But yes, engineers probably have thought about this, but there’s an infinite amount of stuff that could happen which is impossible to control for. What about falling trees across the road? Dirt roads that’s way behind on maintanance that would require you to drive off road a bit?
I’m not saying I believe AIs can’t handle this, but they would need room for improvisation to do it. When an entirely new situation occurs humans make decisions, argue in court, and then the ruling becomes precedent.
I remember a few years ago we were arguing about the fact that it's not a good idea to have a society where 100% of the people are punished for breaking the law 100% of the time, because then you can't have any progress. Who's to say the version of American society today is the the pinnacle of a modern society and that no law should ever change?
However, for change to occur, some people first need to break the law, and begin to make that new thing a culturally accepted thing before there's a strong enough movement to support a law change.
But if the AI automatically sees your first instance of breaking the law and then automatically punishes you for it, how is that change ever going to come about?
These things won't just "work themselves out" if by that you mean anything but people viciously fighting for their rights against an AI-totalitarian state over the next few decades. Just like AI today can sometimes make a mistake of seeing a helicopter instead of rifles, we'll need to keep "updating" the AI along the way to include these rights, and hopefully before too many people have to suffer in the process. Hopefully that process will be much shorter than the time it takes today from a law being passed by Congress to being shut down by the Supreme Court when found inadequate.
If you want a future-proof law, you should start from first principles and not use a path-dependent current laws, where selling alcohol is ok, but selling heroin is a crime.