Autonomous vehicles of Google draw skepticism at the legal Symposium

What happens if a police officer is to take one of these vehicles on? When it stops at an intersection of four lanes, it would be too polite to turn before aggressive human pilots (or even polite robots)? What kind of insurance would it need?

These and other implications of what Google calls the autonomous vehicles have been debated by technologists in Silicon Valley, lawyers and Government regulatory agencies the week last in an a day Conference sponsored by the review of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University and act.

As Google has demonstrated, computerized systems that replace the human pilots are now largely achievable and could greatly limit human error, which causes more than 33 000 fatalities and 1.2 million injuries that now to occur each year on the roads of the country.

These vehicles also hold the potential for greater energy efficiency and lower emissions – and, more broadly, to restore the rule of the United States in the automotive world.

But questions of legal liability, privacy and insurance regulations have yet to be addressed, and an array of speakers suggested that these challenges could pose more problems than technological.

Today major motor manufacturers have already deployed advanced security systems based on the sensor that help and in some cases correct the actions of the pilot. But the Google project goes much further, turning passenger human drivers and coexistence with conventional vehicles driven by people.

Last month, Sebastian Thrun, Director of the program of autonomous vehicle of Google research, wrote that the project had reached 200,000 miles of accident-free driving, while the cars were under the control of the computer.

Over the past two years, Google and motor manufacturers have been lobbying for legislative changes to permit autonomous vehicles on the roads of the country.

Nevada became the first State to legalize vehicles without driver last year, and similar legislation now have been introduced before the legislatures in Florida and Hawaii. Several participants in the Santa Clara event was that a similar Bill would be introduced soon in California.

Even simple issues such as the question of whether the police should have the right to take on autonomous vehicles, have yet to respond, said Frank Douma, researcher at the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.

"It is a problem of seizure of the fourth amendment of the 21st century," he said.

The Federal Government not sufficient information to determine the way the technologies without driver, said o. Kevin Vincent, Chief Advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But he added:

"We believe that this is a frightening concept for the public." If you have two tons of steel going down the highway at 60 miles per hour a few feet from two tons of steel in the exact opposite direction at 60 miles an hour, the public is fully aware of what happens during the collision of these two hunks of metal and they are within one of these hunks of metal. They should be petrified of this concept. »

And despite the success of Google, is technological obstacles. Trivial tasks for human drivers - how to recognize an officer or security worker of which a driver to move forward in a different direction - expect a breakthrough in artificial intelligence is not coming soon.

In addition, even after Smart cars are of human capabilities, important questions remain, suggested Sven a. Beiker, Director Executive of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University. Today, human drivers often bend the rules by rolling through panels of judgment and flying over speed limits, he noted. How a polite and law-abiding robot vehicle would fare against the competition?

"Everyone could be bending the rules a little bit," he said. "This is what the researchers say - because the car is so polished can be seated at an intersection of four-lane forever, because no one comes to a stop."

Because of the range of challenges, Dr. Beiker said that it was suspicious to predict when the autonomous vehicles could arrive.

"Twenty years we have completely autonomous vehicles," he said, "perhaps on limited routes."

Issues of legal liability and insurance are also unknown territory.

Contingent liabilities will be huge for designers and manufacturers of autonomous vehicles, said Gary e. Marchant, Director of the Center for law, Science and Innovation at the Faculty of law at Arizona State University.

He asked "why even put you money in development?". " "I see this as a huge barrier to this technology unless there are certain ways of policy around it" - Although it has been noted that there is previous congresses adopt such policies.

For example, the exemptions from liability have been mandated for vaccines, which are supposed to offer high value for the health of the population, despite some risks.

There will also be unpredictable technological risks, several participants said. For example, future autonomous vehicles will largely rely on global positioning satellite data and other systems, which are vulnerable to interference by malicious hackers.

Although they did not all discussions of group, several Google engineers and employees attended the event. The company refused to discuss what he may be planning to do with autonomous vehicle research and several participants have said privately that they did not believe that the planned business become a supplier of autonomous navigation for the automotive industry.

Several people with knowledge of the plans of the company said that Google lobbying for laws to allow the autonomous conduct indicated that he hoped to introduce these vehicles coming soon - vans for delivery without driver or taxis as early as 2013 or 2014.

Several participants suggested that in addition to conduct autonomous technological and legal challenges could use a more user-friendly name. Some called the definition itself in question.

"It will be really an autonomous vehicle," said Brad Templeton, a designer of software and a consultant for the Google project, "until your audience to drive to work and leads to the beach instead."

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