The UK tech firm Oxbotica announced that by the summer of 2020, a fleet of autonomous driving taxi’s will be driving through London (The Guardian, 2019). This means that people can be picked up by a car and dropped at the destination point, without a physical driver being involved. The development of these autonomous cars, as you can imagine, has cost a lot of research, time and money. The security of these cars are of utmost importance. There are a few issues that arise with the security of the cars.

1. Even though autonomous cars have a far lower accident rate than person-driver cars, it is still possible that they cause fatal accidents. The question that then arises is, who is responsible? The owner of the car, because they could have intervened as most autonomous cars will still have steering wheels? Or the manufacturers / developer of the vehicle? According to Scientific American (2016), it will be the manufacturers of the vehicle. With the trend of autonomous vehicle, there will be a shift in accident liability, from the driver to the manufacturer. While the liability lays at the manufacturers, they will only deploy cars of which they are 100% sure that there will be no errors, making the self-driving cars even more safe on the road.
2. Ethical issues. The software of autonomous cars that are implemented with artificial intelligence are very complex. They are also very crucial and life changing. When a car is in a situation where it must kill 1 of 2 pedestrians by accident, it must assess and determine which pedestrian to kill. If there for instance is a high-official, in opposition of a young 10-year old girl, what should be programmed in the car? This remains a very difficult issue. A survey has been conducted over the whole world about moral code. It turns out that in different area’s of the world, different ‘types of people’ are preferred to save above other ‘different’ types of people. That suggests that it might be safer for young 10-year old girls to walk on the street in some countries, than in other countries. (Nature, 2018)

As you can imagine, a lot of issues can arise due to the deployment of autonomous cars. What kind of issues do you think will be the toughest to solve?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchturck/2018/07/09/how-much-safer-should-self-driving-cars-be-try-0/#3afd07581a84

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07135-0

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/03/driverless-cars-in-new-london-trial-in-complex-urban-environment

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-s-responsible-when-a-self-driving-car-crashes/

Many accidents happen because of car drivers being distracted by their phone. When a driver is manually calling, he is 2 times as likely to be involved in a car accident. When a driver is sending messages while driving, he is 6 times as likely to be involved in a car accident.

Even though these shocking numbers are widely known to the public, ‘using the phone while driving’ is still a frequent occurring problem in traffic. For instance, 75.000 people per year do get caught using their phone while driving. Also, 11% of Dutch employers permit that employees send and read message while driving.

The Dutch Law Enforcement has decided to actively enforce the law against phone usage while driving. The Dutch Police Corps will use cameras that can determine if a car driver is manually using its mobile phone. The cameras will be infrared that can also be used at night. The underlying system is based on Machine Learning (ML). The system has learned to recognize people using their phone, by learning from image’s of phone and non-phone car drivers. Through this method, the system is able to distinguish a phone from other objects in the hand of the driver. When the camera detects a phone using driver, it will make a photo of the driver and the license plate of the car and send that image to a police station. A police officer will check the validity of the ‘evidence’, and when there is indeed a violation, the driver will get a fine.

The AI-based camera of the police will improve the traffic security significantly, as people will be less likely to use their phone during driving. It is interesting to see how the police slowly implements Artificial Intelligence into day-to-day operations. In January (2019), the police have opened a department focused on researching possible Artificial Intelligence applications within the police. The potential of Artificial Intelligence within de Law Enforcement is promising. How do you think that A.I. can be useful for the police?

Nationaal Politielab Artificial Intelligence (AI) geopend

https://nos.nl/artikel/2250136-campagne-gestart-tegen-appen-in-het-verkeer.html

https://www.agconnect.nl/artikel/ai-cameras-moeten-automobilisten-met-telefoon-hand-beboeten\

https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2019/september/30/00-inzet-slimme-cameras-tegen-afleiding-in-het-verkeer.html

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/157980/politie-zet-ai-cameras-in-om-automobilisten-met-telefoon-in-hand-te-beboeten.html

https://vvn.nl/hoe-smartphone-aware-zijn-nederlandse-bedrijven