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Last year I suggested that someone will be killed by robot car technology relatively soon, indirectly: a driver would attribute autonomous capabilities to a car before they were truly in place.
Some Tesla drivers seem bent on proving me right sooner rather than later. Technology Review reports that as soon as Tesla upgraded its Model S with assistive driving features called Autopilot,
a number of Tesla drivers immediately took to the road to test the limits of Autopilot—taking their hands fully off the wheel and seeing how far the car could drive itself down highways, country lanes, and suburban streets. That led to dangerous situations and near accidents, as evidenced by videos made by drivers (while driving) and posted to YouTube. In one video, a Model S driver admitted to ignoring warnings until the vehicle automatically swerved over the double-yellow dividing lines toward an oncoming vehicle. “Had I not reacted quickly to jerk the steering wheel in the opposite direction, a devastating head-on collision would have occurred.”
The maker of a car misused in that way may soon find itself in court, beginning to answer the questions of law that people have identified around autonomous vehicles. An analyst has already warned that he thinks
Tesla is being “somewhat cavalier” in not fully acknowledging how the technology might be used. “With new technology, people are going to use it in ways that it wasn’t intended.”
(Image courtesy Nam-ho Park, Flickr)
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