Germany adopts first ethics standards for autonomous driving systems

In the 1960’s and 1970’s there were many efforts to professionalize software development and bring it line with other engineering practices. This would include things like license boards, a code of ethics, etc. Obviously at first blush this sounds ridiculous, but like Wikipedia it seems to not work in theory but when it comes to the real world work just fine (as the other engineering disciplines have shown). This is actually where the term “software engineer” dates from, it was partly a marketing &#x2F; professionalization attempt.<p>One thing this would lead to (could be good or bad) is people being “stripped” of their license to practice software engineering. After the 1981 Hyatt Regency disaster in Kansas City, where over 200 people were killed, this is exactly what happened to the engineers involved in building the walkway. They forgot the software equivalent of a line-ending semicolon when they eliminated a single-support bolt for the catwalk accidentally during design review. It collapsed during a holiday party, killing those above and those below. Perhaps as we start seeing more “building computers”, sometimes called “architectural robotics” (a super fascinating subject if you have a chance to look it up, there are already prototypes out there), a software engineer causing a similar amount of destruction might not be so farfetched.

“While vehicles may react autonomously in the event of emergency situations, humans shall regain control during more morally ambiguous events.”<p>That’s not going to end well. As we saw in the AZ crash, when there’s a situation at hand, it’s hard to transition the attention properly quickly over to a human who has been not paying attention because while the car was handling everything just fine. It’s unrealistic to think that’s possible in anything less than at least 10 seconds.

In the US regulation is reactive, but you can sue for damages. In the EU regulation tries to be proactive, but it is much harder to sue for damages.<p>So from the perspective of a startup trying to get in this market, this sort of environment might prove superior, because your business risk is much reduced. You know what sort of standards you must follow and as long as you follow those standards you do not have to worry about being blamed for negligent murder by the family of every accident victim.

best part: &quot;Drivers retain sole ownership over whether or not their vehicle data is forwarded or used by third parties.&quot;<p>I like it how it shows that data your device generates is your data, and only yours. It&#x27;s like stating the obvious.

I like these, but I think that this one is too evasive: &quot;In any driving situation, the party responsible, whether human or computer, must be clearly regulated and apparent.&quot; In reality, who is responsible for what is going to be the main problem that is faced on a day to day basis, and not attempting to define exactly how that works takes a lot of meaning out the standard. Other than that, it&#x27;s largely stating what I would think most people would have assumed anyway. Which is a good thing and I&#x27;m glad they are doing it.

This actually happened in August 2017 (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bmvi.de&#x2F;SharedDocs&#x2F;EN&#x2F;PressRelease&#x2F;2017&#x2F;128-dobrindt-federal-government-action-plan-automated-driving.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bmvi.de&#x2F;SharedDocs&#x2F;EN&#x2F;PressRelease&#x2F;2017&#x2F;128-dobri...</a>).<p>I&#x27;m curious how this blog post by HERE (9 months later) differs from the earlier official statements.

I swore I was going to try to <i>not</i> post on HN today (it&#x27;s Mother&#x27;s Day), and this is a little off-topic, a little.<p>I was watching car accident videos on youtube yesterday (I got sucked in and couldn&#x27;t look away. I lost two hours.)<p>Almost all of them were due to someone doing something obviously stupid or wrong: turning without checking for oncoming traffic; passing unsafely; over-correcting and then losing control; mis-judging clearance with stationary obstacles; tailgating; etc...<p>It occurred to me, what if we program the robot cars (and can we <i>please</i> call them <i>&quot;auto-autos&quot;</i>!?) just so that they won&#x27;t engage in dangerous behaviour? The basic idea is, if the way is not clear, slow down.<p>What I mean is, it may just be Too Hard to make a robot drive a car like a car; but it should be already possible to make a <i>safety</i> vehicle that prevents human error.

&gt; Autonomous driving systems become an ethical imperative if the systems cause fewer accidents than human drivers.<p>This makes a certain kind of sense if viewed totally in a vacuum, apart from any other considerations. But life is not all about the car. Is human choice unimportant? What about freedom to travel where I want and when I want? Is curtailment of those and other freedoms to be sacrificed based on statistics? Whose statistics? How will these statistics be gathered? Who will interpret them? Through what lens?<p>This sounds like the kind of reasoning that made it illegal in many jurisdictions to let your kids play outside on their own.

This reminds me of I, Robot:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Three_Laws_of_Robotics" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Three_Laws_of_Robotics</a>

I want this rule: software updates, however small, shall not be installed without X hours of testing by a government institution.

Will Germany be applying the same enforcement to these standards that they applied to VW and emissions?

I wonder what the solution to a trolley problem would be for autonomous vehicles. Would a trolley problem situation exist if all cars are autonomous?