The Autonomous vehicle fleets are fast approaching. With deep learning and AI heuristics the ability of an autonomous vehicle to detect obstacles, navigate hazardous road conditions, eliminate accidents, reduce congestion and all around be awesome within the next decade seems inevitable. In this article we discuss the paradox that in order for society to accept an autonomous vehicle it needs to be rational, however in making these machines rational they become unreliable in the real world.

In order for society to accept an autonomous vehicle it needs to be rational, however in making these machines rational they become unreliable in the real world.

We imagine some situations where making the right decisions is not clear cut and is still well beyond the predictive capability of a rational machine as well as some future scenarios which should give us pause. We should carefully consider these scenarios and many others before allowing such vehicles to exists within our societies. For our purposes we will not consider security as those concerns solved through purely technical standpoint. We are mainly concerned with scenarios where either the disruption of horizontal industries occurs or the philosophical questions that arise from of co-existing with artificial intelligence.

The Innocent Heist

The innocent heist, is a scenario where a thief walks in front of the car and triggering the car to slam on its breaks. Then points a gun at the driver and robs them. The life of the driver and the robber is in the car’s hands, should it try to hit the robber, should it try to protect the robber at the expense of the driver’s safety. What if on the other hand a beggar is walking up to the car to ask for money, will the car have the ability to recognize the difference from this and the other threat? What about a rapist? The ability to exploit an AV safety mechanisms to halt the car can lead to all sorts of nefarious hijackings by those intents on causing the passenger harm.

Without having the ability to understand the intentions of humans, it is dangerous to allow AVs to interact so freely on our streets. The ability to navigate traffic successfully is in truth only a small part of what an AV should be able to do. The main problem with a rational system is that it does not adapt to the sophisticated nature of the real world. We currently take for granted an entire social contract of behavior because we know the driver behind the wheel may behave in any number of irrational ways. But with rational machines, this social contract doesn’t exists and hackers will easily exploit them.

The Lesser of Two Evils

This is your standard philosophical problem, often described as the trolley problem. Here an AV detects an accident is about to occur up ahead It can see that in the back of the car there are children’s passenger seats. It knows it will not be able to stop in time and that it can either smash into the back of the car most likely killing the children in the seats or it can veer to the left, but doing so will hit a person walking down the side of the road. This is a decision that people have struggled with for centuries, with the advent of AV, which are freely interacting in our world, we will have to codify our moral beliefs on these sorts of subjects. Will this be done by the company; will the government legislate morals probabilities? As AI advances and is able to process and predict more and more, new things will become possible that we have never considered, who will be the arbiter of what path to choose?

The Loss of Resistance

As driving in manual mode in a car becomes obsolete, the freedom of transport will largely be controlled through a few corporations. These corporations along with governments will be able to track every person’s movements. A person could be immediately rerouted if there is a warrant for them. How can a population resist If those in power have so much control? As car ownership drops, tax revenue for maintaining roads will also drop. Roads will become privatized. We have already seen scenarios where two companies can’t agree on peering connections for the internet or cable companies not being able to agree on rates. Now imagine this playing out on our country's roadways. Suddenly, it is impossible to get from New York to New Jersey because company A won’t allow company B to use its roadways.

Legal Liability for Accidents Disruption of Car Insurance Markets.

Legal liability for driving will have to fall somewhere. Currently it falls on the driver. AV companies are companies are attempting to avoid dealing with this problem by having a “driver” with their hands on the wheel be “responsible” for the vehicle's operation. How long will this last? At some point cars without steering wheels are going to be introduced. Will a passenger need driver’s insurance at this point? Will the car insurance market disappear? Who will shoulder the burden of car insurance? Millions of jobs will be lost as this insurance marketplace disappears. It will be great for consumers however, as they won’t have to pay hundreds of dollars for car insurance a month.

The Collapse of the Air Industry

The advent of AV will lead to the collapse of air travel industry. As cars travel becomes cheaper, al. la. electric vehicles and hybrids already achieving 600 miles on a 10 gallon tank. If you can hop in the car at night, it turns into a sleep mode and drives you halfway across the country why would the majority of people even consider flying at $600 per person, wait times, TSA etc. Air travel will be relegated mainly to international travel, emergencies, and day trips for business class travelers. Roadways will see a lot more night time traffic as people zip about.

The Delivery and Trucking Industry

This is the industry that is most ripe for disruption and will likely happen first as truckers mostly drive on the interstates which are the easiest system to design. The AV installed in trucks will be a fraction of the cost of a truck and allow the truck to be on the road 24hrs/7days a week. In the short-term truckers will most likely form a union and legislate laws that drivers have to be in trucks. At some point this will become obsolete as AI improves and companies find ways around the laws. At this point the truck driver as an industry will disappear. This will be devastating for a majority of American families as Truck Driving is a great paying jobs for many.

The Golden Cities

I'm not even sure I should include something like this, as I'm not an expert on economics. But as a final musing, lets consider the rise of the golden cities, which have automated humans out of jobs. Our current western societies are based around a capitalist system where the ideal company has zero overhead and 100% profit. In an automated and capitalist society it will be possible to run a company without a single human. Its difficult to imagine what type of economic model will sustain people. Would we end up with beautiful cities that people can't afford to move to, large factories that can produce anything at a rate where the average human simply can't compete for a job. We should be wary of how we introduce AI into our workforce.