[SystemSafety] Nature article on driverless cars

[Peter Bishop]

On 16/04/2018 12:35, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:
> The authors of the Nature opinion are advocating human supervisory
> control (in their title, as you point out) but not addressing any of
> the known and unsolved issues with it. It is open to an AV-advocate
> to argue that "people ... retain[ing] control" brings you such
> problems and it leads to a worse solution than full AV without
> supervisory control. (Again, I am not advocating this point of view.
> I am merely expressing it so it can be debated.)
> 
> PBL

Maybe the Nature authors should have concluded that drivers should
always drive, and automation should only warn, and possibly take a
safety action like applying the brake if the driver takes no notice.

With luck this might improve on the current human safety record. For
example, there have been multiple fatal instances of drivers looking a
mobile phones and running into vehicles that have stopped. Relatively
simple automation could be put in address it.

I would argue that if we are serious about safety we should start at the
other end by looking at where automation would reduce accidents most and
address these scenarios first.

-- 

Peter Bishop
Chief Scientist
Adelard LLP
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