Global Economic Intersection
Advertisement
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Investments
    • Invest in Amazon $250
  • Cryptocurrency
    • Best Bitcoin Accounts
    • Bitcoin Robot
      • Quantum AI
      • Bitcoin Era
      • Bitcoin Aussie System
      • Bitcoin Profit
      • Bitcoin Code
      • eKrona Cryptocurrency
      • Bitcoin Up
      • Bitcoin Prime
      • Yuan Pay Group
      • Immediate Profit
      • BitQH
      • Bitcoin Loophole
      • Crypto Boom
      • Bitcoin Treasure
      • Bitcoin Lucro
      • Bitcoin System
      • Oil Profit
      • The News Spy
      • Bitcoin Buyer
      • Bitcoin Inform
      • Immediate Edge
      • Bitcoin Evolution
      • Cryptohopper
      • Ethereum Trader
      • BitQL
      • Quantum Code
      • Bitcoin Revolution
      • British Trade Platform
      • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Reddit
    • Celebrities
      • Dr. Chris Brown Bitcoin
      • Teeka Tiwari Bitcoin
      • Russell Brand Bitcoin
      • Holly Willoughby Bitcoin
No Result
View All Result
Global Economic Intersection
No Result
View All Result

The Moral Case for Self-Driving Cars

admin by admin
August 20, 2014
in Uncategorized
0
0
SHARES
0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

by Ronald Bailey, Daily Reckoning

Tesla, Nissan, Google, and several carmakers have declared that they will have commercial self-driving cars on the highways before the end of this decade. Experts at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers predict that 75% of cars will be self-driving by 2040. So far California, Nevada, Florida, Michigan, and the District of Columbia have passed laws explicitly legalizing self-driving vehicles, and many other states are looking to do so.

The coming era of autonomous autos raises concerns about legal liability and safety, but there are good reasons to believe that robot cars may exceed human drivers when it comes to practical and even ethical decision making.

More than 90% of all traffic accidents are the result of human error. In 2011, there were 5.3 million automobile crashes in the United States, resulting in more than 2.2 million injuries and 32,000 deaths. Americans spend $230 billion annually to cover the costs of accidents, accounting for approximately 2 to 3% of GDP.

Proponents of autonomous cars argue that they will be much safer than vehicles driven by distracted and error-prone humans. The longest-running safety tests have been conducted by Google, whose autonomous vehicles have traveled more than 700,000 miles so far with only one accident (when a human driver rear-ended the car). So far, so good.

Stanford University law professor Bryant Walker Smith, however, correctly observes that there are no engineered systems that are perfectly safe. Smith has roughly calculated that:

“Google’s cars would need to drive themselves more than 725,000 representative miles without incident for us to say with 99% confidence that they crash less frequently than conventional cars.”

Given expected improvements in sensor technologies, algorithms, and computation, it seems likely that this safety benchmark will soon be met.

Still, all systems fail eventually. So who will be liable when a robot car – howsoever rarely – crashes into someone?

An April 2014 report from the good-government think tank the Brookings Institution argues that the current liability system can handle the vast majority of claims that might arise from damages caused by self-driving cars.

“Once the superior safety of driverless cars is established, they will dramatically change the shape of cities and the ways in which people live and work.”

A similar April 2014 report from the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) largely agrees, “Products liability is an area that may be able to sufficiently evolve through common law without statutory or administrative intervention.”

A January 2014 RAND Corporation study suggests that one way to handle legal responsibility for accidents might be to extend a no-fault liability system, in which victims recover damages from their own auto insurers after a crash. Another RAND idea would be to legally establish an irrebuttable presumption of owner control over the autonomous vehicle.

Legislation could require that:

“A single person be responsible for the control of the vehicle. This person could delegate that responsibility to the car, but would still be presumed to be in control of the vehicle in the case of a crash.”

This would essentially leave the current liability system in place. To the extent that liability must be determined in some cases, the fact that self-driving cars will be embedded with all sorts of sensors, including cameras and radar, will provide a pretty comprehensive record of what happened during a crash.

Should we expect robot cars to be more ethical than human drivers? In a fascinating March 2014 Transportation Research Record study, Virginia Tech researcher Noah Goodall wonders about “Ethical Decision Making During Automated Vehicle Crashes.“

Goodall observes that engineers will necessarily install software in automated vehicles enabling them to “predict various crash trajectory alternatives and select a path with the lowest damage or likelihood of collision.“

To illustrate the challenge, Stanford’s Smith considers a case in which you are driving on a narrow mountain road between two big trucks. “Suddenly, the brakes on the truck behind you fail, and it rapidly gains speed,” he imagines.

“If you stay in your lane, you will be crushed between the trucks. If you veer to the right, you will go off a cliff. If you veer to the left, you will strike a motorcyclist. What do you do? In short, who dies?”

Fortunately such fraught situations are rare. Although it may not be the moral thing to do, most drivers will react in ways that they hope will protect themselves and their passengers. So as a first approximation, autonomous vehicles should be programmed to choose actions that aim to protect their occupants.

Once the superior safety of driverless cars is established, they will dramatically change the shape of cities and the ways in which people live and work.

Roadway engineers estimate that typical highways now accommodate a maximum throughput of 2,200 human-driven vehicles per lane per hour, utilizing only about 5% of roadway capacity. Because self-driving cars would be safer and could thus drive closer and faster, switching to mostly self-driving cars would dramatically increase roadway throughput.

One estimate by the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research in November 2013 predicts that a 50% autonomous road fleet would boost highway capacity by 22%; an 80% robot fleet will goose capacity 50%, and a fully automated highway would see its throughput zoom by 80%.


What is the Income Play Rich Investors Love? (Hint: It’s Tax-Free)


Autonomous vehicles would also likely shift the way people think about car ownership. Currently most automobiles are idle most of the day in driveways or parking lots as their owners go about their lives. Truly autonomous vehicles make it possible for vehicles to be on the road much more of the time, essentially providing taxi service to users who summon them to their locations via mobile devices.

Once riders are done with the cars, the vehicles can be dismissed to serve other patrons. Self-driving cars will also increase the mobility of the disabled, elderly, and those too young to drive.

Researchers at the University of Texas, devising a realistic simulation of vehicle usage in cities that takes into account issues such as congestion and rush hour patterns, found that if all cars were driverless each shared autonomous vehicle could replace 11 conventional cars. In their simulations, riders waited an average of 18 seconds for a driverless vehicle to show up, and each vehicle served 31 to 41 travelers per day. Less than one half of one percent of travelers waited more than five minutes for a ride.

By one estimate in a 2013 study from Columbia University’s Earth Institute, shared autonomous vehicles would cut an individual’s average cost of travel by as much as 75% compared to now. There are some 600 million parking spaces in American cities, occupying about 10% of urban land.

In addition, 30% of city congestion originates from drivers seeking parking spaces close to their destinations. A fleet of shared driverless cars would free up lots of valuable urban land while at the same time reducing congestion on city streets. During low demand periods, vehicles would go to central locations for refueling and cleaning.

Since driving will be cheaper and more convenient, demand for travel will surely increase. People who can work while they commute might be willing to live even farther out from city centers.

But more vehicle miles traveled would not necessarily translate into more fuel burned. For example, safer autonomous vehicles could be built much lighter than conventional vehicles and thus consume less fuel. Smoother acceleration and deceleration would reduce fuel consumption by up to 10%.

Optimized autonomous vehicles could cut both the fuel used and pollutants emitted per mile. And poor countries could “leapfrog” to autonomous vehicles instead of embracing the personal ownership model of the 20th century West.

If driverless cars are in fact safer, every day of delay imposes a huge cost. People a generation hence will marvel at the carnage we inflicted as we hurtled down highways relying on just our own reflexes to keep us safe.

Previous Post

The Italian Runaway Train

Next Post

Hard Evidence: Are Migrants Good for the Economy?

Related Posts

Only 2 Exchanges Registered In Hong Kong As Crypto Ban Is Removed
Economics

Only 2 Exchanges Registered In Hong Kong As Crypto Ban Is Removed

by John Wanguba
May 31, 2023
Will Ethereum Outperform Bitcoin?
Economics

Will Ethereum Outperform Bitcoin?

by John Wanguba
May 30, 2023
Is ReFi The Future Of DeFi?
Finance

Is ReFi The Future Of DeFi?

by John Wanguba
May 30, 2023
What Is Regenerative Finance (ReFi)?
Finance

What Is Regenerative Finance (ReFi)?

by John Wanguba
May 30, 2023
How Will The US Debt Ceiling Crisis Affect Bitcoin Price
Economics

How Will The US Debt Ceiling Crisis Affect Bitcoin Price

by John Wanguba
May 29, 2023
Next Post

Hard Evidence: Are Migrants Good for the Economy?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Browse by Category

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tags

adoption altcoins bank banking banks Binance Bitcoin Bitcoin adoption Bitcoin market blockchain BTC business China crypto crypto adoption cryptocurrency crypto exchange crypto market crypto regulation decentralized finance DeFi Elon Musk ETH Ethereum Europe Federal Reserve finance FTX inflation investment market analysis Metaverse NFT nonfungible tokens oil market price analysis recession regulation Russia stock market technology Tesla the UK the US Twitter

Archives

  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • August 2010
  • August 2009

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized
Global Economic Intersection

After nearly 11 years of 24/7/365 operation, Global Economic Intersection co-founders Steven Hansen and John Lounsbury are retiring. The new owner, a global media company in London, is in the process of completing the set-up of Global Economic Intersection files in their system and publishing platform. The official website ownership transfer took place on 24 August.

Categories

  • Business
  • Econ Intersect News
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Politics
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Only 2 Exchanges Registered In Hong Kong As Crypto Ban Is Removed
  • Will Ethereum Outperform Bitcoin?
  • Is ReFi The Future Of DeFi?

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Bitcoin Robot
    • Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Code
    • Quantum AI
    • eKrona Cryptocurrency
    • Bitcoin Up
    • Bitcoin Prime
    • Yuan Pay Group
    • Immediate Profit
    • BitIQ
    • Bitcoin Loophole
    • Crypto Boom
    • Bitcoin Era
    • Bitcoin Treasure
    • Bitcoin Lucro
    • Bitcoin System
    • Oil Profit
    • The News Spy
    • British Bitcoin Profit
    • Bitcoin Trader
  • Bitcoin Reddit

© Copyright 2021 EconIntersect - Economic news, analysis and opinion.

en English
ar Arabicbg Bulgarianda Danishnl Dutchen Englishfi Finnishfr Frenchde Germanel Greekit Italianja Japaneselv Latvianno Norwegianpl Polishpt Portuguesero Romanianes Spanishsv Swedish