# Why the Popular Resistance to Driverless Cars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 1, 2017, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521 "2017-04-01T18:53:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/121 "2017-04-03T12:29:33Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > First, the driver thinks to himself that he’s well equipped to deal with this situation because of his wealth of experience. > > Then, the driver either drives into the water or not. But the huge degree of confidence before the decision remains the same. And the hundreds of people and their passengers who drown when it turns out that driving into what they thought was a 4 inch puddle was really a two foot deep torrent that sweeps their vehicle away? They still feeling pretty good about the experience? Most flood deaths are from people who drown in their vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![upend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b3f665/32.png) [@upend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/upend)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/122 "2017-04-03T12:36:39Z")
thing is - we’re still really, really early in the cycle of testing driverless cars. have a look at the reporting back to the State of California DMV from the companies who are testing. > **[Autonomous Vehicles - California DMV](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/)** > > Learn about California DMV's autonomous vehicle tester program: how to apply for a permit, regulations, program history since 2013, and accident reports. Google doing a lot of miles with a reduction to “only” 130 or so driver takeovers. Tesla - I’m amazed they did so few miles (500 or so, in 4 cars) and a massive list of incidents in those miles (200?) Bosch reported thousands of disengagement My point is - sure, we’ll see driver aids where you can remove your hands from the wheel on freeways/long straight roads but cars without steering wheels - it’s a long way off yet ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/123 "2017-04-03T13:44:00Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Autonomous driving systems will certainly be deployed first in developed nations such as the United States and Canada, and the industrial states of Europe and Asia where the benefits to safety and efficiency will justify the deployment and regulatory costs and traffic laws are (somewhat) consistently applied. As experience with the variable nature of real world interactions grows and the cost of integrating such systems drops, it will no doubt be adopted by other nations with more complex inteactions between automobiles and pedestrians. Again, autonomously controlled vehicles are not going to be racing at high speed through pedestrian-laden areas with wanton disregard, and the ability of an autonomous system with much wider sensory capbility than a human driver will reduce the substantial number of accidents that occur in those nations. How long will that take? It depends on the amount of effort and impetus, but after certain thresholds are achieved (such as systems becoming suffiicnetly heuristic that human intervention in designating the ‘best’ solution is no longer required) the reliabliity of these systems will grow in geometric fashion. The very fact that failures of autonomous systems will be scruitinized while regular faliures of human drivers are accepted as “business as usual” will drive the reduction of acceptable accidents to a minimum, and once it becomes apparent that autonomous systems are orders of magnitude more capable than human drivers, liability and insurance costs will drive mass adoption, notwithstanding the conveniences addressed above of being able to send a vehicle to do basic transportation chores without having to accompany it. > > Stranger _more complex inteactions between automobiles and pedestrians_. Stranger, not often that a technical description made me laugh. Notwithstanding the typo. 😉 I do think while technically sound what you suggest is going to be practically difficult to implement. Even if you start in Europe and N America, the fact is that places like the sub-continent and the Far East have large absolute numbers of middle and upper-middle-class people who can also see YouTube and learn about the latest. And these guys are going to want the new technology, yesterday, and have the money to get it. Which executive is going to be able to resist servicing 3/5th of the Planet’s population? It’s not the 1960’s that they are dirt poor and can be ignored. No matter if his technical people tell him that it’s not ready to be rolled out in those countries. It’ll just take the first few accidents to convince everyone that the technology is flawed and this would have repercussions worldwide, possibly stalling it. And FME, pedestrians are not that much of an issue, you just remain aware of them. Motorcyclists on the other hand… On the other hand, this might spur investments in infrastructure in these countries, like they did in the Telecommunication sector. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/124 "2017-04-03T13:45:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I detect a bit of human intelligence bias in **AK84** ’s post. > > . :smack: I forgot, us darkies are dumb dumbs. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/125 "2017-04-03T14:02:20Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > And the hundreds of people and their passengers who drown when it turns out that driving into what they thought was a 4 inch puddle was really a two foot deep torrent that sweeps their vehicle away? They still feeling pretty good about the experience? Most flood deaths are from people who drown in their vehicles. I think you’re expressing my point: 95% of humans think that they are above average in intellect, skill, moral superiority, etc., and will often make objectively poor decisions based on their own unrealistic assumptions about their capabilities. Personally, I think that driverless cars will have a far, far better objective understanding of its capabilities and limitations than the vast majority of drivers. But I’m also reasonably confident that we should not have much too confidence in driverless cars for at least 5, maybe 10, possiblly more years. I think Elon Musk and his ilk are full of shit when they get people hyped up about this technology being literally around the corner. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/126 "2017-04-03T14:06:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :smack: > I forgot, us darkies are dumb dumbs. :rolleyes: Huh? WTF? To make it clearer, you seem to think that only human intelligences can deal with crowded traffic and pedestrians. A comment in your last post though does illustrate how the resistance to autonomous vehicles will play out, virtually no matter how good they become. > [@AK84](#): > > It’ll just take the first few accidents to convince everyone that the technology is flawed and this would have repercussions worldwide, possibly stalling it. No matter how good the technology becomes there will be accidents. Even if some tiny fraction of those caused by non-impaired humans there will a first few accidents that will be determined to to the “fault” of the autonomous vehicle. A new technology will not be held by those resistant to it to being just better than what currently exists, or many times better, it will be condemned by them if it is not perfect. Reporting rate of accidents and traffic fatalities per total vehicles miles driven demonstrating superiority won’t be enough: someone died and the vehicle was “at fault” will be a strong emotional argument. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/127 "2017-04-03T16:59:45Z")
(ETA: I see someone playing the race card above. Let me be clear, the driving here in China is terrible because the test is fairly easy and the culture is still too accepting of dangerous behaviour (as until recently we still were in the West). It’s not genetics. :rolleyes:) > [@DSeid](#): > > The Chinese and Indian markets are not one and the same but both represent large opportunities for autonomous and connected vehicle technology. > […] > The fact is that it driving better than most drivers drive in those countries is a low bar. Agreed, although there are a number of difficulties with sharing the road with such terrible drivers: 1. The self-drive cars will be involved in more accidents no matter how safely they drive. People will plough into the back of them at traffic lights for example. This may affect uptake in safer countries if nothing else. 2. There are a lot of “de facto” rules / “cheating” (can’t remember the proper expression for this) in both these countries. If the software includes these rules, it opens up the manufacturer to lawsuits. If it does not, it may confuse other drivers. Not saying this won’t be the first place, just that there are pros and cons. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/128 "2017-04-03T17:48:48Z")
Also realize that some features that will be inherent in autonomous vehicles, such as collision avoidance and advanced navigation will also make their way into manually operated vehicles as well as driver assistance, further reducing accidents even for people who continue to drive manually. Accidents will still occur, of course, but the rate of accidents will drop dramatically, just as a comparison of accident rates between the highly automated and assisted commercial aircraft and private small prop and jet planes with minimal instrumentation show dramatic differences. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/129 "2017-04-03T18:12:11Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also realize that some features that will be inherent in autonomous vehicles, such as collision avoidance and advanced navigation will also make their way into manually operated vehicles as well as driver assistance, further reducing accidents even for people who continue to drive manually. With aircraft electronics, you can charge millions for an airliner cockpit worth. But a bit of googling and a napkin estimate says there ~[5000](http://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8668/how-many-active-large-commercial-airplanes-are-there) (I’m rounding up a little) large airliners total. That’s all. Including plenty of old models with 30 year old electronics that have not been updated. 260 million passenger cars in the USA, and they are 11.6 years old on average. If there are just as many in all of Europe, 520 million, that’s your market. It’s 104,000 times larger. If you get 1 million dollars in revenue that goes to the firm that actually does the engineering work, per airliner sold, in order for them to continue developing reliable aircraft autopilots and cockpit glass, you could pay a license fee of just $10 per car in the long run for the equivalent revenue. I would expect the license fees to be more on the order of $3000 to $12,000 paid over the vehicles lifetime. (I think a subscription model makes sense - and you will have to pay the manufacturer for the liability coverage as well) That’s the reason this problem is being solved. There is a colossal amount of money there. This also means there is the money to develop sophisticated levels of redundancy. You can’t afford the quality of electronics that go into an aircraft, but you can have more cheaper boards. Redundant computer systems, similar to what they use in rockets. I’m thinking you’re going to need dual electrical buses, dual servos, and redundant sensor coverage. Half the sensors would be wired to the second electrical bus. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/130 "2017-04-03T19:36:34Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > For those concerned about bugs/glitches, there are principles in software engineering to produce software with a mean time to failure (MTTF) that is beyond the heat death of the universe. Why don’t all developers build software this way? Because it is time consuming and expensive. However, some software is built this way for particular safety systems. > > Also, it is possible to design software to do what’s called “fail safe”. In other words, when something goes wrong they will attempt to enter the safest possible state. The classic example is a control system for a valve. If the safest state is for the valve to be closed than when a failure is detected (again very possible) the failure state code will close the valve. Obviously for some systems, and depending on the specific failure, a true safe state may not be possible. The classic example is software controlling an airplane in flight. There is no safe state in such a case. That’s why airplane flight control systems are designed with incredibly high MTTF. > > Similarly, it is possible to build software which is virtually impossible to hack by proving that it responds properly to all inputs… Again, building such software is time consuming and expensive. Hmm, a car company (Hi VW) recently was found to have put software into their cars that fudged the emissions of their cars. Why? Because it was easier and cheaper than actually building cars that met the required standards. What would possibly lead me t believe that the same industry wouldn’t do something similar when it comes to a self-driving car. “Hey, we found a way to save billions of dollars, and it will only slightly increase the accident rate. No one will ever know.” ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/131 "2017-04-03T20:06:46Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > r. “Hey, we found a way to save billions of dollars, and it will only slightly increase the accident rate. No one will ever know.” That’s fine to a point. If the car has 1/10 the total accidents but it isn’t 1/15 the total accidents because they didn’t pump billions more improving it, that’s still an immense improvement. Tesla is openly making a compromise like that. They are not making it a secret. Their autonomy systems lack lidar sensors (because they are too expensive) and inherently, stereo depth perception and ultrasonic sensors and radar are not as good in certain situations. There is no way to make them as good as lidar, and thus, there will be additional accidents in autonomous teslas that would not occur in a model equipped with LIDAR. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adopt them - again, it doesn’t need to be perfect, just lots and lots better than humans, who don’t have lidar, either. I hope there are published accident rates per million miles, so that the safer models are known, and it should really be disclosed on the window sticker next to the mileage. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/132 "2017-04-03T20:06:58Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Malicious actors can hack into your car systems and plant viruses or shut down critical functions right now Um, _how??_ AFAIK, the only incoming signals my car (2016 Civic, if it matters) recognizes are AM and FM radio, and my car’s sound system is separate from its mechanical systems. But that would become an issue if V2V communication is part of the autonomous vehicle safety package. Autonomous vehicles, yes; V2V, no. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/133 "2017-04-03T20:18:29Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > What would possibly lead me t believe that the same industry wouldn’t do something similar when it comes to a self-driving car. “Hey, we found a way to save billions of dollars, and it will only slightly increase the accident rate. No one will ever know.” The difference is, VW was using software to do an end run around having to put in a lot more emissions-control hardware. And software’s a lot cheaper. But with autonomous vehicles, it’ll just be software. If the existing software produces a given level of safety and reliability, they won’t save a penny by switching to software that fails to do that. Once self-driving software is superior to human brainware, the incentives are all on the side of continuous improvement. The hard part is engineering the software to be able to recognize and respond to all the stuff that we do without a second thought; that’s the part that makes me wonder whether self-driving cars will get here before I have to turn in my keys. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/134 "2017-04-04T02:37:57Z")
Perhaps we can return this discussion to what I read as the intent of of the op, which I will attempt to reframe: _Assume_ as a hypothetical that autonomous vehicles are on solid evidence significantly safer than human driven vehicles for, say 99% of all drivers. Would there still be resistance to them and some who would deny the evidence, just as there are those who prefer “alternative facts” for other items that go against what they want to believe, and if so, then what would be the root causes of such resistance? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/135 "2017-04-04T03:15:16Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > The difference is, VW was using software to do an end run around having to put in a lot more emissions-control hardware. And software’s a lot cheaper. > > But with autonomous vehicles, it’ll just be software. If the existing software produces a given level of safety and reliability, they won’t save a penny by switching to software that fails to do that. > > Once self-driving software is superior to human brainware, the incentives are all on the side of continuous improvement. The hard part is engineering the software to be able to recognize and respond to all the stuff that we do without a second thought; that’s the part that makes me wonder whether self-driving cars will get here before I have to turn in my keys. That’s not exactly correct. Software development can be expensive and fraught with delays too. And it’s not all software, it’s sensors and computing power. Surely you’ve encountered software that was buggy or wasn’t compatible with all devices. You seem to imply that eventually there’ll be some standardized self driving car car software that manufacturers will be able to download into every new model. I’m not sure that is a safe bet. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/136 "2017-04-04T03:24:41Z")
Trust I pointed out in another “car of the future” thread - there will be places where the car’s abilities are useless - the flooded culvert - the car can’t know that it is perfectly safe to cross - it floods like this every spring - and the human will have to drive it. It is equally likely that a ‘normal’ situation turns bad - and the car (which would normally handle this time/place) cannot be trusted. The Florida crash established that a straight and dry road can still kill you if neither the operator or the car notice a white trailer against a clear, bright sky. That car “thought” it was doing a fine job. An alert human would have known to disengage the “Autopilot” and brake. That “it might not always work” thought will prevent a instant acceptance of the technology ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/137 "2017-04-04T03:39:32Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > Hmm, a car company (Hi VW) recently was found to have put software into their cars that fudged the emissions of their cars. Why? Because it was easier and cheaper than actually building cars that met the required standards. What would possibly lead me t believe that the same industry wouldn’t do something similar when it comes to a self-driving car. “Hey, we found a way to save billions of dollars, and it will only slightly increase the accident rate. No one will ever know.” It is a fair question. One of the open questions on driverless cars is who is legally responsible for the mistakes made by the car. If it is the company that could be civilly or criminally responsible that would be a good incentive. I would like to believe that if a company knowing cuts corners to save money and it kills people that a high ranking corporate officer and maybe some subordinates would go to jail (Ha! I know I’m dreaming). What keeps software companies in the safety industry from cutting corners right now? There’s been some well documented safety critical system failures and I can’t think of any that occurred due to purposeful negligence on the part of the developer. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/138 "2017-04-04T20:42:16Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > It is a fair question. One of the open questions on driverless cars is who is legally responsible for the mistakes made by the car. If it is the company that could be civilly or criminally responsible that would be a good incentive. That is not an open question, it has been conclusively answered. The manufacturer is always liable. [Why You Shouldn’t Worry About Liability for Self-Driving Car Accidents - IEEE Spectrum](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/why-you-shouldnt-worry-about-liability-for-selfdriving-car-accidents) There is a serious issue this creates, and I do not know if it will be addressed. Self driving cars occupy a similar niche to vaccines. Even if the technology caps out at 1/10 the accident rate of a human driver (suppose you can’t make it any better without genuine machine sentience) - it would still clearly be worthwhile. Vaccines are not 100% safe. They are mostly safe for most people, but there is a real chance you will die if you receive one, especially for young children who may have faulty immune systems and so they will not survive their first vaccination. It’s not a very large chance, but the risk is there, and so to protect the manufacturers from otherwise limitless liability - a jury could theoretically award of a verdict of a trillion dollars if a child dies - there’s a panel that will award fixed dollar amounts for someone injured by vaccine. That’s what autonomous cars need. There needs to be a fixed payout (indexed to inflation) if you get hurt or killed by one, assuming the manufacturer isn’t deliberately negligent. The reason for this is society benefits - even if the autonomous vehicles did kill 1/10 the people, that’s a 90% reduction. This has other consequences, though. One thing you can do is reduce the risk. You could make the consumer model autonomous cars refuse to depart unless the occupants are all in 4 point restraints, similar to that of racecar drivers. They could be programmed to be especially cautious around intersections, where T-bone crashes are frequently fatal, and to always obey the speed limit and stay away from cars driving erratically. On 4 lane highways with no divider, they could prefer the right hand lane to avoid the possibility of a head on collision by cars from the other lane. They could simply refuse to even consider routes that take the autonomous vehicle onto winding mountain roads and other unsafe roadways - you would be required to take over. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![theR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@theR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theR)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/139 "2017-04-04T22:02:13Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > The problems you mention are not caused by hackers. Hacking isn’t a magical art. It is only possible if security flaws exist in the target system and you have a means of communicating with that system and the messages can change the behavior of that system. So you \*could \*make autonomous cars essentially hacker-proof through air gap isolation. That would stop anyone without physical access - and you can sabotage a car today (or just attach a bomb to it) if you have access to it, quite easily, but few people worry about it. > > Realistically, instead of air gap isolation, you would isolate the key systems that plan the car’s movement and avoid obstacles, and then use formally proven software -\> like mentioned above -\> in communication processors that would filter any messages sent from the side of the car’s computer system that is connected to the network. Obviously, the car would need mapping data and data transmitted by other, possibly untrustworthy, vehicles. So you would need to filter these messages to ensure they are valid and do not contain any rule violating components, such as excessive length that could cause a buffer overflow. > > Another trick is to use processors that isolate data and code. This prevents a buffer overflow from even being possible. Commonly used embedded processors, used in everything from motor controllers to missiles have this feature. I never mentioned hacking, so I don’t know why you’re so eager to argue with me that what I mentioned was not caused by hacking. I was responding to the following claim by Chronos: > [@](#): > > The fact that people even ask this question is proof that computer-driven cars are superior to human-driven ones. The right answer is obviously none of the above: The right answer is to hit none of the humans. You only think the question is an important one because, to a human, hitting nobody at all is really hard. But to a computer, it’s easy. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521/140 "2017-04-04T22:26:08Z")
> [@theR](#): > > I never mentioned hacking, so I don’t know why you’re so eager to argue with me that what I mentioned was not caused by hacking. I was responding to the following claim by Chronos: I suppose, but your claim is incorrect. The issue isn’t with the computer planning the movement, that’s easy. The problems are : a. The computer doesn’t correctly integrate the reams of noisy data into a coherent, trustworthy world model. There will be noise. LIDAR sensor blips that indicate something right in front of the car it is about to hit. Leaves and rain and fog and odd lighting changing how a traffic sign looks. Missing road dividers. b. Software bugs. The computer’s model is correct, and the general calculations it uses on that model to guarantee it never hits anything are mostly correct, but there are certain combinations of data that a programming error causes it to make the wrong choice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-popular-resistance-to-driverless-cars/783521.md?page=8)