Driverless cars could change everything

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by SithCeNtZ

Two things here. The first is that yes, there will probably always be a bug, or something capable of going wrong. People are going to have to get over it and realise that a random software bug is still far less of a chance of death than a random drunk driver or some idiot who runs a red light. We can't let perfection be the enemy of better than what we have.

The second is that the hacking thing is completely nonsensical and a boogeyman from movies and TV shows. Basically every car today sold is mainly powered by a computer. Most modern safety functions of a car like adaptive cruise control and brake detection warnings are already run by a computer. Is there a massive wave of mysterious deaths due to cars doing random things? Of course not. Why would these magical hackers not be causing mayhem right now when it's certainly easier to do it today than it will be in a likely very highly regulated and monitored system 20 years from now? It's because "hacking" as people think of in the movies doesn't exist in this context. No one can upload a virus to your car and turn it into a death machine or else scorned ex-lovers would clearly resort to that rather than burying a body in a field somewhere with evidence all around.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty certain these driverless cars are networked (blue toothed, internet, whatever you want to call it), especially the cab company referenced in post 56 from San Francisco. I can not imagine any possibility of them turning a fleet of driverless cars loose without a central dispatch control.

Can you?

However, your normal consumer owned car, has a self contained, non networked computer. You would need to plug into it to hack it, similar to the service code reader.

Thus, the possibility of hacking driverless cars would be a very real possibility.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty certain these driverless cars are networked (blue toothed, internet, whatever you want to call it), especially the cab company referenced in post 56 from San Francisco. I can not imagine any possibility of them turning a fleet of driverless cars loose without a central dispatch control.

Can you?

However, your normal consumer owned car, has a self contained, non networked computer. You would need to plug into it to hack it, similar to the service code reader.

Thus, the possibility of hacking driverless cars would be a very real possibility.

I generally think that some point in the future driverless cars will be an improvement over human drivers. But yes, if there are millions of Waymo Google cars or Uber driverless cars or any on demand driverless car service...

Yes, the network being hacked is one of those unlikely, but high risk scenarios that need to be taken seriously.

Having millions of cars being ordered to crash simultaneously is the Hollywood movie scenario.

But even just a situation where a hack shuts down tens of millions of cars that commuters count on every day would be serious.

The idea that any network that is online is 100 percent secure is laughable.

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by SithCeNtZ

Two things here. The first is that yes, there will probably always be a bug, or something capable of going wrong. People are going to have to get over it and realise that a random software bug is still far less of a chance of death than a random drunk driver or some idiot who runs a red light. We can't let perfection be the enemy of better than what we have.

The second is that the hacking thing is completely nonsensical and a boogeyman from movies and TV shows. Basically every car today sold is mainly powered by a computer. Most modern safety functions of a car like adaptive cruise control and brake detection warnings are already run by a computer. Is there a massive wave of mysterious deaths due to cars doing random things? Of course not. Why would these magical hackers not be causing mayhem right now when it's certainly easier to do it today than it will be in a likely very highly regulated and monitored system 20 years from now? It's because "hacking" as people think of in the movies doesn't exist in this context. No one can upload a virus to your car and turn it into a death machine or else scorned ex-lovers would clearly resort to that rather than burying a body in a field somewhere with evidence all around.

The comparison you used is not exactly correct. They are making cars now that they can use GPS to track you. Is this a way to hack? Is there another way for someone to hack in and gain control? I don't know but maybe. Your argument still has not convinced me. But I do agree that more driverless cars probably means fewer crashes because some idiot thought their phone was more important than, you know, actually paying attention to the road.