[NotInControl]

As a person who is currently working on a PhD thesis related to this very topic, Control Theory of Autonomous Passenger Cars, this is not a clear cut question nor does it reflect the real problems this area of study faces.

Instead it is poised to create controversy and doesn't portray the study of autonomous passenger vehicles correctly.

I assure you, there is no clean cut algorithms being deployed into cars that have deliberate object targeting in the manner the article suggests, at least not in the dozen or so vehicles I have had the privilege to study including Google Car. Furthermore, a Scenario of choosing to crash into A or B is hardly from reality.

In reality there are a lot more objects to crash into, and not all of them are cars. The answer to the choice is highly dependant on how you arrive at that choice in the first place, and where in the world you currently are. What is left out of the topic is why the vehicle determined it will crash. Is it due to a vehicle error (speed, rate of turn, loss of command/control etc) or due to environmental errors uncontrollable by the car (road condition, environment condition, unexpected object in path etc.). This is important to determine if the vehcile can even control the corrective action down stream. Also are you on a highway?, a local road?, a strip mall full of pedestrians?, but most importantly, the choice to employ is based on which sensors you trust on your car at that moment. Can you even trust that you detected one car was an SUV or a Volvo, vs a large tree? Can you calculate the speed and force on impact. Even if the computer has enough time to determine a choice, it is not reaction time of the computer that is important, it is reaction time of the mechanical car that determines if you can even pull off the maneuver to hit one object vs. the next, and if you had that time, why isn't there a third or 4th option.

There are too many unknowns to answer this question. And asking for people to answer this inaccurate question just perpetuates falicies and mis-understandings around this technology. The real question is how to avoid a scenario like this in the first place. It might be safer to crash into a barrier or guard rail if on the highway or into a tree or parked car if on a local road. At a minimum, one of the possible way we are trying to avoid this scenario all together is based on the autonomous vehicle network. Allowing vehicles to have real-time communication between each other autonomatically is a huge key piece of technology that will help avoid vehcile-to-vehicle crashes. Imagine if your vehicle goes rogue, you can signal to all the vehicles around you to that, and they will track your movements to get out of the way (using the same technology you used to determine a Volvo vs other car was around you to begin with.) This is real and the DOT just approved this type of communication in the US... http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Pre...ght+Vehicle s

The fact remains, last year alone, approx 35,000 people died in the US from vehicular accidents based on US DOT reports. That is approx. 1 person every 13 seconds in the united states due to PREVENTABLE vehicle accidents. It is 1 person in the world every second. These accidents are based on inattentive driving, speeding, texting while driving, DUI, etc. Computers drive better than humans. We need this technology, support this technology, don't fear it. Reducing deaths due to crashes is the goal, that is the purpose of this technology. Everyone that I have ever had the pleasure to work with, takes this part of the task very seriously.

People are very willing to get into planes that fly themselves, or trains that drive themselves because they are used to not controlling those vehicles, but are afraid of a car that can do the same? Why? We need this technology!!!

-Kevin