Later this year a new car will come on the Australian market with the ability to drive itself in stop/start commuter traffic conditions. The Audi Q7 SUV has an advanced camera and radar system that is linked to it's navigation screen and controls acceleration, braking and steering in relation to surrounding cars - up to a speed of sixty kph.
Theoretically, a driver in the morning commute can sit back and read the newspaper and let the car take care of the usual gridlock. The only problem seems to be that Australian law is completely lacking the protocols to enable this new innovation to fit within the legal system. It even raises the question as to whether a " self driving car " can be legally registered to operate on our road system.
This is probably the first baby step in robotics becoming a feature of automobiles. Each new model will have a tendency to improve on it's predecessor and different brands will strive to be more advanced than competitors. At the moment, there are absolutely no safety standards that apply to this technology. How - where - and to what extent it can be used is in legal limbo !
In the past, the advancing design of the automobile increased slowly. Engines became more efficient and technical advances installed improvements. Automatic transmissions replaced the manual gear shift. Anti skid braking made cars safer. Intentionally structured crumple zones in the passenger shell protected humans in a crash accident. New car designs were tested by the government and awarded crash ratings for safety improvements. Car safety became the gold standard.
Now we are about to take one giant step further forward. We are at least partially replacing the human mind with artificial intelligence. At the core of this self driving technique will be a computer loaded with the best human thinking that can be loaded into it's memory circuits. Unfortunately, it is inevitable that there will be an instance when that computer is confronted with a situation that does not fit within it's area of knowledge. Humans may live to fear the moment when their car computer freezes and stops working - because it has faced a situation that " does not compute " !
The age of the driverless car needs to go hand in hand with limitations that are only removed when all the kinks have been ironed out of that particular system. There will be a tendency for the car industry to quickly duplicate another manufacturers innovation because it has become a "must have " in the sales race - and that spells danger. The last thing we need is a welter of different systems to create confusion in users minds.
It is also important that we establish a proper legal framework to encompass this new technology. It is obvious that the future will involve a mix of semi automated and manually driven cars on our roads and the laws that apply will have to take this into account. Areas of responsibility need to be made quite clear - for both the operator and the manufacturer when an inevitable point of legal friction arises. At the moment, all interpretations seems to be in "No Man's Land " !
This new Audi Q7 SUV has a price tag of around $ 100,000 which will tend to restrict sale numbers, but past experience has shown that our modern manufacturing world is quite capable of sharp price reductions when quantity becomes the issue - and this new innovation can arrive with frightening speed.
There is a danger that bringing the law into focus may become a case of shutting the stable door - after the horse has bolted !
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