Koopman comments on the multiple challenges of autonomous vehicles

Philip Koopman was quoted by Communications of the ACM about the multiple challenges for self-driving cars. Many problems arise when these vehicles encounter unanticipated circumstances and try to transfer control to humans. “Building a car that realizes it doesn’t know what’s going on is almost the same difficulty as building a car that can handle it,” warned Koopman. He also worries whether designers have the safety mindset to prepare for various, unpredictable failures. Moreover, communicating with others on the road is a critical part of driving. To avoid accidents, autonomous vehicles need to interpret and send both explicit and subtle cues. “One very plausible reason for all of those rear-end collisions is that the cars aren’t behaving the way people expect them to,” said Koopman. Read the article here.