Research Paper about Self-Driving Cars

The right to drive is something everyone looks forward to, but what if an autonomous robot did it for us? Self-driving cars have an extensive history, with the first model being built in 1958 being radio-controlled. (History of autonomous cars). In the mid-2010s companies like Mercedes, Ford, and Uber have tried to dip their hands into self-driving technology. However, full autonomy was proved to be more difficult than originally thought; with Uber announcing in 2020 that they were backing down from attempts at self-driving cars because of lawsuits, safety, and loss of money. The legality and safety of this question is something I would like to talk about. At this point in time, I don't think self-driving cars should be legal. Firstly, who will be at fault if there is an accident while the car is piloting itself? Next, to what extent can an autonomous vehicle be hacked. Finally, do we have the skills to operate them?

My first point is, who will be at fault if there is an accident while the car is piloting itself? Currently, Tesla has a safety feature so that the vehicle isn't in total control of the car; having the driver still have their hands on the steering wheel gives them an option to take control whenever they want. (Tesla). This provides safety to the driver if an unexpected accident were to occur they could just swerve or stop. Yet if a person decides to not do any of this and let the autonomous vehicle take control who will be responsible for this? Should it be our fault for negligence to not act, or should it be the manufacturer’s responsibility for not providing enough safety features? But what if it completely fails? In late 2019, Kevin George Aziz’s Tesla was on autopilot, as it sped off the highway, running a red light, and crashing into another car, killing the two people inside. Tesla’s response to this incident is, “ The driver is still responsible for, and ultimately in control of, the car.” (Route-Fifty.com). This quote clearly shows that Tesla, a leader in autonomous driving will avoid responsibility for failure in their system letting us take responsibility for the damages.

My next point is, how safe is self-driving technology from malicious hackers. With autonomous vehicles still being relatively new, they have flaws like most tech and can be hacked, but to what extent? Jason Hugh, a whitehat hacker would occasionally submit bugs through Tesla’s bug reporting system and earn rewards. After Tesla started to give customers more information about Supercharger stations; most notably the feature to see how many chargers were available at a specific station through their navigation app, Jason went and poked around to see if he could expose any data. Jason found a hole on the server-side of Tesla’s feature and was allowed to get data on every supercharger worldwide around every few minutes. After submitting this bug to Tesla and earning himself $5,000 he decided to go hunt for bigger bounties. While poking around he found a series of small vulnerabilities that chained together to grant him access to sensitive data on their network. One being the “Mothership”. The “mothership” is Tesla’s home server used to communicate with its customers fleet. Any remote commands from the car to Tesla goes through “Mothership”. With this, all he needed was a vehicle’s VIN number and he could get information on any Tesla and even send commands to the car. Jason decided to compile a bug report to Tesla. This was a big deal. Within minutes the email was read and Jones received a phone call from the head of software security. The main bug was reportedly patched within hours. A quote from Tesla’s response is, “We develop our cars with the highest standards of safety in every respect, and our work with the security research community is invaluable to us.” (Electrek). This quote shows that Tesla knows that the technology of their automobiles, are still relatively new and vulnerable, yet with this happening around five years ago the safety of their technology has surely improved; but with new safety systems there will be more bugs and it's the job of the community and engineers to see those bugs before a hacker with malicious intent.

My last point is, do we have the skills to operate self-driving cars? The sector of self-driving cars is growing 16% each year worldwide. (Gerben Injury Law). A quote that proves that cars with autonomous control can reduce accidents is, “ The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has seen a 7 percent reduction in crashes for vehicles with a basic forward-collision warning system and a 14 to 15 percent reduction for those with automatic braking.” (Consumer Reports). This quote shows that even with basic systems that prevent accidents crashes have been reduced by 7 percent. Yet with self-driving cars improving our safety; our acceptance of this idea is split with 57% of people that are familiar with autonomous vehicles willing to ride in one. With 16% of residents feeling comfortable giving the vehicle complete autonomy even if they had absolutely no control. (PolicyAdvice.net). If we want self-driving cars to be a big thing then we first need to accept the downsides and what can potentially happen if self-driving cars ruled the automobile business.

Self-driving cars should not be legal because of the problems they face. Who would be responsible if a self-driving car failed? Well, an incident like this happened in late 2019 with Tesls avoiding responsibility. (Route-Fifty.com). Or to what extent can an autonomous vehicle be hacked? In 2017, Jason Hughs was able to find a huge security flaw in Tesla’s system. (Electrik). Another problem we face is; are we ready for autonomous vehicles? Currently, 57% of people that are familiar with autonomous vehicles are willing to ride in one. (PolicyAdvice.net). With this number increasing over time as our familiarity with auotnomis vehicles and their technology improves. There is no doubt that autonomous vehicles will one day be incorporated into our daily lives, but the question is when and how will they affect us?