Scenario: The Self-Driving Car

Christina B. Class & Debora Weber-Wulff

For years, they’ve been preparing for this. But now, 1950s-era dreams of a self-driving vehicle are finally coming true. They christened their creation “Galene”—the self-driving car. It performed like a champ on the test track. Even in test drives on American roads—for which Galene had to be shipped to the US—everything was swell. There were fewer regulations in the US, where endless highway stretches and good visibility combined allowed ample room for experimentation.

Everything was more complicated in Germany, and obtaining the necessary permits for testing on public thoroughfares took longer. The press has been invited to tomorrow’s widely publicized “maiden voyage.” Jürgen, one of Galene’s proud “parents,” has gotten approval from his team leader to take his baby out for a spin on the planned course before the press gaggle gets underway, just to be sure everything runs smoothly. He’s a good engineer, so his planning has been meticulous. It’s a Sunday afternoon when these roads won’t have much traffic. And he’ll be seated at the wheel himself to intervene should anything go wrong. He’s confident he won’t call attention to himself or annoy other drivers or passersby.

He tells the voice computer where he wants to go, and Galene confirms the destination. Then, he calculates the route, taking into account current traffic reports, known construction sites, and the weather forecast. Everything is good to go: there is no construction along the route, no rain, no fog, and only a slight breeze. It’s a sunny autumn day—perfect for the first test drive!

Jürgen is enjoying his ride along this route, which he knows well. It is a great feeling to let someone else do the driving, even though it still seems strange not to put on the gas, hit the brakes, or take the steering wheel. Galene enters the expressway flawlessly, passes a classic car, takes the next exit, slows to a crawl, and stops at the light. She always keeps her distance from the vehicle ahead of her. The steering is so precise that it could be set to approach within less than an inch of the car she is trailing. But that would put other drivers needlessly on edge, so Galene’s been programmed to maintain a distance of about 15 inches.

Jürgen would love to use his cell phone to film how he catches a “green wave” before he hangs a left at the third light—he wasn’t quite sure whether Galene would accurately calculate all the signals involved to make that happen, but she did: perfect! If he would pull out his phone and start filming, he could hardly sustain the illusion that he was the one driving the car. As they enter a newer residential district, Galene reduces her speed to the 30km/h limit. There’s a school on the left, with bus stops for school buses on both sides of the street. They invested a lot of time preparing Galene to deal with this type of traffic scenario.

Luckily, fall recess happens to be in session. To their right, they pass a park with sprawling grassy areas. He hears kids screaming and looks to his right. Jürgen sees dogs romping, brightly colored balls bouncing in the grass, and kites flying even brighter than that in the air. When the wind blows them in his direction, Jürgen instinctively grabs the steering wheel, knowing as he does that children at play ignore traffic.

Especially when he first started “driving” the self-driving car, this happened a lot: he would get nervous, reach for the steering wheel, and switch to manual control so he could take over. But he never needed to, so he gradually learned to relax and leave the driving to Galene. Now, though, suddenly, it happened: some kid with a kite in hand darted out onto the street from between two parked cars and was hit by Galene. The kid falls to the ground unconscious.

Galene immediately hits the brakes because her sensors have detected the impact. At the same time, Jürgen pulls the emergency stop button. Galene comes to a halt, and the hazard lights are activated. Jürgen gets out and runs toward the child, whose mother soon appears and starts going off on Jürgen. Another young woman exits the car, driving behind Jürgen, and begins administering first aid. She says she’s a nurse.

A dog owner visiting the park has already placed an emergency call,, and the ambulance arrives promptly to transport the child and his mother to the nearest hospital with blue lights flashing. The police are also on the scene to file an accident report. Jürgen appears to be in a state of shock. The young woman who administered first aid immediately approached the police, even before they had the chance to question Jürgen. She tells them her name is Sabine, and she was driving behind the vehicle involved in the crash. She thinks he was driving too fast. She was driving well below the 30 km/h speed limit—with all the sounds of kids playing in the park, the dogs chasing after balls, and the kites flying, you had to expect something like this to happen!

The police ask Jürgen for his license and registration. He gives them his ID, driver’s license, and the test drive permit. The cops are taken aback and start asking questions about the car—they’re intrigued. Since this involves a road test, but the vehicle is technically not licensed for operation on public roads, they insist on having Galene towed, mainly because the data had to be analyzed more thoroughly. Jürgen is sure that Galene followed the rules of the road, but the accusation made by the witness, Sabine, still weighs heavily on him. Tomorrow afternoon’s “maiden voyage” and press conference are in jeopardy. It’s a PR disaster—especially now after this accident.

Questions:

• The car had an official operating license for road tests. Was it okay to take it out for a test drive before the road test was completed?
• Airplane pilots are repeatedly required to undergo training to guarantee they can respond quickly in an emergency and take over controls from the autopilot. Will this type of training also be needed for self-driving cars? Should Jürgen have been permitted to sit back and relax during the road test?
• As soon as Jürgen saw children playing in the park, he instinctively grabbed the steering wheel. As a driver, should he be required to take control of the vehicle in a situation like this, where he could expect children to run into the street?
• Galene was following the 30 km/h speed limit, but the witness complained that this was too fast when there were so many kids playing in the park. When calculating speed, to what extent can and should algorithms account for activities along the roadway?
• Unforeseen events will always cause accidents, whether a child running out into the street, a wildlife crossing, or a tree branch down on the road. Disaster is often averted by a driver’s speedy response or instinctive hesitation. Should algorithms be programmed to emulate some instinct? To what extent can self-training systems be of use in this regard?
• Sometimes, rear-end collisions result from a driver following the rules of the road “too closely”: for example, stopping at a yellow light on a busy highway or sticking to the posted speed limit in the blind bend on an expressway exit ramp. Self-driving vehicles are programmed to adhere strictly to the rules. Should they be programmed with a built-in “bending of rules” based on the behavior of cars driving in front and behind them?
• It would be impossible to test for every imaginable scenario, so the software on a self-driving car may respond inappropriately. In that case, who is liable? The developer? The manufacturer? The driver who is seated at the wheel “just in case”? Or would we take these cases in stride in exchange for the greater security these cars provide in other circumstances? Where do we draw the line?
• How and when should software updates be installed for self-driving cars? Only at the dealership or wherever the vehicle happens to be located, as long as it is stationary. Who oversees and determines whether an update has been installed and when? What happens if an accident could have been prevented if a software update had been installed? And who is liable?

Published in Informatik Spektrum 38(6), 2015, S. 575–577.

— Translated from German by Lillian M. Banks