Autonomous Driverless Cars

There are about 5 seconds left at the light and no cars are coming from the other direction, so it seems like a perfect opportunity to take the left turn before the light changes to red. But, upon beginning the turn, a car enters the intersection without slowing through the yellow light and there is no time to stop before colliding with the car, sending it rolling through the intersection. The other car — according to the police report that followed — had no driver. This was what happened to Alexandra Cole on March 24th, 2017 in the city of Tempe, Arizona. The self-driving car — run by Uber — was found to be free of fault as it was going under the speed limit when it entered the intersection, while Cole — much to her chagrin — was cited for

I will argue that due to Uber’s previous improprieties they should not be the company to disrupt the transportation industry through the implementation of erroneous autonomous vehicles alongside human drivers.
Ms. Cole’s story foreshadows an era where perfectly programmed autonomous cars clash with human error in a contest between pre-programmed and unprogrammable contingencies. Although the implementation of autonomous vehicles are supposed to make the roads safer, the reality is that human drivers have an advantage that robots and sensors do not: the ability to predict human behavior. The peer-reviewed journal article, An autonomous driverless car: an idea to overcome the urban road challenges published in the Journal of information Engineering and Applications by Sheetal Ds Rathod of Amaravati University defines an autonomous vehicle as “a passenger vehicle that drives by itself” (Rathod). Autonomous vehicles function by using an array of laser sensors, cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and GPS to help the car determine where it is in relation to the road and the other cars around it. (Rathod) As a result, autonomous cars can ever only be reactive to others — not

Such a case is ideal in that it would then be needless to worry about how the technology will interact with humans on the road or the ethical implications when an incident occurs. Although it is true that stopping the production of autonomous cars would solve a lot of the problems that have arisen as a result of the new technology, it is not feasible to hinder such monumental advancements. The issue arises — not from the new autonomous technology — but the fact that Uber — with its history of cursory business practices — is looking to be one of the first to implement it. Of all companies, Uber should not be allowed anywhere near autonomous technology. Uber’s experience — and track record — in advanced technology is severely lacking. As a company, Uber has faced controversy after controversy; they are no strangers to being in the hot seat for their sketchy business practices. Sam Levin of The Guardian compiled a list that exemplifies their irresponsibility in the article Uber's scandals, blunders and PR disasters: the full list. The list includes entries that detail incidents where Uber has been caught stealing trade secrets from Google, putting a self-driving car on the road in San Francisco without a permit, and deceiving law enforcement using a technology called Greyball that did not allow government