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Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by schoen on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @07:59PM (#12090723)
There's a whole kind of unpleasant but interesting topic about attacks against behavior of self-driving cars. I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested that they might put occupants at greater risk of kidnapping because the cars could refuse to take evasive actions that endanger or injure a kidnapper (or just violate a traffic law). This risk might be farfetched, but it may illustrate the concern about people knowing the limits that self-driving cars will respect and then exploiting those limits in some way.
Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by schoen on Thursday July 14, 2016 @02:35AM (#12092032)
> I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested

I might also have heard about some of these problems from Brad Templeton, who describes "Abusing robocar collision-avoidance" among many other interesting problems at

http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/downsides.html

I don't remember if he also mentioned the kidnapping scenario when I heard him present about this.

Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by imtringued on Thursday July 14, 2016 @01:43AM (#12091878)
>I think I saw an earlier HN thread that suggested that they might put occupants at greater risk of kidnapping because the cars could refuse to take evasive actions that endanger or injure a kidnapper

What alternative would a human take? Would they kill the kidnappers by driving over them?

Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by schoen on Thursday July 14, 2016 @02:03AM (#12091943)
I guess that's the simplest one that a self-driving car's software might not approve of. Or intentionally collide with a kidnapper's vehicle, or just make a prohibited turn or run a red light to try to escape.

These scenarios are kind of vague because they don't make it clear whether the self-driving car lets a human driver take over and take full responsibility.

Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by DavidWanjiru on Thursday July 14, 2016 @07:13AM (#12092857)
I think a human would drive over a kidnapper. Say your car is bullet proof. A man in a ski mask wielding a machine gun jumps in front of the road and orders you to stop. You refuse, he starts shooting at your car as you get near him (this is why I made your car bullet proof, to keep you alive but unequivocally demonstrate clear and present danger to you). In such a scenario, if your only escape route is over the dead body of the man in a ski mask, I bet a human will take that option.
Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by darpa_escapee on Thursday July 14, 2016 @10:17AM (#12093963)
Manslaughter is a likely situation that needs to be addressed in the next Tesla OTA update.
Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by tripzilch on Thursday July 14, 2016 @07:32AM (#12092922)
Wow, where did the machine gun come from!
Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by runarb on Thursday July 14, 2016 @02:52PM (#12096351)
As this is happening in the future, the gun was probably 3d printed by the kidnapper.
Re:The Fight for the “Right to Repair” by kbart on Thursday July 14, 2016 @02:20AM (#12091991)
"Would they kill the kidnappers by driving over them?"

Of course, in many countries that would count as self defense (if kidnappers were armed and pointed guns towards your car).