Legal Tales | Uber robotaxi: uber-sophisticated in tech and uber-complicated in law
Who do you sue if you have a traffic accident sitting inside an autonomous taxi?
On the tech side, this is nothing short of a miracle. The Uber robotaxi features Level 4 autonomous driving, deploying real-time AI processing of situational data fed by a comprehensive 360-degree sensor array combining high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar and radar.
These human fallibilities, according to research, account, at least in part, for more than 90 per cent of all traffic accidents. Apparently, it is us, the humans, who actually make driving dangerous; I suppose we deserve to be removed from the driver’s seat.
But, however sophisticated and advanced, no system can be perfect and accidents on the road can never be completely eliminated. The main areas where the algorithms may run into difficulties are all due to the presence of – you guessed it – human activity.
More specifically, the algorithm is unable (at least, not yet able) to read social cues in otherwise unpredictable human behaviour, for example, in a construction zone and a pedestrian crossing area whether any human looks like he or she is going to emerge onto the road.