A team of researchers from prominent universities – including SUNY Buffalo, Iowa State, UNC Charlotte, and Purdue – were able to turn an autonomous vehicle (AV) operated on the open sourced Apollo driving platform from Chinese web giant Baidu into a deadly weapon by tricking its multi-sensor fusion system, and suggest the attack could be applied to other self-driving cars.
https://xkcd.com/1958/
TL;DR: faking out a self-driving system is always going to be possible, and so is faking out humans. But doing so is basically attempted murder, which is why the existence of an exploit like this is not interesting or new. You could also cut the brake lines or rig a bomb to it.
People seem to hold computers to a higher standard than other people when performing the same task.
Because humans have more accountability. Also it has implications for military/police use of self-guided stuff.
What is the purpose of accountability other than to force people to do better? If the lack of accountability doesn’t stop a computer from outperforming a human, why worry about it?
The lack of accountability means that there is nothing and no one to take responsibility when the robot/computer inevitably kills someone. A human can be faced with legal ramifications for their actions, the companies that make these computers have shown thus far that they are exempt from such consequences.
That is true for most current “self driving” systems, because they are all just glorified assist features. Tesla is misleading its customers massively with their advertisement, but on paper it’s very clear that the car will only assist in safe conditions, the driver needs to be able to react immediately at all times and therefore is also liable.
However, Mercedes (I think it was them) have started to roll out a feather where they will actually take responsibility for any accidents that happen due to this system. For now it’s restricted to nice weather and a few select roads, but the progress is there!