Autonomous machines prompt debate - News - The Engineer: "Legislators and opinion-formers need to start thinking about how autonomous machines like driverless trucks, surgical robots and smart homes that keep an eye on their occupants could affect society, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering.
"In a new report, the Academy points out that the technology to develop such systems is either already available or closer to reality than many people think — and the legal system needs to catch up fast."
"Autonomous trucks are a good example; as Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal, a member of the Academy’s engineering ethics working group and BAE Systems’ Military Air Solutions’ science and technology director pointed out, autonomous vehicles already operate in mines and warehouses. Such trucks would use lasers and radar to monitor their surroundings and neighbouring cars, and would have the Highway Code programmed into them.
‘They’d be much more predictable than trucks driven by humans; they wouldn’t pull out suddenly, they would always pull in if there was a problem; they’d give way where they were supposed to,’ Dopping-Hepenstal said. ‘But also, there are bound to be problems. If there’s an accident involving one of these things, who’s responsible? The system's engineer? The manufacturer?’
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