It's 2025 and more than 10% of the cars on the road in the US are self-driving. It's rush hour on a busy Friday afternoon in Washington, DC. Earlier that day, there'd been a handful of odd reports of self-driving Edsels (so as not to impugn an actual model) going haywire, and the NTSB has started its investigation.
But then, at 430pm, highway patrol units around the DC beltway notice three separate multi-Edsel phalanxes, drivers obviously trapped inside, each phalanx moving towards the Clara Barton Parkway, which enters DC from the west. Other units notice four more phalanxes, one comprising 20 Edsels, driving into DC from the east side, on Pennsylvania Avenue.
At this point, traffic helicopters see similar car clusters, more than two dozen, all over DC, all converging on a spot that looks to be between the Washington Monument and the White House.
We zoom in on the headquarters of the White House Secret Service. A woman is arguing vociferously that these cars have to be stopped before they get any closer to the White House. A colleague yells back that his wife is one of those commandeered cars and she, like the rest of the "hackjacked" drivers and passengers is innocent.
A related scenario, one that theoretically could happen today, is hacking into commercial airliners auto-pilot systems, and directing dozens of flights onto a target.
Set aside the fantasy movie plot angle, how realistic is this today? Is it any more or less plausible than the millions of cars scenario? If people are truly concerned about the car scenario, shouldn't they be worrying about the aircraft scenario?
Yes, the autopilots can be turned off, but that's just a button, probably a button on the autopilot itself. Depending where the infection happens, the actual position of the yoke could be entirely ignored by the software. Or the motor controllers for the control surfaces themselves could be driving the plane, though I don't know how they could coordinate their actions and get feedback from an IMU.
Perhaps the pilots could rip out components and cut cables fast enough to prevent the plane from reaching its destination, and maybe they could tear out the affected component and limp back to a runway with what remains, but it's an entirely feasible movie plot.
But should we actually worry about either? No. The software sourcing, deployment and updating protocols at the various manufacturers of aircraft are certain to be secure. Right?
And
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy3nXXZgqmg
TL;DR you simulate a bunch of other planes in close proximity and the auto-pilot freaks out and tries to avoid them. As the second talk explains, the pilots would definitely notice and switch autopilot off. This is why IMO it's very important to not take ultimate control away from humans in cars. I would personally never buy one of the Google (or any other) self-driving models with no controls. It already freaks me out that many cars are drive-by-wire (for the accelerator), and now even steer-by-wire: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/electric-feel-nissan-di... #noThankYouPlease
I would imagine that any pilot would figure out what was going on, unless it was on an incredibly foggy day.
>It's rush hour on a busy Friday afternoon in Washington, DC.
>each phalanx moving towards the Clara Barton Parkway
>all converging
DC rush hour? Moving cars? Please. Independence Day made me suspend less disbelief.
You see, with an internal combustion engine, there are several ways that you can stall the engine, even if the computer is controlling it. As long as you can stop it from rotating, it will stall.
Now, take a Leaf. The engine can't physically stall. It is completely controlled by electronics – in contrast, even an ICE with an engine control unit will have some of it being driven mechanically (valves and driveshaft are all mechanical). This also causes cars to "creep" when you release the brakes, as the engine has to keep rotating. In the Leaf, the "creep" exists, but it is entirely simulated.
Similarly, the steering is also electric and controlled by algorithms (more assist in parking lot, less in the highway).
Braking is also software-controlled. The first ones had, as people called them, "grabby breaks" (it would use regenerative breaking with a light force, if you pressed more, the breaks would suddenly "grab" the wheel). This was fixed in a software update.
Turning on and off is also a button. Can't yank the keys either.
So yeah, presumably, a Leaf could turn on, engage "drive" and start driving around, all with on-board software. It lacks sensors to do anything interesting, but the basic driving controls are there.
Good thing it cannot be updated over the air.
As to movie points: of course Will Smith is the hero, and we'll handle DC rush hour stasis through special effects. ;-)
https://medium.com/@mpesce/the-great-hack-part-one-attack-70...
In some cases, people are having to wait months to get new airbags because they just don't have them in stock. In the computer case, would you want to keep driving until they can get you scheduled for a software update? Remember that many cars can't update critical software OTA.
probability x value, etc.
There are a few instances where some bad tesla batteries (the standard 12 volt batteries ironically) failed, and the cars handled it perfectly. It slowed down so that the driver could do safely pull over. Sure it did not happen to all cars at once, and autonomous cars migh not be able to do that by themselves but we have a log way to go to reach 100% autonomous driving (i.e. Without a steering wheel and a car that drives everywhere humans drive and not only on San Francisco's perfect sunny roads where it's been thoroughly tested on).
I'm also a biker. In 2013, 4,735 pedestrians and 743 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles. http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm
In the future when self-driving or at least augmented driving is commonplace, I hope that number will be a lot lower.
