Interesting, and I don't think it's as 'far out' as some are saying. After all, who could have predicted the technology we have today from 40 years ago?
Our car already knows something about the size/weight of a front seat passenger and sets the airbag accordingly.
It's really not hard to imagine that each car on the road could be broadcasting information about itself - GPS co-ordinates (or some more advanced location service?), its current speed and direction, number of occupants, maybe a 'crash profile' of the vehicle (the force you will experience on impact on each angle of the vehicle?), or at least its size/weight, the amount/type of fuel on board, or other hazardous material. Our current technology is pretty close to being able to do that.
Based on that, it seems it would be possible to make a 'least damage' decision if a crash was imminent.
But I can think of a few reasons why they would not include this level of decision making:
1) Despite our reasonable fears of software glitches causing problems, I would expect that autonomous vehicles could be far, far safer than the human glitches we experience practically every outing. So this type of software would not be needed often, the crashes would largely be avoided. And in the case above, if this vehicle broadcast to the other cars that it had a blow-out, all those cars would brake hard, and swerve to avoid it, which would lessen the damage. They could even communicate with each other to provide an open area along its most likely path. Try to get a bunch of drivers to co-ordinate that in an instant!
2) Liability (probably the biggest) - what company wants to explain in court why their vehicle chose to wipe out Car A and kill those passengers instead of the passengers in Car B? Maybe the decision is based on the number of Facebook friends that could show up in court (the computers would have access to everything!
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Think of the ramifications. The car could have a complete profile of the expected damages and potential injuries, with expected costs. Recall the old 'joke' that it's cheaper to run over someone and kill them than to injure them for life? Would your car make that decision - kill the driver alone in a car, rather than injure a mini-van full of girl scouts? Then there is that old saw, 'Not to decide is to decide.' Something's going to happen, either way.
I recall reading recently about pacemakers - I was wondering why they don't use a simple rechargeable battery with an inductive coil implanted with it. You could recharge it by putting the charger plate in close proximity for maybe an hour a week? The current method is long life lithiums, which require surgical replacement after X years - sounds risky to me.
Well, it turns out they did use rechargeable systems many years ago, but there were liability concerns - what if the patient forgot to recharge it? I'd like to have that choice. Heck, today the charger could be programmed to 'phone home' and report to the doctor/manufacturer/care-giver that it was into a yellow zone and was over-due (but not yet critical) for a recharge.
-ERD50