Comment on Followup on the vehicle "kill switch" mandated by the Infrastructure Bill
DemBoSain@midwest.social 8 months agoExactly. There’s too much possibility of false positives in most of these technologies to be safe. There’s a section where NHTSA covers how they should handle disabling a vehicle in a dangerous situation. For example, if I’m in the middle of the woods camping and drinking, should I be able to drive my car to escape a forest fire?
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
The problem, of course, being that if an emergency override of any kind exists for such situations- then that override can always be used, making the restrictions null and void. which means all systems were simply added cost and maintenance headaches passed onto the consumer for zero net benefit.
Sure maybe they could make an always online system like onStar that would let you request an override to be reviewed by a person… but that’s fucking hilarious to think any manufacturer is going to take on that cost, they’d make it a mandatory subscription for some stupid AI override bot, and that is an even bigger pile of fucking nope.
FaceDeer@kbin.social 8 months ago
I think this whole kill switch thing is a terrible idea, but if it must happen somehow then an override that logs when it is used might be a bare minimum.
Still think it's awful, just the least awful.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Right, so then who monitors the logs? Are there punishments for excessively bypassing safety features? Because the goal of these features is to stop a crash from happening. If you can bypass them at all, a log entry isn’t going to help the crash victims. Which means the system must inherently be extremely totalitarian and strict if it is to succeed in its dtsted goal, which is not something you will get most drivers to sign on to.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
if that’s the stated goal, instead of justifying ever more surveillance
FaceDeer@kbin.social 8 months ago
Presumably it'd be monitored by law enforcement. I'm describing this as a system that would allow the totalitarian "you don't actually own your own things any more" thing that the proponents of this law are champing eagerly at the bit to implement while avoiding the "you need to escape a wildfire immediately but the car thinks you're a little too eager on the gas pedal" scenario. Not as a system that I would in any way like or support.
Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned that the proposed rules wouldn't prevent individuals from disabling this kill switch entirely, much like it's technically legal for an individual to remove the seatbelts or airbags or whatever from their own car. I would grudgingly accept a law like that as the absolute worst thing that I would actually be willing to accept, provided the kill switch actually was disableable and not locked behind stuff that would blow up the car if you took it out.