Like autonomous vehicles expert witnesses and self-driving cars experts of all kinds often point out, there are all sorts of legal and technological issues that can arise around connected cars, and that are likely to arise as cars become more computerized and AI controlled.
By way of initial example, a commonly-cited concern of autonomous vehicles expert witnesses (testifying AV expert witness pros) and self-driving cars experts (consulting industry leaders, market researchers, etc.) is as follows: On the one hand, you may have safety issues relating to multiple high-tech systems (sensors, 3D cameras, LiDAR imaging, AI, etc.) talking to one another. On the other, you potentially have to ask yourself what happens when someone hacks your car, sends it to an undesired destination, or – by virtue of the connected cars’ increasingly high-tech internal systems – otherwise compromises one’s safety and security.
Another big issue that AV expert witnesses often cite is that cars are quickly becoming more about silicon than steel, at odds with their historical makeup. In other words, today’s autonomous vehicles (no matter if they’re standard-issue connected vehicles, self-driving cars (or buses, trucks, taxis, etc.), or connected cars per se are becoming more like computers with each passing day – and any computer system, no matter how powerful, can be subject to errors, technical hiccups, software glitches, and other forms of compromise.
In other words, like self-driving cars expert witnesses and AV consulting experts would be remiss if they didn’t point out, cars are becoming increasingly complex beasts with each passing year. To wit, in many ways, you have to think of them more like PCs than performance vehicles, noting that they’ll increasingly involve computerized brains, software updates, and high-speed telecommunications capabilities going forward. And that’s before you start to consider how they’ll interact with smart and connected roadsides, traffic infrastructure elements, and real-time streaming media and data, or various issues and concerns as might relate to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
Needless to say, the future of connected cars and the law looks to be a busy one going forward.
