Self-driving vehicles may be inherently racist because they’re unable to detect dark-skinned faces in the dark, experts have warned.
The Law Commission says racial bias ‘has crept into the design of vehicles and automated systems’, which could have disastrous consequences.
Autonomous vehicles are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that’s trained to detect pedestrians in order to know when to stop and avoid a collision.
But this inherent bias effectively means anyone with a ‘non-white’ skin tone might be at greater risk of being involved in an accident in poor light conditions.
Self-driving vehicles may also be prejudiced against women and the mobility-impaired, because their operating systems have largely been created by able-bodied men, according to the Law Commission.
The self-driving vehicle market will be worth nearly £42 billion to the UK by 2035 according to the Department of Transport – but scientists are racing to get the technology right
The independent body is drawing up the legal framework for the rollout of self-driving cars on UK roads.
‘Systems may not have been trained to deal with the full variety of wheelchairs and mobility scooters,’ it says in its joint consultation with the Scottish Law Commission.
‘Air bags save many lives, but the first generation… posed risks to smaller passengers, such as women of small stature, the elderly, and children, because they were developed with adult males in mind.
‘Current facial recognition software may also exhibit a bias towards white, male faces.
‘For non-white and non-male faces, the accuracy of facial recognition systems may decline significantly.’
The Law Commission also said that if systems are designed to recognise pedestrians through leg movements, ‘those movements may not be as pronounced for people wearing long skirts or robes’.
‘Where designers are drawn predominantly from one demographic group (such as young men) it is easy for the diversity of those affected by the design to be overlooked,’ it says.
The self-driving vehicle market will be worth nearly £42 billion to the UK by 2035 by 2035 according to the Department of Transport – by which time, 40 per cent of new UK car sales could have self-driving capabilities.
But autonomous vehicles can only be widely adopted once they can be trusted to drive more safely than human drivers.
Therefore, teaching them how to respond to unique situations to the same capability as a human will be crucial to their full roll out.
‘When it comes to autonomous cars, that technology must be accurate, precise and non-discriminatory,’ Edmund King, president of AA, told the Times.
‘Human error is a factor in a majority of crashes but we shouldn’t just transfer the risks and accept robot error.
‘The last thing we need is the next generation of Mondeo Man being a racist, misogynist self-driving automobile.
‘These technological hurdles need to be overcome before drivers can take their hands off the wheel.’
Self-driving vehicles could prevent 47,000 serious accidents and save 3,900 lives over the next decade, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Trader.
But Hawes also said fully automated driving – known as level 5 – is ‘some way off’.
2021 was previously touted as the year fully automated vehicles would rollout on UK roads – but the technology is still in the trial phase.
Last autumn, Oxbotica, an Oxford-based autonomous vehicle software firm, launched a test fleet of six self-driving Ford Mondeos in the city.
The vehicles were each fitted with a dozen cameras, three Lidar sensors and two radar sensors, giving the fleet ‘level 4’ – the ability to handle almost all situations itself.
In January this year, new lanekeeping technology approved in United Nations regulations came into force in the UK.
This effectively means vehicles can be fitted with an Automated Lane Keeping System (ALKS), which keeps the vehicle within its lane, controlling its movements for extended periods of time without the driver needing to do anything.
The driver must be ready and able to resume driving control when prompted by the vehicle, however.
But it would mean drivers could cruise along the motorway at 70mph while sending a text or even watching a film.
Car manufacturers would potentially have to install shaking seats to alert drivers when they would have to take control of the vehicle.
A fleet of six self-driving Ford Mondeos navigated the streets of Oxford in all hours and all weathers to test the abilities of driverless cars as part of a trialin 2020
The ALKS system is classified by the UN as Level 3 automation – the third of five steps towards fully-autonomous vehicles.
Safety continues to be a major challenge for autonomous vehicles, which have undergone multiple trials globally.
Several self-driving cars have been involved in nasty accidents – in March 2018, for example, an autonomous Uber vehicle killed a female pedestrian crossing the street in Tempe, Arizona in the US.
The Uber engineer in the vehicle was watching videos on her phone, according to reports at the time.