The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
By Bryant Walker Smith on January 27, 2015 at 4:14 pm
One of my courses this semester is Technology Law: Law of the Newly Possible. This seminar, at the University of South Carolina School of Law, examines how law responds to, incorporates, and affects innovation. Read more » about Seminar on the Law of the Newly Possible
By Bryant Walker Smith on January 12, 2015 at 3:42 pm
By Bryant Walker Smith on June 9, 2014 at 8:46 pm
Road Vehicle Automation, which was inspired by the Transportation Research Board's eponymous 2013 workshop at Stanford, collects a variety of public, private, and academic perspectives on this nascent transportation revolution. Read more » about New Book: Road Vehicle Automation
By Bryant Walker Smith on May 20, 2014 at 7:34 pm
After a great deal of careful work, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) today released its final rule for the testing of "autonomous vehicles" on public roads in the state. Accompanying this rule is a Final Statement of Reasons that, on page 9, contains a striking exchange: Read more » about Something Interesting in California's New Automated Vehicle Testing Rule
By Bryant Walker Smith on December 18, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Some ninety percent of motor vehicle crashes are caused at least in part by human error. This intuitive claim is a fine place to start discussions about the safety potential of vehicle automation. (It is not an appropriate place to end these discussions. Read more » about Human error as a cause of vehicle crashes
By Bryant Walker Smith on December 18, 2013 at 10:33 am
SAE International's On-Road Automated Vehicle Standards Committee, on which I serve along with experts from industry and government, will soon release an information report defining key concepts related to the increasing automation of on-road vehicles. Central to this 12-page report are six levels of driving automation: 0 (no automation), 1 (driver assistance), 2 (partial automation), 3 (conditional automation), 4 (high automation), and 5 (full automation). Read more » about SAE Levels of Driving Automation
By Bryant Walker Smith on October 6, 2013 at 12:00 am
Thank you for reading my posts this week. If you happen to be Eugene Volokh or Ken Anderson, thank you in particular for making them possible. And if you were one of my thoughtful commenters, thank you for questioning and challenging; I have read your remarks with great interest. Read more » about Looking at My Vehicle Automation Entries in the Rear-View Mirror
By Bryant Walker Smith on October 4, 2013 at 12:00 am
By Bryant Walker Smith on October 3, 2013 at 2:38 am
By Bryant Walker Smith on October 1, 2013 at 12:00 am
Cross-posted from Volokh Conspiracy.
Since the 1950s, the Long Beach Freeway has linked the massive Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to, roughly, the rest of the continental United States. Because much has changed in trade and traffic since then, California’s relevant transportation authorities have decided that perhaps this freeway should change as well. Read more » about The Impact of Automation on Environmental Impact Statements
By Bryant Walker Smith on September 30, 2013 at 12:00 am
By Bryant Walker Smith on May 27, 2013 at 5:25 pm
"Will lawsuits kill the autonomous car?" That's a dramatic expression of a common question. (And one to which Twitter has a short retort.) Here’s the conceptual answer that I’ve been giving for a year, now in blog form (with bonus Italics). Read more » about Uncertain Liability
By Bryant Walker Smith on April 15, 2013 at 11:58 am
By Bryant Walker Smith on July 31, 2012 at 1:58 pm
In honor of anyone who just took a bar exam, here's the wholly hypothetical scenario I used at last week's excellent multidiscliplinary workshop on road vehicle automation (with slight modifications): Read more » about A Self-Driving Crash Test
By Bryant Walker Smith on July 10, 2012 at 6:16 pm
A century later, driverless cars and trucks have the potential to revolutionize society as much as the horseless carriages that preceded them. This emerging technology raises important questions -- about legality and liability, privacy and security, even intellectual property and land use -- that demand thoughtful analysis from a variety of perspectives. For these reasons, I am excited to be teaching an inaugural seminar on the legal aspects of autonomous driving. This Fall 2012 course is open to Stanford University students who want to meaningfully advance that analysis. Law students should preregister by this Friday, July 13th, 2012; others should follow these steps. Read more » about Stanford Students: Fall 2012 Course on the Law of Autonomous Driving
