"Bryant Walker Smith, chair of the Emerging Technology Law Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, called the NHTSA's decision to consider computers to be drivers "a striking declaration."
"This doesn't mean that computer drivers have rights or responsibilities or are otherwise equivalent to people in law broadly," Smith noted, and called the decision "a mixed bag" for Google, because it makes complying with some safety standards more difficult.
"NHTSA is being both bold (by classifying a computer as a driver!) and cautious (by repeatedly hinting to Google in the footnotes that perhaps it shouldn't fully dispense with some human role)," Smith said."
- Date Published:02/10/2016
- Original Publication:The Daily Dot