14 DAY TRIAL // The FBI is scared of Google’s driverless cars. Well, not literally, but the agency does believe that the vehicles could revolutionize high-speed car chases in a few years and that they could end up being used as lethal weapons.
According to The Guardian, the FBI has already taken into consideration everything about the prototype Google unveiled a few months ago, aside from some key issues, but we’ll get to those later.
The newspaper reports that the document from the FBI is not classified, but restricted, and was obtained under a public records request. In it, the agency comes to the conclusion that autonomous cars will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can do with a car.
One of the things the FBI is concerned about is the fact that criminals will be able to conduct tasks that require both hands or taking their eyes off the road. For instance, drive-by shootings would be much more effective by using one of these cars that don’t need a driver.
The only thing they should have taken into consideration for this report is the fact that Google’s prototype cars, for instance, are capped at some 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour), which would make a speedy exit impossible. Furthermore, everything that someone would need to do to stop the criminals is jump in front of the car, because the sensors would make it stop immediately.
Furthermore, does the Google car really look like something gangsters would climb in?
Another nightmare the FBI has is the scenario where the suspects start shooting at the police from the driverless car since they wouldn’t need any help with the road. Once more, the limited speed makes it hard to use in such an occasion, and unless the caps are removed, which is highly unlikely, running from a police car is unlikely.
“Autonomy … will make mobility more efficient, but will also open up greater possibilities for dual-use applications and ways for a car to be more of a potential lethal weapon that it is today,” the report reads.
The FBI seems to be concerned that criminals and terrorists will manage to override the safety features instilled in the cars and ignore traffic lights, speed limits or program the cars to drive in certain areas to detonate bombs.
While this particular scenario isn’t exactly impossible, it does seem taken from a Bond movie. With this type of products on the way, one thing’s certain – manufacturers, be they Google or any other company, will first and foremost focus on the tight-knit security around the cars’ system.
That’s because with this type of cars, the companies behind them will be the first ones to be blamed for whatever happened, which is the last thing any of them needs.
Furthermore, from what we know of these cars so far, there will be little that can be done to the extent the FBI fears. Google said that their cars would be designed to operate safely and autonomously without human intervention by using the software and sensors for everything. Overriding the operating system without transmitting any signals to Google would probably be impossible, and the entire thing would be too tiresome as it would also involve recalibrating all sensors.
Double Standards
Leaving the FBI’s paranoia aside, it looks like the agency did manage to see something good in the entire situation. They believe that this type of cars can make surveillance more effective and easier because there are fewer chances for a patrol car to lose sight of a target vehicle.
“In addition, algorithms can control the distance that the patrol car is behind the target to avoid detection or intentionally have a patrol car make opposite turns at intersections, yet successfully meet up at later points with the target.”
This indicates, of course, that they’d require some modified cars specifically tailored for the police, which is great and all. I can’t but point out that, once more, there’s a double standard applied here. Autonomous cars could be weapons in the hands of the wrong people, but goldmines in the hands of authorities.
We’ve heard this before about everything under the sun, from money to cryptocurrencies, from smartphones to computers, and so on. I’m not even going to discuss the double standard applied to encryption tools.
It is unclear how long it took the FBI to write the report because, if this is all there is to it, someone was paid to daydream on the job. The scenarios painted by the agency are more of a fantasy tale than actual possibility. The autonomous cars are only now being built and security around them will be tight from the beginning, especially after the entire NSA scandal.