“The patent, first spotted by Motor1, describes an autonomous police vehicle that would be able to detect infractions performed by another vehicle, either on its own or in conjunction with surveillance cameras and/or road-side sensors.
The AI-powered police car could then remotely issue citations or pursue the vehicle. Or (and this is where it gets really creepy), “the method may further involve the processor remotely executing one or more actions with respect to the first vehicle,” according to the patent.
In other words, the autonomous police car could wirelessly connect to the original car to communicate with the passenger, verify identity, and issue a citation.
In fact, Ford’s patent filing describes a machine learning algorithm that would be able to determine whether or not a vehicle breaking the law warrants a warning as opposed to a citation, and relay that decision to the driver.”
I suppose that with the rise of the driverless car, this situation would be inevitable. Now the specter of a driverless police car cruising around, analyzing its surroundings by means of a “machine learning algorithm”, and making its own decisions.
At what point in time will Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics need to be rolled out?
