A startling video showing a woman apparently asleep behind the wheel of a Tesla on Highway 1 through southeastern B.C. is raising fresh concerns about the limits of self-driving technology.
The video was captured by Caleigh King on Sunday afternoon, and shows a grey Tesla with pink accents travelling between the communities of Golden and Revelstoke.
The driver does not appear to be awake.
Vancouver lawyer Kyla Lee said the incident also highlights broader questions about how automated vehicles make decisions in emergency situations.
She argues the public has little insight into the ethical programming built into these systems, including how they would respond in unavoidable crash scenarios.
“You have to choose between sort of the lesser of two evils, whether you’re going to run over the old person or whether you’re going to run over the baby,” said Lee.
“We need to know what type of decisions vehicles are going to make in those circumstances and we need to know that we can live with that as a society.”
Lee said those decisions should be transparent and guided by regulation, warning that allowing vehicles to make life-and-death choices without clear public oversight could conflict with Canadian values and put people at risk.
