Abstract
Abstract Driving is an intuitive task that requires skill, constant alertness and vigilance for unexpected events. The driving task also requires long concentration spans, focusing on the entire task for prolonged periods, and sophisticated negotiation skills with other road users including wild animals. Modern motor vehicles include an array of smart assistive and autonomous driving systems capable of subsuming some, most, or in limited cases, all of the driving task. Building these smart automotive systems requires software developers with highly technical software engineering skills, and now a lawyer’s in-depth knowledge of traffic legislation as well. This article presents an approach for deconstructing the complicated legalese of traffic law and representing its requirements and flow. Our approach (de)constructs road rules in legal terminology and specifies them in ‘structured English logic’ that is expressed as ‘Boolean logic’ for automation and ‘Lawmaps’ for visualization. We demonstrate an example using these tools leading to the construction and validation of a ‘Bayesian Network model’. We strongly believe these tools to be approachable by programmers and the general public, useful in development of Artificial Intelligence to underpin motor vehicle smart systems, and in validation to ensure these systems are considerate of the law when making decisions.
Highlights
When powered vehicles first hit the roads at the beginning of the 20th century, they brought in their wake major changes to the law
While we start like them with a simple formalization of laws as binary rules, we show how our system can be translated into a Bayesian network that allows reasoning with uncertainty
While presenting as a positive enabling statement ostensibly supportive of live autonomous vehicle testing on UK roads, it is the potential scope encapsulated in the words ‘compatibly with road traffic law’ that may have led those developing autonomous cars to believe that broad testing is still not fully permitted
Summary
When powered vehicles first hit the roads at the beginning of the 20th century, they brought in their wake major changes to the law. While presenting as a positive enabling statement ostensibly supportive of live autonomous vehicle testing on UK roads, it is the potential scope encapsulated in the words ‘compatibly with road traffic law’ that may have led those developing autonomous cars to believe that broad testing is still not fully permitted. It is possible some, rightly or wrongly, understood the statement to mean that the autonomous system itself must be capable of adherence to traffic law relevant to the operational activities performed by that technology. A key target for AISEC is to imbue law and policy into AI code and verify the presence, application and impact of that law in the decisions or actions of the resulting AI
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