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TECHNOLOGY Saturday 9 September 2017

House passes bill to speed deployment of self-driving cars

By JOAN LOWY the federal government
Associated Press regulates the vehicle,
WASHINGTON (AP) while states regulate the
— The House voted driver.
Wednesday to speed Automakers have com-
the introduction of self- plained that a patch-
driving cars by giving the work of laws states have
federal government au- passed in recent years
thority to exempt auto- would hamper deploy-
makers from safety stan- ment of the vehicles,
dards not applicable to which they see as the
the technology, and to future of the industry.
permit deployment of Self-driving cars are
up to 100,000 of the ve- forecast to dramatically
hicles annually over the lower traffic fatalities
next several years. once they are on roads
The bill was passed by a in significant numbers,
voice vote. State and lo- among other benefits.
cal officials have raised Early estimates indicate
concern that it limits their there were more than This May 13, 2014, file photo shows a row of Google self-driving Lexus cars at a Google event
ability to protect the 40,000 traffic fatalities outside the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.
safety of their citizens last year. The National Associated Press
by giving to the federal Highway Traffic Safety
government sole author- Administration says 94 but a bill hasn’t been in- ness” since foreign auto- to hands-free driving,”
ity to regulate the vehi- percent of crashes in- troduced. If a measure makers are developing leaders of seven groups
cles’ design and perfor- volve human error. passes the full Senate, self-driving cars as well. wrote lawmakers.
mance. States would still Members of the Senate the two versions would The bill addresses “a va- Automakers say safe-
decide whether to per- Commerce committee have to be reconciled riety of barriers that oth- ty standards requir-
mit self-driving cars on are also working on self- before President Donald erwise block the ability ing things like steering
their roads. Generally, driving car legislation, Trump could sign it into to safely test and deploy wheels and brake ped-
law. these vehicle technolo- als don’t make sense.
IBM and MIT partner on The House bill is the prod- gies,” the Alliance of Au- But consumer and safety
uct of extensive nego-
tomobile Manufacturers groups say the bill could
artificial intelligence research tiations between Demo- said in a statement. permit the government
crats and Republicans, The bill permits the de- to exempt self-driving
a rare of example of ployment of up to 25,000 vehicles from occupant
BOSTON (AP) — gence. It also will tackle bipartisan agreement self-driving vehicles in its protection and crash-
IBM is planning to spend some of the economic and in a Congress driven by first year, rising to 100,000 worthiness standards as
$240 million over the next ethical implications of intel- political and ideological vehicles annually in the well.“Exposing motorists
decade to create an arti- ligent machines and look
ficial intelligence research at its commercial applica- differences. third year. to the dangers of crash-
lab at MIT. tion for industries ranging The measure “gives the But consumer and safety es without proven and
Massachusetts Institute of from health care to cyber- auto industry the tools to groups say they remain needed protections is
Technology on Thursday security. revolutionize how we’re concerned the bill will a wanton disregard for
announced the formation MIT President L. Rafael going to get around for weaken safety standards public health and safe-
of the new MIT-IBM Watson Reif says the new AI lab generations to come,” and undermine public ty,” the groups said.
AI Lab. It will support joint builds on a decadeslong said Rep. Fred Upton, a acceptance of the ve- The bill doesn’t apply to
research by IBM and MIT research relationship be- Michigan Republican. hicles if a defect led to commercial vehicles,
scientists. tween IBM and MIT. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a crashes and fatalities. which were carved out
Its mission will include ad- It will be based at the uni- Michigan Democrat, “Unfortunately, this legis- after labor unions ex-
vancing the hardware, versity and IBM’s nearby said the bill “is funda- lation takes an unneces- pressed concern that
software and algorithms research center in Cam- mentally an issue of sary and unacceptable self-driving trucks would
used for artificial intelli- bridge, Massachusetts.q American competitive- hands-off approach eliminate jobs.q