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Comment and Technology

AI needs oversight – time to set standards for autonomous tech

By Paul Marks

21 July 2016

A woman sits in the driver's seat of her Tesla car, driving down a road without her hands on the steering wheel

Autonomous autos could cause controversy

Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A car crashes while on autopilot and the driver dies. A hefty security robot at a US shopping mall knocks down and injures a child.

Autonomous systems and machines that make their own decisions are here. And more are on the way, such as airborne and ground-based delivery drones. But the way they learn about the world and decide to act is complex and opaque and it is hard to know how often they will get it wrong. There are, as yet, no…

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