Autonomous technology, like passenger vehicles and drones, is on the rise in North Texas. NTX Now's Ron Corning spoke to Ashleigh de la Torre, vice president of public policy at Amazon, Ernest Huffman, program manger for North Central Texas Council of Governments, and David "Nemo" Neal, chief of design at Mozee, about where the industry stands at a recent Dallas Assembly event.
Following that conversation, Ron and NTX Now's Miranda Suarez talked with Bart Huffman, a data strategy, security, and privacy attorney at Holland & Knight in Houston, about how the data landscape is changing with the rise of these new technological advancements.
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity. To listen to the full conversation, click the listen button above.
Skepticism of autonomous technology
Many people in the audience at the Dallas Assembly event raised their hand when asked "who here thinks they will never ride in an autonomous vehicle?" De la Torre thinks over time, their minds will change.
"I think you'll be surprised about the adoption of this technology," she said. "10 years ago would any of us have gotten in the back of some random person's personal vehicle to get driven from our house to the airport? And now we don't think another thing about it."
Physical safety concerns
De la Torre said companies who are competing with each other to create this autonomous technology is a good thing for consumer safety.
"I think the most important thing industry can do, beyond competing with each other, is ensuring a really high safety bar," she said. "We're talking about regulations and how we're focused on collecting data."
Ernest Huffman also said safety is the top priority.
"If it's not safe, the regulators aren't going to allow for it to exist in our city," he said. "So it needs to be safe."
Autonomous drone delivery
One way Amazon is utilizing this technology is through autonomous drone delivery. De la Torre explained that this technology would save consumers time, whether it was for ordering late night medicine for a sick kid or to quickly get a forgotten ingredient mid-dinner party.
Bart Huffman explained that while Amazon is able to complete these deliveries, and the consumer who ordered the drone delivery may have consented to property scanning in order to complete the delivery, the community surrounding them might not have.
"Maybe the person receiving the package would be asked to consent to this and think about the implications, but the person next door probably didn't, right?" Huffman said. "And the people along the street that [the drone] saw and ingested information about along the way."
Future regulations
Bart Huffman explains that communities will have to decide if having packages delivered at quicker rates is worth the uncertainty surrounding data protection.
"You have to think about, are we doing it in a way that is necessary and proportionate for that aim? Or is there a potential that an entire fleet of autonomous vehicles could be in fact recording the whereabouts and identity of everybody in a whole urban area?" Huffman said. "And what are the security protections that are in place to stop a really awful consequence like that from occurring."
Miranda Suarez and Ron Corning are the hosts of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Miranda at msuarez@kera.org or Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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