Banned Driverless Car Puts Chinese Tech CEO In The Police Firing Line

A Chinese tech company CEO has landed himself in hot water with Beijing police after appearing to use driverless car functions – currently banned in China.

Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, made a phone call to a conference of artificial intelligence developers from the passenger seat of a car travelling down a busy motorway under its own control. There was another executive in the driving seat, we understand, but he wasn’t making any control inputs.

Beijing police have apparently lost their cool after finding out about the ‘stunt’. Via infamously authoritarian Chinese social media the force said they “attach great importance to this matter and are actively carrying out investigations and verification.” China has previously banned self-driving cars until the authorities can figure out a set of laws for them.

Apparently this would go down as an ‘unlicensed’ driver offence, the maximum fine for which is (wait for it) about £20. The bigger punishment is that the car could be ‘confiscated’. The way China works, the government will probably just want to harvest some profitable technology for itself. Give it six months and there’ll be a new state-owned tech firm pumping out driverless car software…

Via: The Guardian