Foundation of Safe Autonomous Systems

自动驾驶系统即将成为主流商业产品，这些产品将以自动驾驶汽车、无人机送货等形式出现在公众的日常生活中。特斯拉的自动驾驶仪和通用汽车的超级巡航等半自动驾驶汽车功能已经得到广泛使用。埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）甚至声称特斯拉的“自动驾驶仪”比人类驾驶员更安全，因为在第一次有记录的死亡事件发生之前，自动驾驶仪已经行驶了超过1亿英里。虽然自动驾驶汽车相对于人类驾驶员的安全性目前还存在争议，但毫无疑问，这种自动驾驶系统有可能带来巨大的好处。也就是说，只有当它们被设计成可接受的安全和可靠时，它们才会获得公众的认可，从而允许它们的广泛使用。

Autonomous systems are about to make the jump to main stream commercial products that will be encounter by the public in their daily lives in the form of autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, etc. Semi autonomous vehicle features such as Tesla's autopilot and GM's Supercruise are already in widespread use. Elon Musk has gone so far as to claim that the Tesla ``Autopilot'' is safer than human drivers based upon the fact that over 100 million autopilot miles were driven before the first recorded fatality. While the safety of autonomous vehicles relative to human drivers is currently debatable, there is no doubt that such autonomous systems have the potential to deliver tremendous benefits. That said, they will only gain the public acceptance that would allow their widespread use if they are designed to be acceptably safe and reliable.