That California Story About A Daughter In The Backseat With A Sign Saying ‘Not My Mom’ Stirs Valuable Lessons For AI Self-Driving Cars

The phrase “Not My Mom” created quite a commotion the other day.

Here’s the 411 about it.

A recent news story indicated that a girl in the backseat of a moving car displayed a hand-scrawled sign that said “Not My Mom,” doing so while traveling on Highway 99 in Northern California just south of the state capital of Sacramento.

Other motorists that saw the sign were taken aback and instantly became concerned about the welfare of the young girl.

Anxiously, those concerned citizens called 911.

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) immediately dispatched six cruisers, including a K9 unit, aiming to intercept the car.

It was natural to assume that the girl was likely being kidnapped.

As part of the CHP’s standard protocol, they sought quickly to find the car and undertake what’s referred to as a high-risk traffic stop.

Logically, it could be that the child had been kidnapped. Furthermore, the kidnapper was potentially the driver of the vehicle.

And, the driver, being a presumed sordid kidnapper of children, might be armed.

All in all, it was certain to be a dangerous situation for all parties involved.

Turns out, upon performing the high-risk traffic stop, the CHP ascertained that the girl was the daughter of the driver (her now mortified mother) and that the girl was just having some fun.

The mother insisted she did not know that her daughter was holding up the sign.

Since everything seemed to be on the up-and-up, the CHP let the mother and daughter continue on their way.

As an aside, the handcrafted sign actually said this: “Help me, She’s not my mom!! Help!!”

Any conscientious person would certainly have been alarmed upon seeing such a sign, and I’d suggest we should be thankful that the motorists opted to call the police.

Believe it or not, there were some critics that suggested the motorists that made the call to the authorities were hasty and should have not done so.

Say what?

Would you have motorists entirely ignore such a sign?

That seems like a sad and perhaps outdated way of thinking, namely don’t get involved in matters that aren’t of your concern (what happened to see something, say something?).

I would hope that most people would, in fact, be filled with concern upon witnessing such a situation.

I suppose some critics might argue that the concerned motorists should have flagged down the driver or otherwise made an attempt to get the driver to pull over.

That doesn’t seem very prudent either.

If the driver was a kidnapper, efforts to notify them about the sign would merely play into their hands and undoubtedly, they would have threatened the girl to put down the sign, along with then continuing the kidnapping effort.

Not a good option.

Seeking instead to outright block or stop the car by yourself would be dangerous and foolhardy.

For a kidnapper, they might purposely evade being stopped and you’d end up with a wild and endangering car chase.

Or, the kidnapper might have a gun and start shooting at you and other motorists.

Some say that it was “obvious” that since there was a woman driving, the woman was most likely her mom.

Please keep in mind that the sign explicitly said the opposite, namely that the driver was not her mom, and the girl holding up the sign was old enough to be able to write the sign and presumably be cognizant of what she was conveying.

It seems reasonable to believe that the sign was true and that the woman driving the car might not be the girl’s mother.

Another crazy idea floated was that the motorists ought to have waved at the driver and gotten the female driver to pull over the car.

I ask you whether you would pull over your car on the highway if some other motorist started waving frantically at you and you didn’t know what their beef was.

In other words, put yourself into the shoes of the mother, professing to not have known about the sign, and all of a sudden other motorists are making crazy motions toward you.

Once again, not a reasonable notion.

I say that we put to bed the belligerent qualms about what the motorists did.

They did what we, as a society, would hope would be done.

The Underlying Motivations

Switching away from the details of the incident, maybe we might want to consider why the girl crafted the sign and opted to put it on display.

According to reported accounts, the girl thought it would be fun to do.

Was it solely a lark or whimsy?

Some suggest that perhaps the girl might have already had anger toward the mother and decided this might be a means to get back at her mom.

Maybe, maybe not.

In today’s age, it could even be a YouTube prompted effort, either that the girl had seen online videos of others playing a similar prank, or that maybe the girl hoped she would gain some YouTube fame by having others videotape her.

Did social media play into this?

We don’t know.

It could also have been borne from pure boredom, during which the girl decided to do something that would provoke reactions from other drivers.

Some say that the mother ought to take the full blame in the matter.

Yes, that’s right, some indeed make that claim.

Those proponents assert that the mother should have known what her daughter was doing while in the backseat of the car.

How terrible of the mother to not be keeping tabs on her daughter, they argue.

Look, a daughter old enough to care for themselves while sitting in the backseat of a car is not the same as having a baby in a baby seat or a toddler that needs close supervision.

Give me a break that the mother was supposed to be so closely monitoring her daughter’s efforts in this instance, and especially tough since the daughter was apparently shielding the sign from the mother and did not in any manner alert or inform the mother of the prank underway.

Get ready for something equally a stretch.

Another basis for blaming the mother is that presumably, the mom had not taught her daughter the difference between right and wrong.

Had the mother done a good job of instructing her child about moral values, the daughter would have known to not pull this kind of a stunt, they contend.

All I can say is that if you are really of the mind that this kind of prank is evidence that a mother has not properly reared her daughter (let alone cast blame on all others that are adults in the life of the daughter), you are living in some kind of make-believe world.

Furthermore, even if the mother had dutifully been giving right versus wrong guidance to the child, it would be far-fetched to think that the mother perchance covered the instance of don’t hold up a sign that says not my mom.

That being said, one can likely assume that the mother had covered general principles of life and the girl might very well have realized that the prank was inappropriate, but such guidance was presumably overridden on a spur of the moment whim.

It seems unlikely that the daughter realized the full ramifications of her pranking actions.

The daughter probably figured that motorists might honk their horns or wave at her, but one wonders if she truly realized that the police would show up in force and that the matter had an intensely serious and life-threatening potential to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing the girl for what she did.

During the proverbial kids-will-be-kid’s predicaments of raising children, these kinds of circumstances can arise and luckily, the end results, in this case, was that no one got hurt. Hopefully, the girl comes away with a new lesson in life and does so without being psychology lifelong scarred for what occurred (nor would we want her to simply shrug it off and somehow start a life of crime).

Here’s an interesting aspect to ponder: What do you think the mother told the child after the police let them proceed?

That must have been quite a conversation during the rest of the ride home.

Makes you wonder, how many days of being grounded do you think got assigned?

All of this brings up another interesting topic worthwhile to ponder: What lessons if any can be learned about AI self-driving cars as a result of the “Not My Mom” incident?

Yes, indubitably, there are plenty of lessons!

Let’s unpack the matter and see.

The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.

True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And Rider Pranks

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.

All occupants will be passengers.

The AI is doing the driving.

This means that a mother that’s riding with her daughter in an AI self-driving car will be able to fully devote attention to her loving offspring.

The odds that the daughter could get away with displaying a handwritten sign are pretty slim, though maybe if the sign said “My Mom Is Great” then the mother would allow it to happen.

Seems like this means that we won’t need to worry about similar hoaxes in the future.

Case closed.

Whoa, not so fast!

One aspect that as a society we have yet to wrestle with involves having children ride in AI self-driving cars by themselves.

Yes, we are ultimately going to have children without any adult supervision that will be riding around in AI-driven cars.

Your first reaction is likely to be that you’d never let your children ride in an AI self-driving car without having an adult present. The very idea seems foolish and untenable.

Not all parents are going to think that it is such a verboten notion.

Imagine that you are at work and don’t have the time to get over to the school to pick-up your son or daughter since you are at the office, which is about an hour away from the child’s campus.

After school, your offspring needs to be given a lift to piano practice, just a short 10-minute drive from school.

You don’t have any other adult that you know or trust to go pick-up the child.

What do you do?

Send the child an AI self-driving car and have it drive the child over to piano practice.

Problem solved.

I’ve previously predicted that we are going to end up with a new role in society, the specialist nanny or similar that is a ride-a-long companion and (more importantly) supervisor of children that are riding in a true self-driving car (see this link here).

Some ride-sharing services that make use of self-driving cars will potentially offer the adult supervisor for an added fee, plus there are likely to be independent services that will hire out such personnel.

Not everyone though will be able to afford the added cost of the ride-a-long adult.

Plus, some would rather take a chance on having their child ride without an adult, versus the off chance that a hired “stranger” adult might otherwise do something untoward while riding in the car with their child.

It’s going to be a tough trade-off.

Okay, let’s agree that some parents will let their children ride in a true self-driving car all by themselves.

Guess what?

Such a child might hand-write a sign and display it while riding inside the self-driving car.

Of course, saying “Not My Mom” wouldn’t make any sense since the mother isn’t in the self-driving car.

On the other hand, a clever and mischievous child could write other remarks that suggest something adverse is occurring.

Perhaps something like “Help! Being Kidnapped!!” might be enough to get a reaction from other motorists.

Those motorists might call the police.

If you are wondering how the police are going to stop an AI self-driving car, there are lots of potential ways that as a society we are likely to allow this to occur (for my coverage on the fascinating topic, see this link here).

Options include having the police carry some kind of electronic indicator to let the on-board AI know to stop, or perhaps having the authorities contact the fleet owner and have them transmit a special code to the driving system of the vehicle via an OTA (Over-The-Air) electronic capability, etc.

Anyway, the point is that we are once again faced with the potential of children playing a prank while inside a car.

As might be evident, removing the human driver is both a blessing and perhaps in some ways a potential curse.

Without the need for a human driver, we are removing the adult supervision that today is an assumed and required element of riding inside cars.

Today’s method of driving involves a human driver that might not be aware of what’s happening in the backseat.

The future consists of no human driver in the car and presumably wanton antics by any children that are riding in a driverless car.

Will this lead to anarchy and chaos?

No, for the reasons given next.

More That Meets The Eye

It is anticipated that most driverless cars will include cameras that not only face outward but also ones that face inward.

An inward-facing camera will be handy for many purposes.

Suppose you are riding in a self-driving car to work in the morning. You need to do a Skype-like session with colleagues that are already in the office. Voila, you activate the inward-facing camera, and also the LED display that’s inside the driverless car, and you carry on your work activity remotely.

Another use of the inward-facing cameras will be to try and prevent people from trashing the inside of ride-sharing self-driving cars.

Sadly, without a human driver present, the odds are that some people will decide to spray paint graffiti or rip-up the seats of the driverless car.

To reduce the chances of this happening, the inward-facing camera will be used similar to cameras in liquor stores and other retail establishments. You’ll always be under the eagle eye of the camera. Even if the camera isn’t being manned at all times by some remote operator, the video will be recorded, and you’ll be ultimately caught for doing interior damage (this video recording though can also lead to privacy intrusion issues for everyday and innocent riders, see my link here).

Here’s how this applies to the matter of children riding in self-driving cars.

You send a driverless car to pick-up your child at school. Once your child gets into the vehicle, you turn-on remotely the camera. While sitting at your desk at work, you watch your child riding in the driverless car. Furthermore, you chat about how their day is going and then wish them well at piano practice when the driverless car reaches its destination.

In that manner, there is adult supervision.

Don’t though rejoice entirely.

Being remote has its disadvantages.

If the child is eating and suddenly starts to choke, there’s nothing much you can do.

Not being present in the driverless car does have disadvantages.

Though, at least you could talk to the child and try to explain what to do.

You might also be able to alert the police and ask them to rush to the driverless car to help save your child.

And, you could likely remotely instruct the AI to pull over where there might be adults that could extend a hand.

Conclusion

Does this mean that whenever children are in a driverless car there will always be some form of remote adult supervision?

No.

It might be that you don’t have the time to watch the child or believe that there’s no need to watch the child (especially if they are a teenager or so-called young adult).

For those that always want someone watching their child, once again the nanny role comes into the picture, namely that there will likely be remote “nanny” services that for a fee will watch your child, including possibly talking with the child if that’s something you want to have happen (sounds creepy, but not if the person is screened and say a math tutor that can help work on their calculus homework during a long ride).

In the end, no matter what AI self-driving cars are able to do, it seems like a pretty strong bet that kids will still be kids.

One wonders that if the AI of a self-driving car perchance sees a child riding in another driverless car and is brazenly holding up a sign saying “Help! AI Has Me Captive,” whether or not the AI of the spotting self-driving car will do anything to save the child, or instead might stubbornly cling to loyalty of a fellow (artificial) species and opt to not be an out-of-sorts AI turncoat.

Time will tell.