Posted on 02/09/2016 8:52:56 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
Elon Musk's Tesla recently became the latest big shot company to enter the self-driving car sweepstakes. Mr. Musk recently announced the hiring of software architecture veteran Jim Keller, who previously had played key roles at Apple and AMD, to lead its Autopilot Engineering team. Teslas move follows the recently announced partnership between General Motors and Lyft, in which the automaker is investing $500 million in the ridesharing company as part of a joint venture to develop self-driving cars.
And of course Google, Uber, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Apple, Audi, Bosch and Delphi Automotive (the big auto parts manufacturer) all have their own much-hyped development programs for autonomous vehicles in full swing. Forget cures for cancer, climate change or world peace, the media has made it clear that self-driving cars will be the Next Great Step in civilizations drive toward magnificence.
It's time to hit the brakes for a reality check.
Despite how much Uber CEO Travis Kalanick likes to crow about our "driverless future," outside of The Jetsons this one is...not...happening...soon. Besides the remaining technological challenges, the liability and regulatory issues involved in letting a 3,000-pound death machine steer itself with no human at the controls are huge.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.com ...
The only application that makes sense here are robo armored vehicles for the Army and the Marines to use in battle.
Liability issues make this untrue, IMO. If a driver makes a mistake, they are held responsible as an individual (or as a company for a fleet driver). If the self-piloting car screws up, the pockets of the "driver" (the car manufacturer) will be much, much deeper, and therefore the liability much, much higher.
Knowing what I know about automotive software, I am really concerned about the probability of significant issues.
As robo cars age they will start to leave on the turn signal and drive slower.
Driver less cars with bench seats may have a market. But with bucket seats there’s no advantage.
And they’ll have to get exempted from seat belt laws.
Anything that increases the fertility rate is a good thing.
This will all be by virtue of the discovery of nuclear-magno-pneumatic velocitators, capable also of powering the average home for 100 years, no power grid necessary.
It changed everything. Let your imagination run with the concept of free and unlimited power and you’ll get the picture.
The manufacturers have already done this with full sized pickups without the EPA. Pickups used to be reasonably priced vehicles to work out of. Now they're in the luxury car price range and the beds are so high that if you can't just reach in to get something off the floor, you've got to crawl in there to get it.
There are several places where driverless technology is going to be very well-tested before it ever becomes very commonplace on public roads.
1. Mines - lots of underground and above-ground roads hauling lots of materials; especially in dangerous places
2. Construction sites - lots of paths & roads to go through; especially in dangerous places
3. Warehouses - some of them are becoming massive villages with their hundreds of rows, thousands of shelves, and its a nightmare to manage without good automation
4. Combat zone - who is the squad leader or platoon leader going to send in first to check out a dangerous place? Some kid whose mama might get a flag for that heroic decision? It makes better sense to send in the driverless humvee first.
5. Industrial worksites - besides mines & construction sites there are plenty of places like power plants, electrical grid stations, cargo loading/unloading sites (i.e. harbors, airports, trains, etc), etc. where there are paths/roads where safety issues abound for humans that make better sense to have driverless vehicles.
In fact the usage of driverless vehicles has been well underway for a long time and its definitely not going to go away EVER as long as there is any modern industrial activity in the world. I agree that there are plenty of human factors involved that will slow down the public implementation of driverless vehicles. But it’s going to happen so please be realistic.
That comment “please be realistic” was not directed towards anyone on this thread but to the general public. I think the people on this thread are smarter than average and quite realistic-thinking people :)
It’s really obvious when you see a new pickup parked next to something like a mid 70s version.
As a developer for 30 years, I wouldn’t want to come anywhere close to working on these projects. The meetings with lawyers and marketing and industry/insurance/government would be a nightmare. The decisions of when to protect the driver vs when to do the least likely harm to everyone would be unpleasant either way.
I’m sure there would be lots of talk about how MY car should be allowed to protect ME. And if that’s not allowed, Bernie supporters will want to ensure that the 1% can’t replace the software to protect the owner more than others because the car has to treat the 99% like the 1%. And if the other driver decided to buy a green car made of paper, my SUV may need to total itself because we don’t know what may happen if we hit a car made of paper and fueled by unicorn farts.
And, no matter what immunity the government promises there will be law suites if a bug (or intentional rule) in my code decides who dies.
They don’t need to account for all the stupid behavior. We can’t. If they can account for a lot of the stupid behavior AIs will be an improvement, if only because they will react faster, and not with more stupid behavior (our fondness for honking horns and yelling at each other impedes our ability to avoid accidents). And of course as more AIs hit the road the amount of stupid behavior will drop. It’ll be a lot like immunization and herd immunity, more AI cars doing fewer stupid things, making it so the AIs face less unpredictable behavior, allowing them to be more successful, allaying more people’s fears of the new technology, who then get AI cars...
I agree. You will see driver-less cars first developed in retirement type cities to help the elderly go to the store, church, out to restaurants,etc.. I sure hope we have driver-less cars when I get older. Also, I would be willing to pay handsomely if it means getting a large part of my freedom to move around back.
“We lack driverless trains ....”
Exactly right. Driverless technology would work very well with trains. Trains are on tracks. They normally stay on the tracks. Crossings are very well defined.
The place to use driverless technology is with trains. Not with cars. Not with trucks. Not with planes.
No, people spend too much time decrying what they don’t understand. There are many many applications for driverless vehicles. Many of which are already in use today. It IS going to happen, almost all the new luxury cars on the market today park themselves, most of them have automatic braking, GPS navigation has worked down the market to midrange vehicles, collision detection and avoidance is already in the luxury market. If you buy a new luxury car now it’s 3/4 self driving already. It’s not science fiction anymore, because it’s not future science and it’s not fiction.
You do know that most modern aircraft are virtually pilotless?
You should have finished the sentence. We don’t lack driverless trains because of technology, we lack them because of unions. And even with unions train “drivers” are doing less and less of the actual driving. We’ve had automatic planes for decades, we don’t let them land and take off but most commercial jets spend most of their “in use” time running themselves, pilots are just there for the beginning, end, and in case of weather.
FWIW
This week on cruise at 45, the speed limit, as I crossed a large long causeway the auto braking suddenly set up on all 4 wheels!
The cause was a barely visible, but wide steel “plank” left by the night crew across the 2 lane work area. I assume the car perceived it as a stopped vehicle.
I did hit the brake and then the cruise control before it stopped braking and I resumed traveling at about 20 MPH. No, I did not get hit in the rear, luckily.
I don’t think I would give up personal control easily and will be researching this event before using the cruise again. It is also strange to find it sets it’s speed automatically to that of the car ahead, on expressways.
“We don’t even have driver less trains”
Yes, we do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems
When I retire I am buying a 1965 Ford pickup. I can work on it myself, it is simple to maintain. Not a high tech nightmare.
When you find a link that makes your point instead of mine you should post it.
As I said, A.I. and driverless cars simply cannot account for all the (stupid) human variables that occur while driving.
Neither can humans, the issue is who is superior since neither option is perfect.
People blowing red lights and stop signs are probably the best example.
You just made the case for getting the control away from humans, as they're more likely to blow through red lights and stop signs.
I had someone just a few weeks ago blow through a left turn signal that was red in their direction and almost hit me head-on while I was doing 45mph obeying my traffic signal.
The jerk first made like he was going to stop, then accelerated and turned right in front of me. It was a good thing I had my foot off the accelerator and ready to hit the brake as I went through the intersection. If I hadn't, I'd have surely t-boned the idiot.
The driverless car will also detect the idiot, and will detect his movement and predict the intercept much more quickly and precisely than you are and also will be able to react much, much faster than you can. I'll also add, if it was a driverless car moving the idiot, it wouldn't pull into your right of way either. You're making a great case for getting humans off the wheel!
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