Posted on 05/30/2014 11:13:25 PM PDT by Lmo56
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- About four years ago, the Google team trying to develop cars driven by computers - not people - concluded that sooner than later, the technology would be ready for the masses. There was one big problem: No state had even considered whether driverless cars should be legal.
And yet this week, Google said it wants to give Californians access to a small fleet of prototypes it will make without a steering wheel or pedals.
The plan is possible because, by this time next year, driverless cars will be legal in the tech giant's home state.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
If, because humans don’t have to handle every moment of driving but only have to be there to ensure there are no mishaps, there are probably billions to be saved because truckers could routinely handle 14 hour days instead of the current 12 hour days that most do.
I see cars on the road every day which appear to have no intelligent force controlling them. A Googlemobile couldn’t be any worse.
What difference, at this point, does it make?
You'd need to have a key for the car. If a child can get access to the car, you may have a fingerprint scanner. Without that scan the car only goes to the school and back.
A “dear leader” has a temper tantrum and programs all conservative owned cars to drive into the ocean, off a cliff or straight to a fema camp.
It's like fearing that your microwave oven goes postal on you. Cars won't be remotely programmable. It is neither necessary, nor safe. All the programming will be done at the dealerships, and you can bet that it will be tamper-proof as a condition for getting insured.
The computers that run the Visa network are more reliable than humans. There are systems where you can hot-swap processor blades, as the OS migrates tasks off of the boards that you are about to pull out. Computers flew Shuttles to the orbit and back; computers assisted in Lunar landings. Even today a typical new car contains several computers. Some of these cars have cameras, they can look at the road markings, they can follow other cars, and they can park your car.
These fears are very similar to those when cars just started to appear in cities - everyone was sure that a car, moving at breakneck speed of 5 mph, will inevitably hit something within seconds.
Hardware can always be improved; humans, on the other hand, are what they are. Each human has to spend time and money to learn to drive; however all autonomous cars learn together, in parallel, and on each other's mistakes. A self-driving car's computer can easily have ten million miles of driving under its belt, in all conditions, in all cities and on all freeways, because this knowledge comes as a data file that a service tech upgrades your car with. No human can even hope to have that much experience in his lifetime.
Naturally, there will be many situations where a human must drive. For example, the police cruisers will have to have both the automatic mode (to allow the LEO to use radio, MDT, cell phone, notebook, etc.) and the manual mode (for chasing a car, if necessary.) A few days ago there was a discussion about automated trucks, and the last mile is one such place where a human may do better. But automation will work for the majority of commuters and for some professionals (contractors' trucks and vans). Some errands can be ran by the car alone - such as buying groceries online and sending a car to pick them up.
What could possibly go wrong....ping.
A lot can go wrong ... but on the other hand, what’s this we have now?
As a ‘back seat driver’ to supervise the proceedings, fine.
But to do all of the driving...maybe okay on a Freeway/motorway, but on other roads ,supervisory only.
Besides, why should a CPU have all the fun? :)
Darks often observes that drivers pull into his place of business, thinking it’s someplace else, because their GPS tells them to. Much depends on accurate programming.
“accurate programming.”
In this instance , the programming is fine....finely ground, ,,, and roasted. :)
Yes, the GPS works off a database table.
If it is wrong, the robot won’t get you to your intended destination.
Quite often I get drivers that are absolutely adamant that my truck exit MUST be the place because “my GPS said so!”
Nothing like dumbing down America even more.
Driverless vehicles are the ultimate form of liberal mass transit.
“In many ways, Google replicated its Nevada playbook: Frame the debate. Wow potential allies with joy rides. Argue that driverless cars would make roads safer and create jobs.”
I’d want to hear that jobs argument. Subtract many hundreds of thousands of delivery drivers, taxi drivers, truck drivers, and add...what? A couple more minimum wage drones at amazon.com packing stuff into boxes for a handful of transportation company executives who now have a lighter payroll.
The notion that Google will be liable to lawsuits is ludicrous. The technology won’t become widespread until states, or possibly the feds, exclude Google and the manufacturers from liability.
A bigger concern to me is the fact that presently there are systems available to hack into some cars remotely while they are going down the road and do things like turn off the ignition and possibly control acceleration.
With the google car you have the potential for every system of the car to be remote controlled. Kinda scary.
There are two major economic reasons for driverless vehicles.
Replace a driver with a computer. A $20,000 machine that can operate 24/7/365 with zero salary or other employee expense. Cost for five years relative to human drivers = don’t know. But a small fraction. 1/10th?
In all probability, after a shakedown period, computer-operated cars will be much less expensive to insure, and for good reason.
Yes — absolutely. People who think that trial lawyers will be allowed to get their hands on this industry in any special way are smoking crack. Laws will be written such that as long as self-driving cars are statistically less likely to cause damages can than regular cars, “statistical” type accidents will entail no special damage awards. Manufacturers will still be liable for defects that are the result of clear negligence, but that’s no different from now.
All you need to do is look at how easily Uber and Lyft have overturned a hundred years of law and practice regarding taxis and their drivers in some of the most liberal cities in the country. Liberals celebrate workers and regulation until it would actually have a cost to them — losing a far better way to get around — and when that happens, forget about it.
Indeed. That would be the argument for eliminating jobs — Google claims the opposite result. I want to know what kind of jobs they’re talking about, and how many.
Probably the “new normal”: another H1B from India will get the new job that is directly related to the production of the new car, and ten truck drivers will go from making a living and paying a mortgage to just scraping by at whatever part time job they can find so they can pay their rent.
Do I have to buy insurance if I’m only a passenger?
"Of course, of course. It is a silly thing to be concerned about," said the NSA spokesperson.
It is IMO ridiculous to claim that these cars will create new jobs. They will, of course, while eliminating 10x or 100x that number of existing jobs.
But then anybody who thinks Walmart moving into an area creates hundreds of new jobs in the retail sector of that area would probably fall for Google’s claim.
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