Slashdot Mirror
Will Our Cars Become Our Chauffeurs?
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to this long article from EE Times about the 'Self-Navigating Vehicle,' the answer is a resounding yes. Many car experts think that autonomous vehicles which avoid collisions and communicate wirelessly with other cars will be the norm in two to three decades. In the meantime, the enabling technologies for self-navigating cars are emerging, from sensors embedded in the brake or accelerator pedals to more powerful computers. Already, partial solutions exist for adaptive cruise control or for staying in a highway lane. One day, we'll be able to do something else than driving our cars through traffic jams, saving us about two hours per working day. This is the future that engineers are building, but will you accept to be driven by your car? So many people like driving that the concept of a completely autonomous car might be delayed for psychological reasons, not technical ones. This summary contains selected details of the original article."
It's one thing to trust a computer to do your taxes, it's quite another to trust one to hurl you down the street at 80 mph without killing you.
Public transport, this is America.
Have a nice day.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
As much as I hate to admit that it might be a step forward, think about the time saved if all cars began moving as soon as the light turned green (instead of waiting for each car in front of another).
That would shave lots of time right there.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
it's been around for years and it cost under $2 a ride
Having automated transport systems removing the human (idiot) factor will be essential to prevent utter gridlock in the future. The only other alternative is to stop immigrating people faster than we can expand the infrastructure they use. Yes this ultimately is the problem - highway construction cannot keep pace with US population growth.
They don't let me fly the plane, or drive the train or Trailways. I would give up driving my car in a second, and get back to the important stuff like drinking and smoking pot.
In the USA, the risk of lawsuits will surely delay this kind of thing for a long time to come.
Sadly, that will probably mean more people get hurt in the long run.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Take an '83 Monte Carlo on a snowy/icy road, and pretty soon the car will be going all by itself, ignoring all user input "suggestions"...
Not that bad once you get used to it, really.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
This is one of the few areas where I see the legal barriers as nearly insurmountable. What happens when the automatic driving system screws up? Whose insurance kicks in? Who assumes responsibility? It seems like the liability to automobile manufacturers who installed such systems would be huge. Would an insurance company really be willing to underwrite a system like this? Are you willing to assume responsibility yourself for the failure of an automated driving system?
Furthermore, you need black boxes and monitoring/recording systems - how do you know who was driving in an accident, the autopilot or the human driver?
Sure, planes have "autopilots" but there's very little stuff in the air to avoid, and lots of air traffic controllers and rules to basically make flying in a straight line in your own empty area of airspace possible.
Technical and psychological issues aside (and those issues are still huge), unless the system was flawless and perfect (which it won't be) I see the legal morass here as nearly insurmountable.
It was a good sandwhich too. Too bad the rescue crew pulled me out before I could eat the second half.
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
Yeah, and you know that the first time there's a significant crash that can be blamed on the computer (whether it's true or not), safety folks will raise holy hell, and who knows what'll happen then to the whole concept then?
Although this argument never held much water with me. Consider all the tired drivers, drunk drivers, old people, teenagers, and in general crappy drivers on the roads. There's like, what, 60,000 deaths a year due to car crashes, and that's nearly all human error. Can't imagine computers doing worse job than we're doing already.
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
I suspect it'll be some time before the cars are completely automated. I expect that cruise control will be expanded to essentially become an autopilot. The driver will have to turn the system on and will be able to retake control at any time.
I'd imagine that the first fully automated cars will be airport shuttles and similar vehicles which make a repeated circuit of stops. City buses and taxi cabs will come next, other commercial vehicles such as delivery vans and trucks, then finally personal automobiles. How much would a long haul semi-truck operation save if they could run their trucks 24/7 and didn't have to pay for drivers? That's a lot of profit to be had and profit drives innovation.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Most municipalities (and small towns) get their revenue from traffic tickets. If you make cars that never break the law, then bye, bye revenue!
Yeah, right.
In my commuting it's become clear to me that most humans shouldn't control vehicles. Too many of them drive erratically, creating traffic flow problems by changing speed and weaving between lanes.And there are the idiots who think there's only accelerate and brake. Few seem to understand coasting is a way to slow down without causing a compression wave from your brake lights. Commuting would be so nice if we all had mass transit or Johnny Cabs.
If autonomous vehicles save 60,000 lives per year, and result in 6 wrongful death lawsuits per year, do you really think we will ever see an autonomous car on the road? I really, really doubt it. Americans would rather let 60,000 die than forgo those 6 lawsuits, and companies would rather let 60,000 die than pay out on those 6 lawsuits.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The problem I see with this isn't so much the loss of fun associated with driving, but the loss of freedom. I would ONLY favor an automated driving system if it did not do any of the following things:
1 - Require a centralized control or regularly downloaded from some centralized source in order to work properly (i.e. map data from a city's traffic management server, or something like that).
2 - Allow the government to effectively disable the car by remote (which would be easy if #1 was true - just mandate that only authorized vehicles could access the server).
3 - Become mandatory (or effectively mandatory by raising insurance rates to punitive levels for those who don't use it).
4 - Become a means of legistlated vendor lock-in for the previously established auto makers. (In much the same way that the DMCA is a legistlated vendor lock-in for previously established movie and music companies.) If cars that don't have these features are not allowed on main roads anymore, and to get the features approved requires a lot of red tape and is tied to some Intellectual Property of some sort, that effectively prevents any small competitor from trying to get started in the auto-industry, or any hobbiest trying to customize a car.
I like the technology, but given the government's unwillingness to consider the needs of the little guy, or the importance of a level playing field in business (and hobbies, dammit!), I say there is an extremely high likelyhood that this would be implemented in a way that will stifle freedom more than is minimally neccessary (I do understand that some small stifling of freedom is a natural unavoidable consequence of a denser population, but this will be implemented in such a way that it stifles it a lot more than it has to, I can guarantee it.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
By breaking them out of the normal traffic situations the navigation computers will be able to avoid having to deal with the random actions of normal drivers and be easier to trust during the roll-out. Once you get into the city autopilot will go off and you'll be asked to start driving. Over time when the system is perfected and the market is more fully penetrated you'll see autopilot everywhere, but it will probably start on dedicated for pay lanes first.
My $0.02
no the #1 cause of traffic Jams are tailgaiting and cutting people off.
Person A is driving a safe distance from the car in front of him, person B is certianly more important that A so he pulls into the space in front of A causing A to slow down. CDE are all only 3-6 feet from A sothey JAM on their breaks because they can not simply slow down but must now PANIC stop in order to not hit the car in front of them.
THAT is the cause of traffic jams, espically the ones where there really is no visible cause.
In otherwords, very poor driving.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Lots of people will want to promote public transportation instead of this. While public transportation works in some situations, it is impractical in many areas. Rural & subdivisions typically don't get good public transportation service because a bus will only go downtown.
Where I work I go from one subdivision to another area outside of town. I tried to use the bus to save myself time. I would have had to drive 3 miles to a bus station (there are no sidewalks & heavy traffic so I couldn't easily walk), take a bus downtown, switch to a different bus to take me back out of town, then go to work. Taking the bus would have taken me at least 3 hours to commute each day. Driving takes me about 45 minutes.
The people who I think would benifit the most from this would be the elderly. Lots of senior citizens can't drive and some really shouldn't drive. This would allow them to be much more independent and could delay the eventual move to an assisted living community. With the US population aging, this could be a big deal.
It also solves other problems. Nobody would be convicted of DUIs. Accidents due to bad weather (fog, heavy rain...) would be reduced. No more falling asleep at the wheel. No more drivers crossing the median.
Some interesting things could happen too. Could the car run erands without me? Could the car could take itself to the mechanic for an oil change or maintenance? Could it refuel itself while I'm working? If I order a pizza, could the car pick it up? Could it pick up a kid from school, take him to the dentist, & return him without a parent taking time off from work?
Of course, lots of small communities use tickets to increase their budgets. If the cars don't speed or violate traffic, some budgets would feel the impact. Mechanics would also need to be more technical. Odds are the small one-man mechanic business would suffer because of the cost of the diagnostic & repair equipment.
- All drivers are human: Acceptably efficient and safe. "Good enough" for most purposes, accidents do occur but not that often.
- Some drivers are human and some are computers: Confusion and unpredictable responses on both sides, terrible traffic conditions and accidents much more likely.
- All drivers are computers: Very efficient and safe. accidents rare.
The second stage is an unavoidable part of the transition to the third, but no one wants to move from the first stage to the second. Until we have a good process for that, we won't get self-driving cars anytime soon.The article focused only on the technology, but think about owning a self-driving car. When you get to work, why should it sit out in the parking lot all day when it could drive itself home and ferry the rest of the family around, then come pick you up? Most families could get rid of one of their cars. Leased auto-driving cars could take themselves out at night for fueling and scheduled maintenance. Taking it a step further, why I foresee a time when few people will actually own cars. Most of us will subscribe to services that maintain fleets of robo-cars, which we flag one down with our cell phones like cabs. If you take the paid driver out of the picture the scheme might be feasible. Especially if the rate of accidents goes way down and insurance rates plummet. The biggest losers from this technology could be the car companies themselves, selling fewer cars, and insurance companies charging lower premiums.
wasn't the robot road project cancelled in the US for exactly that reason, depite the fact that they can make robot cars/roads safer than most current human drivers, there is the whole problem of blame in the case of failure.
I saw an intersting Open University TV program about this issue a while back. Over 60% of the code was to deal with exceptions that happen less than 1% of the time.
Their major stumbling block? Anything their software couldn't cope with, there was no point handing control back to the human, because they wouldn't be able to react fast enough either.
The sight of 20 strech limos moving in absolute (down to the fraction of an inch) synch was very impressive... a bit un-nerving, but very impressive.
I think the problems facing robot cars are more to do with psychology than engineering. Look at how much fuss is raised over a train crash that kills people "not in control of the vehicle" therefore innocent compared to the number of people who die in car wrecks "in control" therefore less innocent.
I realise this issue is conflated with the number of deaths in an instant too, but i think one of the key "shock" factors is the helplessness of the passangers
A computer doesn't drink and drive. A computer doesn't drive badly. A computer doesn't drive emotionally. A computer isn't 16 and driving with a new liscence. A computer doesn't get tired. A computer doesn't drive when it can't find it's glasses. A computer doesn't get distracted by chatting with passengers, listening to music, putting on make-up, watching DVDs, drinking coffeee, or taking phone calls. A computer doesn't race with it's friends.
Computer sensors could (in theory) operate in darkenss, fog, snow, or rain far better than a human could.
Considering that driving is usually a fairly mechanical activity, I think that this would be a good thing to automate. Plus, a coumputer could be programmed to drive in a more fuel efficient fashion. It could moniter traffic situatons and rout around them. Because it doesn't drive eratically, drive times become more predictable. As more cars become automated, driving becomes safer for everyone. This stupid weight escalation shit of buying an SUV becasue it is 'safer' can end.
There will always be some people that like driving a car. There are people that still enjoy knitting, even though there is no real need to make your own sweaters anymore. For most though, I think that a car is a source of freedom to go anywhere they want, and not so much a pleasure to drive. For those people, it wouldn't matter who drove, just that they got where they wanted to go.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
One of the key aspects of the automobile, in contrast to other forms of transportation, is that it is more deadly to anyone getting in the way or disobeying the unwritten rules of the road. It's like the Mafia - they don't have to kill everybody, just enough to send a message.
Now, if suddenly we have cars which don't run red lights, and which stop every time for pedestrians or dogs, cats, etc. which appear in front of the vehicle, chaos will ensue.
Imagine walking down a crowded sidewalk. You're constantly being blocked, jostled, and otherwise impeded by people who show little concern for your presence, because you're not a threat.
If the motor-death equation is suddenly removed, the same situation will occur on our sacred highways - walking, bicycling, and other un-American forms of transportation will take over the streets!
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
...it's that I don't trust the other cars on the road. When your car bases some of its navigation decisions on wireless messages received from other cars, who can guarantee another car (or something pretending to be another car) isn't LYING?
On a rural road, I could easily imagine thugs with a computer emitting signals that fake a deer-sighting or accident-ahead event, causing you to pull over and slow down. You are then easy prey to carjacking or simple robbery.
This is similar to spam and envelope/header forgery. For a long time, email software trusted everything that was said in the SMTP transaction and the email header. We're still dealing with that today, slowly adding features to try to limit email's exploitability.
Since car navigation presumably affects the passengers' lives, you can't simply add wireless warning protocols to the navigation computer without thinking seriously about how much it should trust those signals.
I teach car control as part of a high-speed driving course at a local race track. One day I was on the skidpad with a student driving his new Boxster. I put him into several oversteer situations, and he gracefully corrected out of each one. Then I noticed the PSM (Porsche Stability Management) light was on. I turned off PSM and found that the driver could not correct to save his life - literally.
/. for a hack around it.
Many modern cars are already taking us out of the loop somewhat. In many cases that's a good thing.
When cars become autonomous. I'll be combing
That's called a train.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
In my youthful-indiscretion period I had a tendency to put as little money as possible into my car, meaning that sometimes my tires were as bald as Dick Cheney.
Would cars know how well they're being taken care of, and what their actual stopping distance is? Would they know to increase the distance from the car in front of them if the roads were wet or icy? If cars did adjust their distance to correspond to their individual stopping distance, would this allow other cars to be set in "agressive mode" (or manual mode) and cut in front of cars with larger stopping distances, forcing them to slow down more? (One of my pet peeves, now that I do tend to leave one car/10 mph distance to the car in front of me.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If you read the article to which you linked, you would see that the test run had concrete weights simulating a 60% passenger load.
The death was caused when these weights broke loose in the passenger compartment and crushed the hapless man.
Hopefully, it would not continue to carry these weights when there are people in there on production runs, and (presumably) individual people would be easier to move off you if they were to "break free" during the day.
Dude, read your own article.
I can understand why people balk at public transportation -- there are a lot of problems with it. It's slow and it just doesn't scale; in "good" public transit places, it's only good because traffic and parking has crippled car use.
PRT can scale better than typical public transit, when you consider both the density of service, and total trip time. Hopefully a more technical-minded crowd can get over the naive idea that big trains can necessarily carry more people. If you just consider a track with one car per second (1 person per car) -- a very conservative density -- vs. a traditional train with five minute headways, the traditional train doesn't look so hot. Especially when you consider the effort in supporting a 40 ton car (that's just one traditional train car) vs. a 1 ton PRT car (and hopefully they could get that weight down considerably as technology improves); the PRT tracks should be way cheaper, and ultimately cheaper than roads. They couldn't actually replace roads, but they could make expansion unnecessary, or even make contraction of roads possible (e.g., removing lanes), and reduce the load on roads so they don't deteriorate as quickly.
PRT is meant to work with urban areas the way they are, not just the way we wish them to be. And the technology itself doesn't require any breakthroughs, even taking into account safety issues.
Anyway, I really hope something comes of it. Some links: SkyWeb, the PRT company that's furthest along; Citizens for PRT; Advanced Transit PRT Page for a bunch of links and academic studies about PRT.