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Google's Driverless Car and the Logic of Safety
mikejuk writes "Google's driverless car could save more than 1 million deaths per year and tens of millions of injuries. It is an impressive achievement, but will we allow it to take over the wheel? Sebastian Thrun puts the case for it in a persuasive TED Talk video. However it may be OK for human drivers to kill millions of people each year but one human fatality might be enough to finish the driverless car project — in fact it might not even take a death as an injury might cause the same backlash. Robot drivers might kill far fewer people than a human driver but it remains to be seen if we can be logical enough to accept the occasional failure of algorithm or hardware. Put simply we might have all seen too many 'evil robot' movies."
Brings into the light the numbers on just how dangerous automobiles are. Few activities have these huge numbers of deaths, accidents, and property loss and damages.
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As I don't live in a country that's very sue-happy (yet, we're heading that way), yes! Please take the wheel! A snooze on the way to/from work would be excellent, thanks.
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"save more than 1 million deaths per year"
Wouldn't it be much better to save 1 million LIVES per year?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You can't take revenge against a computer. A human being killed is a-ok with most people as long as you can take revenge.
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People are obviously much more tolerant of human error than machine error. Machines in life safety areas are expected to be perfect.
Also who is liable in a fatal accident caused by a machine? People want a human scapegoat.
Obviously the base programming of these cars will be to have them follow the local rules and being computers will be very good at this. Which means that government types will feel free to keep adding more and more rules to satisfy every voter. Thus these cars will quickly stop following the most efficient routes and going the fastest speed that is safe but will end up following routes that take them away from schools, parks, politicians' houses, and whatever whim they want. Even though these cars will soon be able to scream around at full speed safer than cars now they will end up going slower.
Also how are the morality police going to get their rocks off if now you can be passed out drunk in your car?
If the cars are all carefully following the rules and in theory you need far fewer traffic cops then who will catch people who jailbreak their cars into ignoring speed limits?
Lastly in this litigious society who will you sue if an empty car has an accident? The owner, the coder, or the local government who probably designed a crappy intersection or whatnot that induces the cars to crash at that spot.
I would venture to say the self driving car is simply inevitable, as the economic forces behind it are huge. Millions of people will buy additional cars, to replace theirs as well as to get extra ones to take their kids to work without them, create truck and taxi fleets with no drivers, etc. After cars become self-driving, they will become smaller, as they will really almost always carry one person and be used within city limits. That will be basically the same as PRT systems, which exist already. --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit --- Personal rapid transit (PRT), also called personal automated transport (PAT) or podcar, is a public transportation mode featuring small automated vehicles operating on a network of specially-built guide ways. PRT is a type of automated guideway transit (AGT), which also includes systems with larger vehicles, all the way to small subway systems.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Sadly, safety is something that is not handled rationally by the masses. It is mostly an emotional judgement.
Until it becomes mandated and I can't drive. I enjoy driving. I also understand most people would take the alternative to having to do it themselves if given the chance. Which is good, because a lot of them suck at driving. Of course, I'll die, and this generation will be fine with it because they grew up with it.
There is no -1 Disagree.
I like the idea of a robot-driven car, but I think the difficult thing is that in the case of a death or an injury, people want to be able to hold a person responsible. It's difficult to know exactly how that would pan out with a robot car. However, I guess one advantage is that you would probably have a 'black box' that could give you a much better idea of exactly what happened.
To be honest, people probably worry about this more than they should. We already have the situation where injuring or killing people with a car is very lightly punished. It's exceptionally rare (at least in the UK) for anybody to do jail time for killing people. You can do all sorts of idiotic things in your car, kill someone and get away with a fine of a few hundred pounds.
If a human with a net worth of negative $10^5 to positive $10^5 is behind the wheel when something happens, maybe one or two lawyers will take notice. But if a machine that was built by corporation X, which is worth $10^9, get out of the way of the lawyer stampede towards the courthouse that will look something like the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Just look at the unintended acceleration claims so far.
I think the real selling point for driverless cars isn't going to be safety, but efficiency. Road maintenance is very expensive. Adding more roads costs a lot of money, and widening existing roads often means tearing down whatever homes or businesses are built alongside them. Driverless cars could use cooperative algorithms to better handle things like lane closures and overall congestion. You wouldn't have free-rider problems (no pun intended) like people cutting in at the front of a line, slowing everyone else down. When a stoplight turns green, every car could start moving simultaneously, getting more people through the light. I bet a huge reduction in rush hour traffic would be a selling point for a lot of people (and regulators).
It would take a long time to implement. And there would be a backlash from people who want to do (possibly selfish) things the algorithms won't. But it's still a neat idea.
Visit the
Evil robots in movies is one thing in a world of fiction. Windows misbehaving, bluescreening and doing strange things, in the other hand, is something usual in this world. And the plenty of malware for it doesnt help exactly. Adding to that scenario the capability of harming people in big scale as isolated drunks do from time to time is not good.
I think the reasoning in this story is stupid. Drivers could get killed many times more when they're driving themself, but at least it's their own fault (or some drunk driver). But I sure as hell don't want to be the one guy in the statistics whos dieing is okay just because the system usually works. At least let me cause my own death, or be in control of avoiding getting hit by a drunk driver so it's at least my own fault!
I just threw up in my mouth a little. But then I imagined Microsoft's response:
You have successfully changed your radio station.
You must restart your car for the changes to take effect.
Do you want to restart your car now?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The iCar will have two settings: Destination and an option of "Get me there as soon as possible" or "I want to enjoy the sights".
The competitor will have an option for "GT mode", "Super Sport", "Cruise launch", "Eco-boost" and "Rally" that no one understands.
With vaccines ,i fully agree - the spock mentality is spot on with those as herd immunity is one of the key reasons why we do them.
With guns i don't.
It's totally old, but guns don't kill people by themselves. If someone wants to off a family member and doesn't have a gun, he'll go for an axe or a boning knife (in fact those tend to be usual family murder tools in my country where guns between people aren't too common) - should we ban those too?
And with home invasions... i consider it wrong taking from people the ability to defend themselves and force them to be at mercy of some *expletive redacted*.
who will tend to get a gun anyways - there are far too many even illegal ones at present for a ban to be meaningful. Besides, even if they didn't - use of "cold weapons" tends to give someone like that an advantage - not everyone is physically fit enough to defeat an invader in such a way, while almost anyone can use a shotgun.
Now to the main topic.
One of the reasons why i wouldn't go in a car like this ever is similar to what overreliance of new pilots on hardware sometimes produces in airplanes - so called CFIT - controlled flight into terrain. It might be somewhat better at handling common situations, sure, but once something is off usual, a trained person will adapt to what happens, while a machine tends to mess up really badly in such circumstances.
However, the biggest, though rather emotional argument of giving your safety away from your hands while driving - something which i personally don't really like.
In other words, the problem is not so much safety, which after all people ignore quite often - go to any workshop or anywhere and see how folk work, but control, being in charge of your own safety.
As such, i'd say that the best way to begin using these is to automate things like small transport vehicles - while there still may be an outcry if one crashes, they will produce some savings for the companies using them which will add to the pressure to continue development and improve
Perhaps move onto trucks then - tired truck drivers tend to cause accidents, never mind robberies and hijacking often perpetrated on truckers sleeping at vehicle rest places. (I dislike the technology potentially putting them out of work, but it's the logical next step.
I drive manual transmission cars, I ride motorcycles, and I love going to the racetrack and testing the limits of both myself and my vehicles. Never had an at fault accident, but in the interest of disclosure I was rear-ended while waiting at red lights TWICE.
So while I have a personal problem relinquishing control of my car to a computer because I enjoy driving it myself, I can see the benefits of computer aided driving especially on public roads. But I believe an in between system would vastly improve safety while leaving people in control. Instead of the computer having absolute control, have it perform the same analysis and assist in collision avoidance.
Approaching a red light at a speed beyond safety margins? Apply the brakes. Start fishtailing on the highway? Apply corrective steering measures. Changing lanes into another vehicle, cyclist or turning into the path of another vehicle? Sound warnings, apply brakes, etc.
The trick is setting the thresholds to a level where people are completely in control up to the point where they are somewhat close to having an accident. Because if you believe computer driven cars will remove ALL collisions, you're deluded. All it takes if for a child to run out between two parked cars in the path of another car, and all the computer systems in the world will not counter its kinetic energy.
And it would be VERY important for the vehicle to be usable with the computer systems disabled, for several reasons.
First, because many people enjoy driving. Short of banning every single existing car on the road, people like me will always be able to purchase and drive a non-computerized vehicle. Even today I can buy a functioning Ford Model T. Think about that for a second, and you'll realize it could take a hundred years before the last current car stops being available, short of outlawing them. But just like with cigarettes and alcohol, I doubt that will ever happen. Can you imagine the lobby all the wealthy car collectors will mount?
Second, because computer systems fail and sometimes they cannot be inexpensively repaired. A current car can still run with many of its electrical systems disabled (power seats, windows, navigation system, even alternator and starter) for a while. Having worked with cars and motorcycles for a long time, I can tell you I'd rather rebuild an engine than diagnose an electrical problem. A cold solder on a PCB can ruin a while weekend trying to figure out why your car will not start in hot weather, but works fine in cold (I'm looking at you Honda Main Relay!!!) The complexity of a computer that can drive a car is beyond anything we have available today ANYWHERE, and it has thousands of failure points. Sensors, cameras, gps, servo motors, switches, wires, PCBs and only lastly the main CPU. The fact it runs in testing is great, but these systems have to last 10+ years of abuse WITHOUT FAILURE.
Lastly, having fully computer driven cars will make people even more dependent on technology, which is NOT a good thing. I've had my GPS tell me to go down a railway track once. I looked at it, smiled, and found the real route myself. But people HAVE driven on railway tracks, into lakes or in remote areas where they died of hypothermia. Imagine if you program your car to drive you, without any input, and it makes such a mistake?
It's science fiction, until we can program a creative and reasoning mind.
Yes, we can build warning systems, or even systems that delivers fault free driving in most conditions,
but exceptions happens, and our technology is far from beeing able to handle the unknown.
The margins for errors when driving is frightfully small - we are travelling inches from death, and
even small errors are potentially fatal.
The human mind is excellent at doing fast intuitive reactions, and there is nothing that makes you gain respect
for the brain, than trying to program something that is dead simple for a human to do, like formatting a graph in a nice looking way.
Unfortunately, games that are just playing simple tricks are fooling us to believe that AI is simple and near.
I wont let anything drive me, unless it can also talk about something funny and relevant during the drive...
It's ok for coal to have killed and maimed thousands directly and more than a million indirectly, but a nuclear incident that gives a few workers a dose over limit.....
There are concerns have already stopped thinking for themselves but this "complaint" seem a bit overboard. One of the most monotonous, most error prone, and rarely deadly common activities people in the US do is drive to and from work. Its boring but requires our focused attention. This means the 30 to hour minute drive is often a lost time activity that we do twice a day. A repetitious activity that can easily bore a human and has to be done to time and safety tolerances? These are all of the hallmarks of something that a machine should be able to handle better than humans.
I'm not sure I'd want all cars to be self driving but as a "work car" then why not? Complaining how people abducted their choice to a nanny state because cars drive them to work belies the fact that most people don't seriously or rigorously plan their drive to work anyway.
Judging from the number of cars I see with drivers blabbing on cells phones while drifting around on the road, people stuffing their faces, digging around the passenger seat, etc I'd say we've had driverless cars for some time now.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Quick we need a car analogy... oh wait...
As soon as it is proven that computers cause fewer accidents than people do, the rates for manual insurance will rocket. Just like it's now impossible for a teenage man (and when the non sex discrimination rules kick in, teenage women, too) to get any insured for less than several thousand £££'s, so it will be for drivers who wish to be in control, themselves. SO while the law may allow people to drive, it will soon be impractical for reasons of cost. Shortly after that it will become socially irresponsible and after that people will start to wonder why anyone would ever want to. It'll take a decade ot two, but sooner or later the only place people will be allowed to control cars themselves will be on private race-tracks next door to hospitals - provided you can afford the medical care.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
A million deaths per year sounds inflated. Last year, the us had "only" 42k deaths. I can't believe the rest of the world accounts for 660k deaths, ESP when the US has a disproportionate amount of vehicles.
Stipulating "1m deaths" as fact makes me suspect the rest of this analysis.
--
$tar -xvf
Right, the logic expressed in TFS was reasonable, but only from the collectivist POV. That is, a system where some people are sacrificed for The Greater Good(TM), in this case for likely a significant increase in highway safety, vs. a system where the individual has a large amount (albeit not complete) control over his or her own life. This is just one particular case in the timeless struggle between two conflicting general philosophies.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
). But I sure as hell don't want to be the one guy in the statistics whos dieing is okay just because the system usually works. At least let me cause my own death, or be in control of avoiding getting hit by a drunk driver so it's at least my own fault!
Yep, and when you are driving, your genes get to play a greater part in the "selection" process. So it has a higher chance of "improving" humans in the long run.
With the robot controlled cars, it's more "hit or miss".
Cyborg post-humans on the other hand might take a different evolutionary approach.
I don't think people realize just how automated their vehicles already are. Sure, it's nice to be able to point to something and go "It parks itself! Ohmigawd!" but if you dig deeper you'll realize that the beginning of the "cars driving themselves" era has already passed us by. Thirty years ago when you mashed the brakes in your car, it pushed on a hydraulic, vacuum-assisted cylinder, and forced a fluid down to the brakes. That's it.
Now when you nail the brakes, a computer is deciding that the "rapid engagement of the brakes" is really a request for 100% braking power and fully actuates the master cylinder by itself regardless of your exact input. Some cars will even adjust your steering inputs for you. Meanwhile another computer is looking at the rotating speed of each wheel, comparing them, and reducing and/or modulating the pressure to keep them from locking up. Another computer (or maybe the same one) is checking the speed of all four wheels versus the angle of the steering wheel versus roll/pitch/yaw sensors, and further adjusting the brakes and engine torque split to ensure that the vehicle isn't spinning or attempting to roll. Yet another computer is seeing that a massive load is being placed on the front suspension and actuates a set of valves or magnets to firm up the front shocks to reduce braking dive. Meanwhile a front facing sensor is comparing your rate of deceleration with the speed at which you're approaching an object, and when the check fails it weighs each occupant and primes a series of airbags for them, fires the seatbelt pretensioners, unlocks the doors, brings the seats upright, rolls up the windows, closes the sunroof, disables non-essential electrical systems, and basically does it's best to prepare the cabin for a crash. Some cars even have microphones tuned to listen for the sound of impact as a queue for firing the airbags! And how many cars these days phone home (OnStar, etc) when you're in an accident? You smash into a tree and before the fog clears from your eyes there's a friendly sounding lady on the phone going "We've detected a crash. Sir, are you alright?"
Cars already drive themselves. We just point them in the direction we want to go. One day we won't even have to do that, we'll just say "take me home" and it will figure out the rest. Why that is so much more terrifying than our present state is largely a matter of perception.
But Apple would want to take 30% of the charges any time you pay for parking/toll/etc.
Nice list of automated systems, but the reality is that these are all optional -- disable every single one of the systems mentioned, and the car would still work.
You could list the things in the engine that automatically control it -- at least the car would stop if those failed -- but ultimately, when people talk about automatic cars, you know what they're talking about -- the important stuff. Computer control of the steering, brakes, throttle. Three analog channels. Everything else pales in comparison to those things.
Until the car can control those three variables on it's own (and I'm not talking about self parking cars, but that's getting close) -- the car will not "drive itself". That "pointing it in the direction we want to go" thing, that's called driving.
But I sure as hell don't want to be the one guy in the statistics whos dieing is okay just because the system usually works.
What happens when the system works better than you do?
At least let me cause my own death, or be in control of avoiding getting hit by a drunk driver so it's at least my own fault!
You also are asking for permission to cause the deaths of others. And a drunk isn't going to hit you with a car, if they aren't driving.
As I see it, I don't believe we should ever get rid of human drivers altogether. The need for human freedom outweighs the slightly greater death rate from having human drivers on the road. But at the same time, I think you should understand the trade offs of being a human driver.
When you get behind the wheel, you are putting other people at risk of being hit by you. I think that the risk to these other people are outweighed by your needs and wants (driving is pretty safe when done by a skilled driver who is aware of and respects the risks of driving.
But the iCar would only have 1 pedal.
Makes driving a bit trickier, no?
Modern cars could easily be programmed to never exceed 80
And we could easily prevent you from committing a crime in the future by preemptively locking you up. That sort of thinking leads to all sorts of absurd rules and regulations in the name of "public safety". Do we want to live in a Fischer-Price nanny state or would we rather be treated like adults who can handle themselves responsibly unless we demonstrate otherwise through our actions?
I don't own a car or drive
And yet you gleefully propose onerous regulations on driving because even a miniscule improvement in your safety is worth endless amounts of inconvenience to those of us who must drive to work each day? Typical.
At least let me cause my own death, or be in control of avoiding getting hit by a drunk driver so it's at least my own fault!
Are you the guy who apologized to Dick Cheney after he shot you in the face? Man, you have some serious self esteem issues.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
It is the driver behind the wheel which makes it dangerous.
And here's the problem with robotic drivers... They are all identical. Every one on a particular model will be byte for byte identical. Which means a fault in one is a fault in all.
Humans on the other hand are all different. Just because one causes an accident under certain circumstance doesn't mean another would.
Deleted
I think you're talking about ABS (reducing braking power to avoid wheel lockups, so that steering input still has an effect) but what you've quoted is a long-winded way of saying Emergency Braking Assist, which is becoming fairly common. ABS will override EBA, but EBA is more about the speedy application of brakes than finding the upper limit of available traction (ABS' job).
You're exactly right, which is sad, because I don't really see much courage in our government to do any of this stuff. So yeah, we'll keep increasing the amount of coal we burn, waste more fuel stuck in traffic jams, etc., and think that shit smells like freedom.
No no you use both feet on the pedal at the same time to brake.
The Skytrain Rapid transit in Vancouver has been driverless for 25 years. I pretty sure there isn't a system with drivers anywhere in the world with a better safety record. But that's cool, when you come to Vancouver you can take a cab from the airport. Because, you feel much safer trusting $random cabdriver who hasn't slept in 14 hours, to get you there than some algoritrhm,
driving is pretty safe when done by a skilled driver who is aware of and respects the risks of driving.
Sure, but how many people fit into that category? Not a lot. It's not (usually) those drivers that are causing the accidents.
There are many weird issues that would have to be considered with car AI though. I probably wouldn't want to develop such software, because a bug really could be life threatening, even if lives are being saved most of the time.. it's a difficult one. Also, drivers are legally responsible when they make a stupid mistake, but who is responsible when the car makes a mistake? The driver that didn't patch up to the latest software? The developer that didn't realise the code he wrote doesn't work in all scenarios? The driver that didn't keep their tyres properly inflated, causing their car to aquaplane into another?
which is totally what she said
What will happen to all of the Barney Fife's of the world if this is implemented. With no more speed traps to generate income for local governments, the cops will have to find something else to do or be laid off.
Actually, considering that there's too many of us on our little ball of sand and iron already, the Greater Good &trade might be better served if we keep driving like we're used to. Reconcile that with "Do no evil", Google!
May the source be with you.
Bah. You aren't driving, you're just riding in a box. You don't even need to own it -- you can just rent it for you trip.
We already have that. We call them "cabs".
And they're sometimes useful.
Which may be the way to sell this, more than "it's a car you don't have to drive!". Why bother? The *point* of owning a car is to drive it. Driving is *fun*.
(And if it isn't, please, please, please take the bus, train, or trolley. If you don't enjoy driving, you're not going to be paying attention, which, frankly, makes you part of the problem.)
The problem with driverless cars is not that they're going to be unsafe, but that they're basically useless. We HAVE means of transporting people so that they don't have to pay attention already.
And yet we still own cars. Why? Because they're _fun_. Who's going to drop US$50,000 on a car that they don't get to drive?
Pick One: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~stremler/sigs/sigs.html (Note - disable Javascript first!)
Hold the fuck on. What you've just said is that you're okay with more deaths and/or injuries, so long as it's a humans fault. If that is correct, that decision is a source of danger to others - but you're still okay with it, because it'll be your own fault. In other words, you're presenting the exact same illogical reasoning that this article is addressing. Is it better to have more accidents and a human at fault, or less accidents and robotics at fault? POV regardless, it is absurd to cling to the former option. Uncanny Valley indeed.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
Indeed, and it is insurance companies that will eventually make automated driving the default option by pricing "manual" driving insurance through the roof.
Why would they? The manual driver wouldn't be any less safe and wouldn't be involved in any more accidents. Quite the contrary. In many accidents, there is one driver making a mistake, but another driver could have compensated for it. If a manual driver goes past a stop sign, a computerised car might be able to get out of the way when a human couldn't.
Do not ignore those who are killed by no fault of their own. How many are killed in accidents caused by someone else?
Unfortunately, this is precisely the point. People are illogical. 600k die every year to heart disease and no one flinches, but it a one-time, ~3000 death event caused a massive response. 24k deaths each year can be attributed to coal power plants, but clearly it's nuclear power that's the major threat. After all, you never know when your local nuclear reactor might be hit by a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Hell coal generation in the US releases more radioactive minerals (mostly uranium and thorium) than is contained in all the nuclear plants in the US! If you live near a coal plant you get a higher average dose then living next to a nuke plant!
And the effects of coal related radiation is secondary to the respiratory illness caused by coal particulates released from mining and power generation.
If the coal industry was held to the same standards as the nuclear industry it wouldn't be profitable.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
who's liable when a part in your car fails and you skid across the road into another car?
it doesn't happen much but lets ignore the software aspect and assume that a wheel just fell of the car.
it could be the mechanic if you just got it serviced a few days before and they either didn't spot it or make a mistake while working on the wheel.
It could be the car company if there's a systematic problem with all their cars.
it could be you if you've failed to keep the car in a good safe condition.
Your insurance company may insist that to be covered you get your car serviced regularly if you want to be covered.
so lets now apply the same logic to the software.
it could be the mechanic if you just got it serviced a few days before and they damaged a sensor or screwed up the computer somehow.
It could be the car company or software vendor if there's a systematic problem with all their cars/software.
it could be you if you've failed to keep the car in a good safe condition and the software up to date.
Your insurance company may insist that to be covered you keep your software up to date.
no big leaps really.
The iRoads will get you everywhere you need to go, easily and safely. There are other roads for other cars that lead into swamps and off cliffs, and the iCar users will be more than happy they aren't part of the iCar network.
...which is exactly why it will be hard to accept them if they cause even one death or injury. If I am driving and I make a mistake it is my fault and I have to deal with the consequences. If a robot is driving I have no control over whether it makes a mistake and yet I will still have to deal with the consequences.
The problem is therefore one of trust. I trust (most) people I know to drive me safely - after all there lives are on the line too. However with a robot I have to trust that some random programmer has not made a mistake somewhere in the code and that the sensors and other hardware it relies on will not fail. We already have aeroplanes which can fly themselves and I see nobody is suggesting that we have computer controlled passenger jets...so why should cars be different?
Do you plot your own course when catching a plane or train? No. The train follows the fixed route, the plane'a route is decided by experts - the pilot and air traffic control having considered the weather and other traffic. And does any passenger give a damn what precise route they take? No,
What's your objective in a car? To get to your destination as soon as possible, or perhaps most economically. Sat Nav together with traffic information systems are far more capable of achieving those objectives than a human's gut feel. If you're actually driving, then there might be more pleasure taking one route than another, but if a computer is driving, the last remaining reason for a human to make the choice of route is gone. The human i going to be reading a newspaper or watching a video or passing time with fellow passengers.
For sure there's some rare situations where you might want to choose some via points. But the human plotting the entire route is pointless.
The best part of his "argument" is the failure to appreciate the qualitative differences between "human error" when say, walking down the street and "human error" when piloting a 1.5 ton vehicle traveling at 65 MPH. While the first may cause an old lady to fall over when you accidently bump into her, the second will cause that same old lady to be crushed and killed when you accidently bump your high velocity death wagon into her. This propensity to try and put these same "human errors" into different categories just because one involves an automobile is completely stupid. Any opportunity to reduce "human error" should be taken just as soon as the solution is shown to be statistically safer. Just because a few control-freak whiners cry about not having enough control doesn't mean we should stop progress just to shut them up!!!
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision
Complete with references.
Go to any largely car-free place (quite a few of those), move around it a bit even just on foot or bike. Now try doing it anywhere near as quickly and conveniently (nvm pleasantly) in a place completely hijacked by cars. Then start talking about those creating inconveniences (also...)
And as a matter of fact, places focusing in prevention (not in your straw-man style of course) of crime, disease, accidents, etc. fare quite well with that approach.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I know plenty of people who drive for "fun" but do it dangerously and don't pay the necessary attention. I also know plenty of people who have no interest in driving for the sake of driving, but are careful and attentive because they understand that's how you should act with a couple of tons of metal under your control.
Except they're more expensive and less convenient. Your same line of reasoning concludes: why have cabs when we already have buses and trains ?
The vast majority of people for whom cars are a tool to get from A to B, and not a leisure pursuit ? I drive for fun on weekends. All the other trips involve wasting my valuable time sitting on roads full of other cars. A car that drove itself to work and back every day would be _awesome_.
Have my car drop me off, go park itself and when I'm ready I'll call it on the cell phone and it'll pick me up.
Now I could go for that!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Google's driverless car could save more than 1 million deaths per year
What curious wording. Most safety inventions would strive to "save more tan a million lives, but this one wants to save more than a million deaths. I guess now you can just use any words in a sentence and expect people to figure out what you intended.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
...with respect to aeroplanes the degree of automation these days compared to 20, 30 years ago is astounding, for precisely the same reason: it's been shown to save lives a few orders of magnitude more times than the ones they take.
This is, I think, the root of the problem. Using statistics works fine for aeroplanes because, every time you fly, you are essentially getting onto a random plane with a random pilot and so you want them to be very safe on average. However when you drive it is always you driving so, while you might on average improve the quality of driving with computers that is not what is important to each individual anymore. The question which needs to be answered is "is it better at driving than me?" and since it has been shown that we generally tend to think of ourselves as better drivers than we actually are convincing people will not be easy!
For example, supposing there is an idiot driving and they do something stupid will the computer be able to handle some crazy situation it might not have seen before? Will it speed if it needs to to avoid an accident: very unusual but I know one person who was about to overtake a lorry on a motorway and saw the load start to slip so they floored it to avoid being in the accident...would a computer be able to handle that especially since it will have speed limits pre-programmed? Statistically these are rare situations but convincing early adopters will be hard because you won't have enough statistics to know how often an unusual situation which the system cannot correctly handle will occur.
Ignorant people measure the worth of technology by the number of features.
In design theory and practice, a major way make products better is by taking things away.
To stick with the car theme, take the Bugatti Veyron. Possibly the most expensive, fastest road car out there. And yet... no radio.
If we don't trust robot cars, we shouldn't trust robot elevators.