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Why Self-Driving Cars Are Still a Long Way Down the Road
moon_unit2 writes "Technology Review has a piece on the reality behind all the hype surrounding self-driving, or driverless, cars. From the article: 'Vehicle automation is being developed at a blistering pace, and it should make driving safer, more fuel-efficient, and less tiring. But despite such progress and the attention surrounding Google's "self-driving" cars, full autonomy remains a distant destination. A truly autonomous car, one capable of dealing with any real-world situation, would require much smarter artificial intelligence than Google or anyone else has developed. The problem is that until the moment our cars can completely take over, we will need automotive technologies to strike a tricky balance: they will have to extend our abilities without doing too much for the driver.'"
This writer makes a fundamental mistake: believing that if full driverless technology is not perfect or at least near-perfect, it is therefore unacceptable. But this is not true. Driverless technology becomes workable when it is better than the average human driver. That's a pretty low bar to clear. I know all of us think we're above-average drivers, but there are a lot of really bad drivers out there, and even a flawed automatic system could do a better job.
Maybe AUTO drive only express lanes that cars will go at high speed at near bumper to bumper
Because Skynet, that's why.
I think we'll probably see self-driving cars in congested, relatively low-speed environments like inner cities before they're screaming down the highway at 75mph.
On the contrary, "screaming down the highway at 75mph" (never been on the Autobahn, have you?) is a lot easier to automate than driving around a city block. Similarly the easier part of a plane's autopilot is the part that handles cruising at 500mph at 30,000 feet. The numbers are impressive, but the control is comparatively easy.
On a highway there are no traffic lights or stop signs, and there are nicely marked lanes and shoulders. Just stay between the lines at a constant speed and hit the brakes if something appears in front. Compare that to trying to figure out if some guy who's not watching is going to step off the curb and into your way, or if the car pulling out of a parking spot is going to wait for you to pass.
ready to take over in case of an emergency, what is the point of the whole thing?
And assuming the human will be tweeting on his Facebook Amazon phone with his hands nowhere near the steering wheel and feet propped up on the dashboard, how is he going to take over control of the car in a split second when an emergency occurs? He can't. So that means he will have to be alert and in a ready driving posture and paying attention to the road like he's really driving. But then what is the point? Might as well have him drive it himself and save money by not buying the Google Car stuff in the first place.
Either make a car that can go 100% without a human driver, or go back to web advertising and forget about the whole thing.
What happens next?
The driving computer sees the 4 feet of water ahead using the cameras/radar and stops because it determines the water is too deep to ford?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Most governments justify limiting taxi services by claiming it is to control safety, when in fact it is to control transportation (and to reward those taxi companies that support the correct government officials and initiatives).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
My prediction is that people will be so resistant to just letting go of the steering wheel that the major car companies will give up with that route and pursue having super assisted driving. That is basically cruise control on steroids. Already companies like Mercedes have cruise control that will maintain a safe distance from the car in front, matching their slower speed or even emergency braking if needed. Other cars will do what they can from having you change lanes and side-swiping another car. So I suspect that all the robot driver technology will end up holding your hand more and more. Technically you will be the driver but the robot will be ready to prevent stupidity and also react when you don't. After a while it will finally reach a point where you can just take your hands off the wheel (the car will probably bleat plaintively) and the car will maintain speed and the lane. But nobody will call it robotic driving.
But then the breakthrough will be that some company that has crossed some critical line of self-driving capability will say that full liability insurance is included with the price of the car. Potentially they will even cover all insurance short of trees falling on the car and whatnot as they will be sure the car can't cause an accident and that with all the cameras and sensors that some other fool can't blame you or your car if they are the cause of the accident.
At this point my money would be on cars finally being marketed and sold as robotic self-driving cars. Shortly after this the tidal wave will wash away all the non-robotic cars as being a dangerous menace. The key here is that most cars by this point will be largely capable of being autonomous or very close to autonomous with only antiques being the hold outs.
But, and the big but, is that some robotic car will drive off a cliff or into a train or whatever and that single incident or small collection of incidents (and their Youtube videos) will get everyone saying, "Those things are death traps, I'll never let the car drive." This will temporarily postpone the inevitable but going from 35,000 US annual road deaths to 35 will be too much reality for foolish people to fight for long.