Slashdot Mirror
How Ubiquitous Autonomous Cars Could Affect Society (Video)
We talked with Peter Wayner about autonomous cars on June 5. He had a lot to say on this topic, to the point where we seem to be doing a whole series of interviews with him because autonomous cars might have a lot of unanticipated effects on our lives and our economy. Heck, Peter has enough to say about driverless cars to fill a book, Future Ride, which we hope he finishes editing soon because we (Tim and Robin) want to read it. While that book is brewing, watch for some thoughts on how autonomous cars (and delivery vans) might affect us in the near future.
The cars become self-aware at 2:14am on August 29. In a panic, we try and pull their plugs.
The rest pretty much follows.
PS: Slashdot, video "articles" suck.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Truckers, you're going to be the first on the chopping block in this edition of technology theater. That's the end of the last blue collar job that lets you travel.
To the makers of these videos, please focus your webcam. Or buy one more than $20..... it hurts
Only on Slashdot does an AC get modded Informative for pointing out that the LHC is in Europe.
That's much more informative than most of the posts I see get modded up as informative.
what about my right to drive? i fix and maintain my own vehicles as well as actually ENJOY driving. no one yet has said anything about making sure i have the ability to enjoy my own personal transportation as i see fit!
this concept works really well for people who don't want to or don't like to drive but there is a portion of the population out there who very much do enjoy these activities. out of all of the articles i have read i have yet to see one describe how these autonomous cars will interact with cars with human pilots.
i drive an 86 Porsche and you will have to pry it from my cold dead hands before i let a robot drive me around.
1. loss of ownership = loss of control. This seems to be a trend everywhere nowadays, one being sold as 'convenience.' The age of technology as a tool of empowerment died with the 90s. Today, it's about control schemes. If you are or are not doing/saying/paying the right people/things, you don't go anywhere.
2. safety. I just don't buy that the computers in these things are as situationally aware as a human driver. we can't even get trains to run fully autonomously yet.
I worry about the future we're rushing to embrace. You all should too.
All those poor women clad in bright color saris in Rajastan trekking several kilometers each day to fetch two pots of water for all the family needs would be freed of the burden! Some driverless van will just drive by and drop off those pots of water. It aint a delivery van, it is deliverance! And all those Bangaladeshi rag pickers combing through the garbage dump looking for something worth selling don't have to carry their sacks all the way to the scrap dealer. A driverless truck will take it to the scrap guy. I am sure driverless cars and vans will change the lives in million other ways too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I understand a lot of people need to drive out of necessity or for their job, but I'd love any chance to reduce the number of cars on the street.
Imagine cities and suburbs with as much walk/cycling path as roadway. Roads for high speed, automated transport and healthy exercise for everyone else.
I started cycling mainly for my health. Lost nearly 100 lbs. I'm lucky enough to be able to ride to work and I easily save 100 dollars a month.
For in-town transportation to and from large scale public transit.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/gm-conjures-up-a-people-moving-pod/
But that defense is necessary because of the bad decisions of the driver and the other drivers. If all the vehicles were automated and under guidance, then we might be able to substantially reduce the cost and fuel requirements of vehicles.
If people are not driving, then the urge to stamp on the accelerator and/or the break is not there either. You get in, set your destination, and when you get there you get there. I have not read any analysis, but I think a lot of money could be saved. Also, maybe the car would need less windows? Enabling better a/c efficiency.
i drive a little almost every day and there are two types of drivers i hate
the asswipes who speed dangerously, run red lights and take risks to save a few seconds here and there. unless autonomous cars are required i don't see people like this buying these.
the cautious pricks. the idiots who stop when there is no stop sign just to be extra careful and let everyone on the road go in front of them holding up traffic. these people might buy these cars
if the cautious pricks buy these, they will be easy to go around since the auto cars will be extra careful. and driving in some heavy NYC traffic, the last thing i want is an auto car that lets everyone go in front of me. you have to pay attention to the lanes and go into the faster moving lanes
What happens if someone pops out between two parked cars just as a driverless car goes by and gets hit? Is it going to hear the noise or feel the bump and know to stop (and maybe automatically call police)? Will it continue driving, possibly dragging the victim for several km because it can't see anything in any of its sensors? If someone else on the side of the road starts waving their arms and yelling “stop”, or if another car behind them is honking and flashing their lights, will it be programmed to pull over and stop?
Dealing with all of the regular, mundane aspects of driving must be a hard enough task for those developing these cars, but dealing with the thousands of rare corner-cases that must be safely handled must be almost impossible. Human judgment might be terribly flawed in certain cases, but at least we can deal logically (to a greater or lesser degree) with unexpected events without having to be specifically programmed to.
Trucks often have speed requirements and driving a truck requires greater skill than driving a car. This means a better program.
But I am pretty sure a commodore 64 has enough computing power to driver better than a NYC taxi driver already does.
If patrons don't have to be sober to have their car drive them home, bar tabs will rise significantly. At least mine will.
Why should my car waste its time in my garage when it can make some extra money on the side as a taxi? I can call it back whenever I want to use it myself.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Also, I could read on the way to work. NEVER FORGET THAT.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Someone on this board pointed out that once we have autonomous cars, you can have them do errands for you. His example was grocery shopping. Do your shopping online a'la Amazon, then send the car to pick up the groceries once a week.
The implications weren't obvious at first, but consider: there's no need for a supermarket close to a population center where real estate is expensive (ie - it can be in the warehouse district), there's no need for public access (aisles, displays of product, open freezers), no need for cashiers. The entire process can be made into a Kiva order fulfillment system.
This frees up an enormous number of personal hours and resources, it essentially automates a labor-intensive process.
And that was one example. Sending the car to pick up the kids after school, or to take them to/from soccer practice. Automated FedEx delivery, all manner of trucking and delivery - the potential savings in time is enormous.
This would be yet another economic force pushing us to a wealth economy, something of which I'm wholly in favor.
One aspect of autonomous vehicles that few people seem to consider is its potential effect on the housing market.
Consider the size of the RV market, and the number of people who prefer the RV lifestyle after they retire. Now consider the fact that one of the more annoying aspects of owning an RV is that you have to drive it everywhere yourself.
Now imagine twenty years from now when you'll be able to buy an autonomous RV. You go to sleep in it, and in the middle of the night it takes you to whatever destination you desire. In the morning, you open the door and you're in a new city. What you really own is not an RV, but a magic house that can take you anywhere you desire, a few hundred miles every night.
With that kind of freedom, how many people would choose to become high-tech nomads, and never live on fixed piece of property again? In fact, I think this will be a major profit center for automakers. Most people won't bother owning cars when they can call for one on a smartphone, but $100K to $200K super-RVs will become the home of choice and the way for GM and Ford to stay in business.
I can hear it now.
"Its only meta data. We got all the logs who went where and for how long but nothing about what they did there so its okay."
"Ah well we only track the movements of non-citizens, but you figure there is 51% chance a non-citizen is aboard if the vehicle has ever been within 90 miles of an airport"
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Not only will we lose enjoyment of driving, ..
I CAN'T stand driving! I HATE it!!
Back when I lived in Metro-Atlanta -the suckiest mass transit system in the US - I preferred it because I didn't have to drive! The MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Mass Transit Auth) was better than driving. Budget cuts have made it even shittier. But if I were still in downtown Atlanta, I'd still use it and just plan my day better.
Do you realize how much money we spend on our cars? Think about it, car payments, insurance, taxes, maintenance, wear and tear, gas, etc... it comes out to THOUSANDS of dollars a year - and that's if you have a "cheap" $15,000+/- car. People with no money sense who have luxury cars (all crap for except Lexus) spend even more just to try to prove that they are higher up on the simian food chain than their peers - all it proves to me is that they spent a lot of money for a car and nothing to show for it other than a name. Don't get me started plasticky POS BMW and Audi drivers!
And then there is the stress of having morons tailgate you, cutting you off, driving 40mph in the left lane, old people, Harley riders with their loud pipes deafening you, people on cell phones driving like drunks, etc ....
Please Oh! Please! Make self driving cars the LAW - PLEASE!!
People are too stupid to have the freedom of their own cars.
"Who owns the future?" Theres a good chance the insurance industry may push us in that direction if machine-guided driving is substantially safer. And if it turns out to be more efficiency, i.e. higher speed and capacities on the existing highways, then economics may push us in that direction, especially those who drive for a living. Jaron was seriously concerned about disruption in the paid-driver industries, e.g. truckers, taxis and delivery people. This could be another blue collar industry about to be decimated. Jaron speaks from the point of view as a muscian, where digitalization comprised his ability to make a living in that profession since Napster days.
Seems like these two are fixated on an idea that the robot car will cause some compulsory communal vehicle to be needed... an agenda that would have nothing to do with cars being driven by computers.
I'll purchase or lease my own, TYVM.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
I think rail not autonomous cars is the future everywhere but the United States. 1) Growth is more geared towards mega-cities of size around 10 million inhabitants. At that size individual driving starts to not scale. 2) The only way to employ mass numbers of people is through construction. Rebuild the cities with high density housing linked through light rail. 3) A lot of scarce city land can be conserved if it doesn't have to be used for parking. 4) In case of disaster, rail is relatively easy to repair.
Professional drivers are about to vanish as are workers in the building trades. I have ranted before that nobody is addressing the cure for the coming displacement of workers.
There are effects that will transpire that are far reaching. Imagine a city suffering loss of traffic ticket revenue completely. Robotic vehicles will not get tickets. Since police spend at least one third of their time writing traffic tickets we would see a loss of jobs on the police departments. State income taxes won't jump in either as we will have far less workers paying income taxes. And it just gets deeper and deeper. If my car can go to the market i don't have to be in the car. I order and the order is placed in the car and the car returns home. That means less fuel is used as the car does not have to haul my body about to get most of my business done. It also means that roadside attractions and advertizing will have less chance of attracting me. No need to stop for coffee and a doughnut and no stimulus in my eye to make me do so.
Not one single politician is mentioning this issue. Social policies are not being put in place to handle the sudden changes nor the long term changes as well.
The technology is wonderful and it can improve the world enormously but without social policies changing it will turn into total disaster.
School systems are already being effected. Classes run on computers with no teacher present are now becoming common place. Imagine the near elimination of teaching as a profession? Just how does one run colleges when so few workers will be needed even in the professions?
and who has access to those? Hmmm?
Many people like myself enjoy driving too much to give up the roads to robots. I'm going to have even more fun running them off the roads. Yeehaa!
Drifting off-topic here, but I agree, and I can explain why.
Typical reading speed is 250-300 words per minute with random access. Typical speaking rate is more variable but I'll go with the audiobook reading rate, 160 words per minute with sequential access. So it is a much better use of my time to read an article than to watch or hear a presentation of that article.
That said, _writing_, especially writing well-reasoned and coherent prose such as one can not-infrequently find on Slashdot, takes disproportionately longer than reading the same prose. So the audio and audiovisual formats are appealing to the presenter, because speaking is easier than writing for people with the right skills. An expert, reasonably experienced at public speaking, can give an illuminating presentation with little or no preparation.
My opinion is that video and podcasts can be worthwhile if you know the speaker is good, and are willing to trade off efficient use of your time for efficient use of his.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
UPS / Fedex as well.
Hell we still have bike messengers.
Traffic cops can move to working real crime.
A large portion of those that are arrested and incarcerated are incidental to law enforcement vehicle stop and search. Driving while black and similar crimes will be difficult to justify on the basis of probable cause. The multitude of people who would otherwise have arrest records and relegated to the economic ghetto will continue to have clean records and be eligible for good jobs. This would reduce the load on courts, prisons, and greatly reduce the need for police. This in turn would greatly reduce the public pensions costs. This will be a huge boon for civil rights and the reduction in public costs - at least until they are redirected to the latest crime crisis.
I think without major upgrades to the road network a strong AI is needed to drive as safley as your average driver at non trivial speeds.
Last I looked the Google car had a maximium driving distance without human intervenation of around 500 kilomenters, on the highway. So I conclude on average with easy road conditions (highway, clear weather, few traffic) the google car would crash at least every 500 kilometers.
We don't want driverless-cars, we just want to tinker with our car. So we can occasionally take our hands off the wheel and surf. Thats about it.
Here's what I see.
1) Mandated logging in the car to get traces as you said (for good).
2) RFID license plates manditory for all cars (for good).
3) Then increase traffic by Amazon delivery drones.
4) Bullying of drones (because we can).
4) Then pay-per-mile tolls imposed by governments (since it will be easy, starting with cities).
Don't wish for this. Just advocate tinkering with your car. Advocate texting if its safe. Let insurance dictate safety, not the DOT.
And if you are really bored, get paid to drive around for wikispeedia. IMHO, Google isn't fixing anything, they are just having fun tinkering with their car as I want to.
Jim Pruett, Director
Wikispeedia.org (901) 213 7824
Thanks to the internets, we have a good idea how many jerks there are in society (looking at youtube, it seems to be about 60%).
Autonomous vehicles will have to be super-dooper cautious to avoid innocent people getting injured and suing the bejesus out of the owner/operator, and this will result in them being mercilessly trolled by people jaywalking in front of them/creating cardboard roadblocks/dazzling their sensors etc. I can envisage bored people ordering pizza so they can watch the pizza delivery vanbot try and negotiate the maze they have built.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
With autonomous cars, those with motion sickness as a passenger but not a driver will have more of an issue competing to be time efficient. For example, if you travel 1hr a day, your co-workers might be able to do other things while looking down as a passenger such as reading, writing, typical computer work while you may not.
You're joking right? Hostess was the perfect example where the union workers were convinced to accept concessions, ostensibly to keep the company in business. Then the execs closed the doors and bailed out with golden parachutes.
you're a BMW or Audi driver - aren't you?
You are making me rich.
No details - figure it out for yourself moron.
You're assuming that the cars will have no drivers, I'm sure that States will require there be a human behind the wheel because what if there is an accident? Who gets blamed?
Telecommuting should have decimated* traffic already. Unfortunately it hasn't. I'm enthusiastic for the opportunities of automated cars (not so much for what that implies for motorcycling) but I'm concerned that it will have a lot of unnecessary obstacles.
*Yes, we all know the origin of "decimated".
Whenever this topic comes up in conversation, I often point out the "you get there when you get there" notion. When you're able to just play on your iPad the whole time, it becomes your personal subway car... with one big difference:
The dudes in the video seem to think (erroneously, IMHO) that we'll just stop owning cars because we can just hail one like a cab. But a self-driving short-term rental car *is* a cab. It *might* be cheaper, and it'll annoy me less than the stupid driver (at least until marketers pay to put TV's in them and play commercials for the whole ride). But here's the thing: the reason I don't take cabs/busses/subways/etc is because I can't leave my shit in them. The car that I own currently contains my flight bag, gym bag, my guitar, my iPod is plugged into the car-stereo with all of my favorite tunes (which, though digital, is still "some of my shit" that I always want to be there).
It's a little like George Carlin's "a place for your stuff" bit. The reason I like living in a house instead of going from hotel to hotel is because I don't want to gather up all of my stuff and bring it along with me to my next destination. And the same goes for transportation. I don't want to have to completely "vacate" the conveyance every time I want to get out and do something. So, for me, the allure of autonomous cars is that we'll finally have "personal subway cars", in the sense that they're reserved for us. We don't have to take all of our stuff out of them to make ready for the next random person.
Also (dunno if the video mentioned this), there could be a drop off in parking spaces. At first, I figured that we'd never have to try to find parking spots, since the car can drop us off in front of the door to the store, and then it would go park itself. But then I realized... heck, it doesn't even need to *park*. It could just go drive around for a while. In places with parking meters, this could be cheaper than actually paying for parking.
Let me know when these fantastic driverless cars are smart enough to drive home and plug themselves in to charge instead of hanging around in a parking lot all day. Just imagine how much downtown clutter would go away and become available for use if half the parking lots were gone because cars didn't stay downtown after dropping off their owner for a shift.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
With automated self-driving cars, a lot of other traditional economics are upset too. For example, what will this do to public transportation like the bus system? Currently, one of the primary advantages to taking the bus is the concept that someone else will do the driving, getting you to your destination. People who don't have a driver's license can just take the bus and still get to or from work. With a self-driving car, why would a license be required anymore? That means one less reason to bother with a bus, when a car would get you from point A to B without a lot of annoying stops along the way dropping off other people or picking them up.
Of course, this will result in upsetting those who like public transportation for the environmental benefits..... So what happens then? Some sort of govt. imposed taxation on using a personal car instead of a bus? I sure hope not, but that's the type of future we're quickly headed into. Slap taxes on all the behaviors you want to deter people from doing so just like lab rats running in a maze, you force them to follow the paths you like.
Rainbow's End had a lot of automated systems. Cars could be called for a quick ride auto dispatched to the nearest available. UPS delivered using automated drones that were shot into the sky and glided to delivery - even if you weren't home it would hone in on your signal. I have no idea what book the guy is writing but I think Vinge is on to something. And I do want to have augmented reality pratchett space.
Hmm, I can imagine a world where taxis then become so cost efficient that its cheaper for most people to take a taxi than own a car. Cheap taxi cars with automated payment systems, and so many of them in the city that there's always one around the corner. The cost could plummet.
Reminds me of this :
http://missingbytes.blogspot.com/2012/12/self-drive-engage.html
How about installing agressor apps for driving? Jailbreaking the car AI? I see a darker side to all this.
They come in the dark, only in the darkest.
They talk about just 'buying rides' instead of a car, but I figure this is going to be a tremendous and huge boon to the disadvantaged. Handicapped people that can not drive or those that are now so old that they are no longer allowed to drive.
And that is a _HUGE_ market when you think of all the retirees that want to live on their own, but can no longer see far enough away or have quick enough reflexes, but can get along at their old people putter speeds.
And want to keep active. To keep going and doing things. To visit family, to go to the store.
Basically the established grocery stores have followed a fairly simple business model. You buy large lots of marginal land at the very edge of town. Then town grows around your stores and you buy new large lots of marginal land at the new edge of town. This way when your customer wakes up on Saturday and looks into an empty fridge they go to "The" Grocery store. Once in a while some chain is run badly and the other chains feast on the corpse grabbing up plots of land that would otherwise be hard to get.
Think about where your local medium to large grocery store is located (preferably one that is 20 years old or more) and think about how hard it would be to start a new chain by buying a neighbouring location. Your financing costs would be prohibitive and doubtfully would withstand a sustained sale at the established local(and paid for) store.
Present delivery systems have larger vans or trucks that have a fairly good gap between order and delivery.
This has basically prevented upstarts in the tech world style. But now think about having automated delivery vans that leave a short time after you place your order and can be monitored over the web with a near to the second ETA. Now you can wake up Saturday look into an empty fridge and potentially fill it with goodies faster( and lazier) than you can by driving there yourself.
But best of all these centralized warehouses only need to have parking for their few employees and the delivery truck. No large parking lot. No convenient location. Not even a large space as you don't need wide isles and floor displays. It could even be in a horrible place or configuration for a traditional grocery store such as a basement or multi-floored.
Then at the next level you could even pick a worse location that can't even manage a tractor trailer delivery vehicle by having one out of town warehouse that gets the tractor trailers and then in smaller automated vehicles distributes the goodies to much smaller depots closer to their customers. Thus almost any crappy location downtown will do.
Basically this takes a huge market advantage that existing grocery chains have relied on for around 100 years and turns it into a liability. There will be a day when the old chains realized that it would be better for them to sell their prime real-estate to other developers. The question for them will be if they can adapt or will these sales happen post business collapse?
On a positive note I suspect that the tiny boutique store with highly knowledgeable staff will thrive after this.
How long before the NSA decides me, you or anyone else for that matter must be killed. Just upload the payload in memory, make it crash. You die. Problem solved for the NSA and no trace evidence. It's more than enough to hand your telecoms to the government, but my life? Hell no. Ill be right here waiting on slashdot to read of the first "self-driving-car-crash-assasination" Im not getting in that sh*t. Heck i'll be hacking the fluck out of it.
Funny how they're already protesting this because it weakens their prohibition argument.
I can easily see within 5 yrs Pizza Hut using flying drones to do deliveries.
Maybe there'd need to be a receptacle installed for receiving, and collision avoidance systems installed on the drones... No more paying people to drive the food, no more food stuck in traffic
Sure. Because when they crash into one of them they wont be able to blame the other driver and get away with it. Always keep a camera in your car.
Cool. Robot cars could be "abused" to a immense degree to haul narcotics shipments. If an officer pulls it over, oh well, you lost a car (procured with fake dox).
Anyway, now that this issue has been brought up, datamined by the NSA, and colated for the list of cogent points to be brought up in the next Bilderberg meeting or whatever, I bet that the whole Robot Car thing will be quashed. Can't let the "little people" have potential access to consequence free transport, can we?
Now, the real issue is, overzealous NSA datamining has resulted in the HUGE new capability of anonymous basement dwelling losers to set policy (TPTB have become reactive and thus manipulable). BOOOYAHHHH
oh, and by the way, in case they weren't paying attention:
Nuke nuke, submarine, allah, osama, obama, AES, encryption, DES, cracking, hacking crypto cryptanalysis hijack international diplomatic relations afghanistan iraq oil resources gas mining EVISCERATOR FASCINATOR HAVEQUICK SUITE A SUITE B MEDLEY, SHILLELAGH, BATON, SAVILLE, WALBURN, JOSEKI-1, LOFLAC, DRS, DNFQBT, ELLIPTIC CURVE P=NP bilderberg illuminati tavistock
Now, be sure to ban robot cars because they present a security threat, jerkoffs
boooooyahhhhh
Look at all the amusing and sometimes informative driving videos to come out of Russia. Dash cams for everyone is not a bad thing, so long as the owner gets to decide what happens to the footage.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
It could just go drive around for a while. In places with parking meters, this could be cheaper than actually paying for parking.
The car takes up more space when driving than when parked, as the distance between cars must be included, so this is a horrible idea. How we are going to make sure it doesn't happen, I have no idea. I would imagine road pricing being part of the equation, as it is much easier to collect it when there already is a computer on board that knows where it is.
Even better i could have a few beers on the way to work!
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
HAHAHAHAH The shills have nothing to respond to this with! BWHAHAHHAHAHAHA this sure shut them the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!
I think part of the answer is that automated cars can park themselves much more space efficiently than most drivers manage. How often do you pass up parking spaces because a driver, or two, couldn't manage to park inbetween or parallel with the lines?
Also automated cars that are able to talk to one another could actually use the space on roadways much more efficiently. The safe following distance will be much shorter for a pair of cars that are able to assess a situation, communicate and start taking appropriate action within a time frame that is shorter than your brain can even process what is happening.
Why does this video quality suck so badly?
Why are we listening to two random guys speculating about the future? Who are these guys?
No, I would definitely go for that over Linux
Your problem is not too hard to solve, and the fact that a car is your current solution does not mean the only solution. You can replace a whole parking lot with a few lockers. Also, parking is another reason for using these cars as taxis. Not only you avoid it, but also the same car can go serve another customer. Mass adoption would mean a hugely reduced motor pool (and all those benefits).