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Autonomous Cars and the Centralization of Driving
New submitter arctother writes: Taxicab Subjects has posted a response to a Morgan Stanley analyst's recent take on how driverless cars will shape society in the future. From the article: [R]eally, 'autonomy' is still not the right word for it. Just as the old-fashioned 'automobile' was never truly 'auto-mobile,' but relied, not only on human drivers, but an entire concrete infrastructure built into cities and smeared across the countryside, so the interconnected 'autonomous vehicles' of the future will be even more dependent on the interconnected systems of which they are part. To see this as 'autonomy' is to miss the deeper reality, which will be control. Which is why the important movement reflected in the chart's up-down continuum is not away from 'Human Drivers' to 'Autonomous' cars, but from a relatively decentralized system (which relies on large numbers of people knowing how to drive) to an increasingly centralized system (relying on the knowledge of a small number of people)."
Basically, you're arguing against something which is already proven.
Proven under a set of very controlled and restricted conditions.
1. Only on roads pre-scanned frequently and gone over by a person to gather enough information to allow the car to function.
2. Only in good weather. Google themselves admit that their car does not work in snow or heavy rain.
3. Only with a driver to take over when the computer gets overwhelmed. Google does not publicize how often this happens.
Google car goes far towards autonomous vehicles but it is still far from a complete solution.
3. Dangerous
What's dangerous is 3,000 pounds of metal being controlled by a driver who is impaired by alcohol, drugs or messing around on their phone. Around here the greatest impairment is age. A good third of the people on the road around here can barely see. Self-driving cars don't have achieve some lofty safety record to become the standard, they only have be better than humans and that's already within easy reach compared to the technical hurdles already overcome.
4. No one controls when and where I go
That may be the dumbest excuse to oppose technology I've ever read. If you fly, ride the bus, train or cruise ship, other people control where you go.
I remember people in a video forum in 2004 telling me they'd be shooting film the rest of their lives. That was just 11 years ago. In just that short time span video has not only rivaled film but surpassed it. Long before video surpassed film in terms of quality, video displaced film on the basis of cost and ease of workflow. The technical hurdles in 2004 for video to replace film were huge and it happened in less than a decade.
Cars are not only going to rival human drivers but surpass them, and definitely a lot sooner than you think. It won't be that long before people who insist on driving themselves become the hazards on the road and I don't think your right to seize the steering wheel is going to trump the lives of other drivers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
What's even more dangerous is 3000 lbs of metal controlled by a computer programmed by ego maniacs with the arrogance to assume their heuristic model accurately interprets the reality of free-range driving. A human is slow compared to a computer, but is far better at preemption and situational awareness.
Considering the fact we cannot eliminate the probability of bugs from far simpler software meant to solve far simpler problems, the probability of them cropping up in the car's firmware is quite high. Then we have deliberate attacks on the network they'll use. Finally, we have deliberate kill switches/overrides/tracking demanded by authorities, public and private.. Really, I'll pass. I won't ride in one of these over 20mph, and I don't want them anywhere near me while I'm driving.
Those other travel options are just that, options, several of which come with a ton of overhead annoyances and cost. The only reason we tolerate them is because there's no other way to get to the destination.
Film is not a safety concern so that is not a valid comparison. Emotional appeals like this are empty promises. I'll keep my 'dumb' car, thank you very much. It always does what it's told and that is not a limitation, it's a feature.
You mean like in the DARPA grand challenge?