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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)."
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
The original "horseless carriages" started out by following the paths their horse-drawn peers used. No special infrastructure just for them.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Autonomous cars become mainstream and law enforcement gets a kill switch that locks the person into their car and drives them to the nearest police-approved pull over spot or station?
So basically farmers will be the only ones who know how to drive, and the only ones who know how to use a gun, and they'll have all the power. It'll be like 19th century France all over again.
Sounds reasonable.........~
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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
Damn right nobody dresses the gorilla in the room. Gorillas are inveterate nudists, and anyone who tries to force clothing onto a gorilla is going to regret it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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.
I think there will be a market niche to accommodate the previous poster -- imagine a car that works just like a traditional car, except that it refuses to run into anything. It will be analogous to a (smart) mechanical horse -- you can try to get a horse to run into a brick wall, but most horses are going to turn or stop before they break their neck. There's no reason a car couldn't do the same.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Fixed that or you.
People who come up with this crap usually live in urban areas and have never driven on anything but city streets and urban highways. I somehow don't see the autonomous car getting me up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies that doesn't show up on any road map. I also don't see me trusting said car to pick it's way around, over and between the various obstacles like wash outs and large lose rocks that take some very careful driving to get over or around. Especially when there's a 1,000 foot drop on one side and a cliff face on the other. Routes like the Alpine Loop between Silverton and Lake City or the "road" to Argentine Pass to name just two places I've driven.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Why do you think that a vehicle that can see in 360 degrees around it in the visible spectrum, infrared spectrum, and LIDAR -- including underneath itself -- and knows exactly where it is within a few millimeters would be worse at navigating between obstacles than you are?
If anything, static obstacles are the easy part. Predicting what crazy human drivers are going to do is hard.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
You mean like in the DARPA grand challenge?
Who cares if autonomous cars can't take you up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies. The number of trips along those roads is small enough that the EXISTING set of vehicles will satisfy all demand for many decades EVEN if no more are built.
On the other hand, for the other 99.999% of required commutes autonomous vehicles will do fine.