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Self-Driving Cars Aren't Going To Be So Great Until We Make Our Maps Better (theverge.com)
Uber is debuting its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh this month, a move that has many taxi drivers upset. The Verge's Nilay Patel argues that this move should change the way we think about maps and addresses. He adds that Uber is currently unable to pinpoint his home, and often ends up at the door of a "widely different address." Citing the CEO of a "large ridesharing company", Patel writes that this issue is known as the "egress problem" -- "the way we locate buildings on a map doesn't really describe how people move in and out of those buildings." Though there are workarounds and inventive ways to pinpoint your exact address, Patel argues that when we grow reliant on self-driving cars, things will get far more complicated and futile if we don't make our maps and navigation services better. He writes: Driverless cars are one of the ultimate signifiers of the future -- the real Jetsons stuff. And we're so close to making them happen: tons of cars have sophisticated adaptive cruise control that can basically keep you going on the highway, prototypes of true self-driving cars from Google and others are already on the road, and the momentum is only increasing. But maybe we shouldn't hand control of how we get somewhere to the machines until we're entirely sure the robots know where we're going.
Its not that hard to give out your coordinates if needed. That's a small issue for self driving cars, they have much harder challenges.
If it runs through my yard on the way to your location, then there's going to be a problem, a BIG problem.
You see, all maps have errors - printed maps, Garmin maps, Google maps, ALL maps. Garmin shows streets that aren't there and misses streets that are there. Google maps shows my house two doors down from my house. I've been using maps on my job for the past forty years. I've seen it all.
Also, street names/numbers are not permanent, they change, and so do addresses. New streets and neighborhoods are built all the time. Hell, I've been on streets where odd and even are on the same side, and where houses right across the street from each other have the same number. I've seen houses on streets where the house numbers run like - 402 next door to 1607 next door to 723. I've seen street signs with four different names for the two streets that intersect. BTW, it's not the houses that are numbered, it's the lots. Even vacant lots have numbers.
Mapmakers insert some errors on purpose. They can tell by the errors if somebody else is using their data. But even traditional paper maps have errors. I bought a map years ago (Rand McNally) that switched the names of two cities. How can you trust a map for tiny details when they can't even get the names of major cities right?
Humans can adapt to changes quicker than machines. Maybe one day AI will be good enough to totally trust. We're just not there yet despite all the wishful thinking.