Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time, Says Study (dailymail.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: People hoping that the driverless cars of the future will give them more free time while travelling may be in for a disappointment. Increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of self-driving cars, but a new study claims that they will have little impact. The study showed that nearly 36 percent of Americans say they would be so apprehensive using a driverless vehicle that they would only watch the road. Meanwhile, UK drivers were even more cautious at 44 per cent. "Currently, in the US, the average occupant of a light-duty vehicle spends about an hour a day traveling -- time that could potentially be put to more productive use," said Michael Sivak, research professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. "Indeed, increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of self-driving vehicles."

Comments

what a load of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

Re:what a load of shit

[chispito]

What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

Bingo. Study can be summarized as "X percent of people with no experience with new technology have strong opinions researchers inexplicably value."

Re:what a load of shit

[jellomizer]

Autonomous vehicles currently is a new untested technology. So naturally people currently will be more invested to double check for their safety. However as the technology matures and has a long track record then people will be more willing to do other things while the car is driving.

Heck we have people doing stupid stuff in a 80k Tesla car, which isn't fully Autonomous just because it can keep in the lane.

Re:what a load of shit

[NotInHere]

Its research of the "people on trains that go faster than 20mph will die" kind.

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

Ding ding ding. Plus, what some people will actually do in a given situation *the first few times* vastly differs from what they will do afterward. Examples:

When I first flew in a plane I was glued to the window the whole trip. Now I take aisle seats.

I have a fear of heights and rented an apartment in a high rise on the 11th floor with a small balcony. When I first moved in I didn't even like going out the door onto the balcony because of my fear of heights. The railing looked too low and it didn't "feel" safe. By the time I moved out I would walk out onto the balcony without a second thought and even lean over the edge to look down without concern.

Nearly everyone who has anxiety about self driving cars will go through the same sort of process. What at first terrifies will quickly become boring when nothing bad happens. Then they will start looking around when they get driven, then they will get bored of that and engage in other diversions - watching video, reading, catching up on paperwork, etc.

Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient. I lived in a place once where it was a 45 minute drive downtown without traffic and 2 hours during rush hour. It would be entirely reasonable to expect that trip to be less than 75 minutes during rush hour once automation takes over so that guy gets a straight 1.5 hours of his day back.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

Let's face it, with the state of self driving today there is plenty of reason to be anxious.

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

But we're not talking about today. If we were having this conversation about aircraft in 1912 you could say exactly the same thing.

Once the tech is mature enough to be widely used it will be as safe or safer than flying is today.

Re:what a load of shit

[swillden]

What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

In this case I think people would do exactly what they say. The first day. Maybe the second. The extraordinarily fearful might last a week or two. The majority would probably find themselves looking in momentary panic when something unexpected happens for the first few months, but even that would pass.

Personally, I trust math. If you can show me properly-gathered and evaluated statistics that demonstrate that the car drives as well as or better than the average human driver, I'm more than happy to let it do its thing while I do mine. In fact, even ignoring that I'd rather not waste my time driving, the car is probably better at getting me where I'm going safely than I would be. While I think I'm quite a good driver, odds and the Dunning-Kruger effect mean that I'm likely pretty average -- or lower.

Re:what a load of shit

[squiggleslash]

Probably true, but I suspect productivity increases will be low to non-existent anyway. Reading (or for whatever reason keeping your eyes off the road) is a great way to get car sick. They'd have to find a way to smooth out the roads and reduce the amount of acceleration and deceleration to something comparable to a train to make cars "mobile offices".

On top of which... who would work? I'd - assuming sickness issues can be resolved - read the news, eat breakfast, and just spend the time waking up. I seriously doubt my boss is going to allow whatever time I get in the car to count as the my going-in-to-work start time.

Re:what a load of shit

[Verdatum]

"I'm pretty sure if I ever took a trip on an airplane, I'd be far too busy looking out the window making sure we don't fall out of the sky to get any work done!"

Re: what a load of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

I get car sick. I can't read porn or do anything else besides watch the road. But, the safety features have gotten incredible. Collision avoidance. I was so high one day, I didn't even notice the car in front of me stopping. My truck (2016 highlander) mad an alarming sound and slammed on the brakes. My girlfriends head arose quickly from my lap. The tech really did prevent and accident. When I was younger, I had excellent reflexes when driving. Now in my 80's, my cocaine fueled exploits almost always end in disaster. Hell, it even prevented me from running down that hooker that wanted 'extra' to work with my eractile dysfunction.

Two points here:
- I'll never change
- the tech for autonomous driving with keep enhancing the safety features and make them main stream
- this third point is like my third ball. A secret and pointless

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

Absolutely, but from what I see it's around 40-50 years out.. so not sure if it is work even talking about.

Re:what a load of shit

[Kjella]

Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient. I lived in a place once where it was a 45 minute drive downtown without traffic and 2 hours during rush hour. It would be entirely reasonable to expect that trip to be less than 75 minutes during rush hour once automation takes over so that guy gets a straight 1.5 hours of his day back.

I wouldn't bet on that, a lot of people might prefer two hours watching a movie in their private lounge to one hour on the train/bus/tram etc. increasing congestion. Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs. It might actually become worse for human drivers because the rest don't care so much if the streets are crammed.

Re:what a load of shit

[NotInHere]

Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs

This.

Its the classical problem of improving infrastructure that leads into a city: if the road is crammed and full with cars, everyone will demand that it gets expanded/more lanes, etc. Then, once that's done, people move into the suburbs with the argument that "in a half hour, you are already in the city center". More people start using the road as they moved to the suburbs. The increase will stop where the road is crammed again. The only thing that changed is that everyone now has a garden and doesn't have to live in a rented flat in a building with 15 or more floors.

Re: what a load of shit

[twdorris]

Now in my 80's, my cocaine fueled exploits almost always end in disaster.

McAfee, is that you!?

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

I used to think that as well, but the stuff I've seen happen in the last 5 years makes me think it will be here a lot sooner than that. It wasn't that long ago that the DARPA challenge was looking to give a huge cash prize to someone who could build an autonomous vehicle that would do the stuff that the Google self driving car does daily now. Autonomous vehicles are getting way better very quickly. When Amazon announced their drone delivery testing I seriously thought it was some sort of viral markting joke/gimmick but they *are serious*. It's crazy how fast the tech has advanced in the past few years and now that the major carmakers have seen the writing on the wall and are throwing billions into the effort as well it's only going to accelerate.

Re:what a load of shit

[ShanghaiBill]

Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs.

A major reason for urban sprawl is NIMBYs and BANANAs blocking the construction of high density housing in core cities and inner suburbs. That is driven by politics, not technology.

Re:what a load of shit

[swb]

But we're not talking about today. If we were having this conversation about aircraft in 1912 you could say exactly the same thing.

But if we were having a conversation TODAY about getting in a 1912 vintage aircraft, it'd be completely valid to have reservations.

This is Slashdot, so I almost never read the linkbait, er, TFS, but my guess is if the researchers had qualified their question with something about autonomous car technology being "fully developed" and "as safe as modern jet travel is today" they would have gotten more answers along the lines of read the paper, do work, watch a movie, etc.

But then they wouldn't have elicited any responses about the perceptions of safety people have now about autonomous cars, and the reality is the average person doesn't know shit about them other than some kind of headline about people dying in self-driving cars. ("Area man dies in self-driving Tesla; acquaintances say arrogant rich fuck got what he long had coming").

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

You're ignoring two aspects of the SDC though. One is what I alluded to - more automatic cars make for less congestion due to precision. The roadways can easily handle double or triple the volume of cars as they currently are if they were being driven by steely eyed robotic drivers instead of jittery mistake prone humans.

Secondly, a thing that will actually reduce road use is the increased use of transit. Right now a lot of people don't take the subway, LRT, train or even a bus because they would have to take a secondary transit connection to get there or drive and then have to deal with their car being parked all day. With self driving cars, the car can drop you off right at the subway entrance and then go park itself at home, and then you can summon it to meet you at the subway again on the way home. Or even better, you might not even own a car directly any longer and instead subscribe to an autonomous car-share service that will route a car to your house on demand in the morning to drop you off and another to pick you up at night.

Re:what a load of shit

[ShanghaiBill]

Reading (or for whatever reason keeping your eyes off the road) is a great way to get car sick.

If technology isn't solving your problems, you are not using enough:
1. Use a HUD to project the text you are reading onto the outside view.
2. Use a text-to-audio converter. These are getting better.
3. Use your cell phone to return phone calls rather than reading.

On top of which... who would work? I'd - assuming sickness issues can be resolved - read the news, eat breakfast, and just spend the time waking up.

That is still a productivity improvement, because if you got this stuff done during your commute, you would arrive at work ready to go, rather than doing this stuff at your desk.

Re:what a load of shit

[R3d M3rcury]

Or at least until it becomes commonplace.

Yeah, I'd be sitting in the driver's seat paying attention for the first few weeks. Then I'd be sitting in the driver's seat reading my phone and glancing up from time-to-time if the car did something. Later, I'd probably be sitting in the backseat and staring at my phone.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

To my knowledge they haven't even been tried in the snow yet, without visible lane markings. That's a fairly big challenge on its own, and probably ten times more difficult than anything they have done so far. Also current autonomy doesn't really understand the world around it; for it to be safe it will actually understand what certain objects are. For example, determine the object moving in front is a rabbit and simply avoid it and carry on, or determine the object is a ball (CHILD'S TOY) and anticipate that a child may be running after it. They are nowhere near that yet. They can make it look like they have 80 percent of the problems solved but there is 20% of edge cases that will be the hardest to resolve and the most expensive. Until they start tapping into those things, AI won't be safe.

Re:what a load of shit

[NotInHere]

You're ignoring two aspects of the SDC though.

Agreed, with smart cars streets will be able to handle lots of more traffic, and in situations where you have no pedestrians nor cyclists, you won't even need lights anymore. There will still be a limit though, so my argument from above still applies.

Or even better, you might not even own a car directly any longer

I'm not sure whether I'll want that. Some people don't care about keeping something clean when they are not watched and its not theirs, and i don't want to be greeted by puke on the seat I want to sit down on. But probably I won't have much of a choice when car prices rise drastically due to the smaller number of cars being manufactured as almost all cars become shared.

Re:what a load of shit

[squiggleslash]

you would arrive at work ready to go, rather than doing this stuff at your desk

If I arrived at work unable to function, I'd get fired. In practice the waking up and having breakfast stuff is what I do before I drive to work.

In reality what's being restored here (which is a good thing) is free time, not productivity.

Re:what a load of shit

[hey!]

However -- work expands to fill the available time; that's a time-tested maxim, as is its corollary -- the value of work time drops as the volume of work time increases.

I remember when fax machines were new. Oh, how naive and young we were! No more Friday afternoon Fedex deadlines! Indeed that came true; the deadlines became Monday 8:59 AM! Oh and the whole fax-the-lunch so we can keep working thing, we invented that, although of course these days you use an app.

Yes, young'uns, your older colleagues really were that dumb. The end of the personal/work time dichotomy was looming, and we walked civilization right into that sucker punch.

Re:what a load of shit

[tinkerton]

I see it slightly differently. One, with experience people quickly adapt, much quicker than they expect. Second, there is a huge difference in how risk tolerant people are.
You have risk tolerant people who adapt very quickly to the simple situations like traffic jams and fairly quickly to medium and even hard situations(where they're prone to have accidents). That will happen whatever the guidelines say.
  More cautious people will take longer adapting to medium and will hold off trusting the autopilot in hard situations. But I expect everyone will quicky adapt and be working their smartphone in traffic jams in no time.

And that is of course the real sales value of all these new driving aids: not safety, but smartphone time.

Re:what a load of shit

[tinkerton]

what a load of shit

I call redundant. It's a daily mail article.

Re:what a load of shit

[b0bby]

People seem to think that self driving cars are driving like people and that they will freak out when they can't see the lane markings. 360 degree sensors of all different types, tied to a 3d map of the area, means that they should be way better at staying on the road in those types of situations. See this article for just one example:
https://www.wired.com/2016/01/...
Sure, they need to figure out ways to keep the sensors clear etc, but that can be done pretty easily. And at some point, if the weather gets too bad, maybe having your car say "I'm not going out there" isn't the worst thing. Way too many people around me overestimate what they and their all-weather radials can handle and end up blocking the roads when they get stuck.

Re:what a load of shit

[mjwx]

Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient.

That is exactly what will not happen, in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic).

I know discussing the realities of it is unpopular on ./ but I digress. There will be no autonomous superhighway of cars bumper to bumper doing 150 KPH because autonomous cars do not break the laws of physics. To go at 150 KPH you need to maintain the same distance to stop irrespective of if they are human driven or autonomous because the braking distance does not change. A 2 second gap MINIMUM is an absolute MINIMUM. Autonomous cars will be programmed to make larger ones. Also human brains react pretty damn fast, reaction times range from less than 0.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Above 3 seconds is DUI/ on the phone territory.

The myth that all the cars will brake together is just that, a myth. Again the laws of physics count against you here. I still regularly get 500 ms pings on my 4G connection (and in the UK, the 4G is pretty good compared to the US). Also there is processing time. An automatic traffic control system will have a dozen checks and balances in it to ensure mistakes aren't made, there will be dozens of SYN/ACK packets as every single car in the area of effect needs to know exactly what to do. Not to mention encryption overheads as you don't want just anyone giving orders to cars.

Processing needs to be onboard as well for error checking and times when the server is unavailable, too busy or the link is down. And it will need to concur with the instructions being given to it by the server. That is why the 150 KPH bumper to bumper highway is a myth. This will take time. Much like an Airbus, if all the computers don't agree completely, control will be thrown back to the pilot. In an autonomous car going bumper to bumper, they wont have time to react even if they're paying attention (which is unlikely).

Also why the idea autonomous cars will save time is a myth, many will actually spend more time on the road because they'll follow laws and rules and it will not ease congestion because of the laws of physics.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

They're testing it in A TOWN BUILT FOR SELF DRIVING VEHICLES. This means that the stop signs they are alternatively taking queues from are all there and not already bent over from a previous accident; something that is quite common to see around where I live. Also if the picture is an indicator, that is pretty tame snow. Around here, there are ice ruts, and not every street and back alley will be accurately mapped. Not sure how capable this 3D scanning is, but it will be absolutely critical that the vehicle scan the contour of the road and match the tires to the ruts. Also, no mention in this article if the cars can deal with slick driving conditions while still maintaining a decent speed, not 20 mph. Even in the article they indicate that there is a long way to go such as anticipating people which I already mentioned. All of this needs to be affordable for the average person, and vehicle manufacturers won't want to spend more than around $500 per vehicle on sensors.

Re:what a load of shit

[I4ko]

No it isn't productivity is work done over amount of time. To increase productivity you either have to do more work in the same time, or same work in less time. Doing more work in more time can as well yield same productivity if the amount of work increased increases just liner to the time increase. That is why people should be fighting against self driving cars.. next thing you know the work week instead of 40 hours will be increased to 50, because you know, you can work in the car now.

Re:what a load of shit

[ShanghaiBill]

Another major reason is a lot of people don't want to live in high density housing and would like to have a yard and a garden.

Many people live in the suburbs because that is what they want. Many other people live in the suburbs because they can't afford to live closer. The reason they can't live closer is politically driven artificial scarcity. If America started building in cities again, it would not eliminate all urban sprawl, but it would eliminate a lot of it.

The politics are unlikely to change. The Republics benefit from sprawl because people tend to swing more conservative when they move out of the city. Democratic politicians oppose urban growth because the NIMBYs and BANANAs are their core supporters and donors.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

Thinking about it more, one of the most difficult things to do in the winter is driving down a road that is in the process of being snow cleared. There may be large machines driving around to avoid, with windrows of ice here and there. The machines may be gone but left the windrows for another machine to pick up later. Sometimes they just forget the windrows. My wife almost hit one last winter, she was in a roundabout and they just forgot a large pile of snow in the road which she had to avoid. Autonomous vehicles will have to deal with these totally unexpected things that happen in real life. They will need to anticipate snow piles and machines and other cars and calculate some sort of a micro-rerouting that is a safe route to take. These aren't small problems, but they happen every winter.

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

>and i don't want to be greeted by puke on the seat I want to sit down on

People already make extensive use of the carshare programs in the city I live in, this sort of thing is very rare as everything is logged and any offenders are simply reported by the next person to potentially use the car, the car is cleaned and a substantial cleaning fee is extracted from the offender's credit card. That seems to encourage good behavior. Plus I am sure in the SDC future there will probably be several tiers of these services and if someone doesn't want to deal with cars shared by the unwashed masses there will almost certainly be a service you can pay more for that also has the fancier Benzes and Audis with leather interiors, etc.

Re:what a load of shit

[ShanghaiBill]

If I arrived at work unable to function, I'd get fired.

Maybe, but that is not typical. I have worked at many companies, and nearly everyone shows up, drinks a cup of coffee, checks their email, and unwinds from their commute before starting serious work. I rarely see anyone walk in, pop open their IDE, and start coding.

In reality what's being restored here (which is a good thing) is free time, not productivity.

Those are not two different things. More free time means more time to unwind and defrag your brain. That may not matter for an assembly line worker, but if you work with your mind, more time to relax makes your working hours more productive.

Re:what a load of shit

[mlts]

Right now, we are at the point where a technology is starting to be widely adapted, and people are nervous about it (perhaps rightly so.)

However, I can list a number of things that can save time:

1: Being able to use commute time for something else than watching the taillights of the car ahead. You can have a vehicle which can function as a mobile office, or a bedroom, where with longer commutes, use that time for useful things, be it reading, doing some work, or just going back to sleep.

2: Vehicles can take themselves to get oil changed and inspected. This can save a day's worth of work.

3: Fewer trips would be needed. With a self-driving van, one can call Home Labyrinth, run the credit card, have the van drive to the pickup depot, and come back. This way, if someone runs out of plywood, but still has stuff to do, all it takes is a quick order via a web page, and work can continue.

4: If you are drunk, stoned, tripping balls, high, or all the above, you can still go home in your own vehicle. This in itself will save a lot of time because the police will have to clean up fewer wrecks.

5: Vehicle safety can improve. Cars can be packed closer together, intersections for highways can be made into simple four way intersections, with the cars slowing up or speeding up so vehicles can fly through without having to stop.

6: It saves time parking. Parking of automated vehicles can be handled far more densely than normal parking. Vehicle parking can be moved to the outskirts and not downtown, with a small lot used for quick unloading/loading.

7: It would allow for long trips easily, assuming vehicle auto-fueling. Speed limits can be tossed out the window, with the speed of the vehicle being what it can do, as well as environmental conditions.

8: If you need to carry a lot of stuff to a jobsite, and you just have one person, you can load multiple vehicles.

Of course, there are a few issues that need to be solved:

1: Security. If a blackhat could lock a vehicle's doors and demand ransom, or else it will ram the vehicle (and its occupants) off a bridge, that would be a show-stopper.

2: Third party control. It could be done that cars could be told that they cannot stop at or near areas, or that when someone hops in their car, it takes them downtown for jail processing because of a warrant. Or, some bill collector gets with the car maker and shuts down cars.

3: Corner cases. Thankfully few, but there will be many people out there looking for many ways to get a driving AI to fuck up, so they can play the lawsuit lottery.

All and all, there are issues, but the benefits are quite useful, and far outweigh the risks (which can be mitigated.) Security can be done. For example, the XBox is going on years, with not a single working jailbreak. Similar with the PS4. Even humble old Blu-Ray is still a cat and mouse game, with fewer and fewer decoding utilities available. Third party control can be legislated. Corner cases are relatively few, and that is what insurance is for, as well as dash cams to show if it was a true deliberate action.

Re:what a load of shit

[b0bby]

Sure, but Uber will be testing in Pittsburgh this winter, Volvo is doubtless working on it in Sweden, etc. Sure, maybe when the first models come out they may not have mapped every back alley, but I bet within 10 years they'll be able to handle any situation as well as an average driver, and most situations a hell of a lot better.
You still may want to put snow tires on in the winter though.

Re:what a load of shit

[barc0001]

> in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic)

That's not what causes rush hour traffic. What causes rush hour traffic is 20 cars at a red light each waiting .5 to 1.5 seconds for the car in front to observably start rolling through the light before the next one starts. When the cars can do that in .05 seconds, a lot more will make it through the traffic light.

On the highway many jams are "phantom" traffic jams caused by idiots spiking brakes and not allowing for proper following distances. Both of which SDCs will eliminate.

http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one

You are making a whole raft of incorrect assumptions. 500ms for an automated car to react to a car in front of it braking? Seriously? The cars are already constantly observing through both cameras and radar/lidar all other vehicles around them and tracking their positions. I would be astonished if the car couldn't react in 10ms to a change in one of the other cars' velocities. Hell, my dad's Acura has automatic braking that does better than a human if needed. It observes the car in front through radar and if the meatbag behind the wheel doesn't respond within a sufficient threshold to brake, the car does it for them.

You say "processing needs to be on-board". It already is. And nobody is even talking about centralized network control of cars. That's going to be a long time off, if ever. Centralized car control would make a really juicy terrorist target if nothing else - "Hey let's have every 4th car cross the centerline and have a head-on at 12:14pm". There will NOT be a "server" for the foreseeable future, if ever. The most you're going to get is cars communicating with each other short range within a couple hundred meters and stating their intentions and possibly negotiating minor alterations to those intentions like 'This vehicle needs to use the turn off in 600m, request clearance for lane change' and the like.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

I think there will be more than a few cars rolled over by front end loaders because the front end loader didn't understand what the AI was trying to do and vice-versa.

Re:what a load of shit

[fluffernutter]

..and I can guarantee you there are lawyers salivating at the thought of suing automakers for it.

Re:what a load of shit

[vtcodger]

Just wondering if there is any way I can come by some of whatever the dudes at UoM are smoking. I won't smoke it while driving. I promise.

Re:what a load of shit

[Chalnoth]

Yup! What's more, in this particular case very roughly half of the people who said they would ride in a self-driving car said they would do something else. This doesn't indicate that there would be no productivity gain. It indicates that there would be none for some people (and I'd bet nervousness would decline over time).

Re:what a load of shit

[epine]

Study can be summarized as "X percent of people with no experience with new technology have strong opinions researchers inexplicably value."

Three spacious floors and two subbasements below the replication crisis, there's research by randomly asking around.

People out there are worried about the competence of their airline pilots (most of the time supplemented with a living, breathing, fully qualified hot spare), supported by their highly instrumented cockpits, supported by their nearest air traffic control tower, supported by the entire air traffic control grid, supported by red phones to every major aircraft manufacturer, all of which are probably manned 24/7 with qualified aerospace engineers, who are in turn supported by a hundred thousand other employees (of which not an insignificant fraction have MIT-branded palladium slide rules), supported by an aviation database with detailed information and root cause analysis of every aviation disaster since Hollywood first popularized Donald Knuth's impressively spastic polyphase merge sort, as seen in the Six Million Dollar Man backdrop working its magic on giant arrays of spinning tape.

And yet these same people will go on a 2000 km road trip traversing two-lane or four-lane undivided highways, while thousands of members of the general public—the freaking general public—whizz past them at 250 km/h relative velocity (all of three meters away at closest approach), many of them towing trailers for the first time in their life.

Welcome to a clue gradient that would give Escher vertigo.

Re:what a load of shit

[Gussington]

Bingo. Study can be summarized as "X percent of people with no experience with new technology have strong opinions researchers inexplicably value."

Not sure what it has to do with "New technology". We already know by the millions of people who already use automated public transport what the results of not having to operate the vehicle yourself are. Most commuters sit around staring out the window, nodding off, scanning social media crap or some other non-productive activity etc.
A robot car is no different to a train or bus in this regard.

Re:what a load of shit

[Gussington]

Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day

Based on what millions of people do on public transport already, that time won't be used productively...

Re:what a load of shit

[bingoUV]

By this logic, decades after the invention of the electronic adding machine, such a newly manufactured machine would never make a simple arithmetic error, right?

Re:what a load of shit

[peawormsworth]

For many people, driving is the one time they have an excuse to not respond to their phone. Its a time where they can just turn on some music and even shut down conversation from other passengers. It is a purposeful time they are required to be entirely selfish and alone. I don't think many of them realize how much they like this but deep down they know they will lose this excuse when they get a self-driving car. I think what many people enjoy about driving is that it requires their attention over all else and that is the unspoken reason why they would rather drive then have a computer do it for them more safely.

When you're dead...

[omnichad]

You don't get a lot of extra free time for productive work when your autonomous car kills you.

Re:When you're dead...

[Travis Mansbridge]

Autonomous cars are already far safer than non-autonomous cars and we're on what, year 2?

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

The failure modes are not exactly promising. Most deaths so far are based on incidents that would be easily handled by a human driver. And it's these situations that are going to take the most work to fix.

Re:When you're dead...

[Travis Mansbridge]

In the same amount of time that a few Teslas have screwed up, countless more humans (even by percentage of pilot-type of vehicle on the road) have lost their lives due to being ultimately poorer instruments at the task of driving. While the idea of dying in a crash that was a computer's fault is horrifying, it's simply much less likely than dying due to your own human error.

Re:When you're dead...

[fluffernutter]

..in fifty years or so.

Re:When you're dead...

[fluffernutter]

I haven't seen an extrapolation of human accidents in places that autonomous cars work for an apples to apples comparison. Right now it's hard to say because Autopilot only works in the safest situations, so comparing all human accidents to Autopilot accidents is not an accurate comparison.

Re:When you're dead...

[fluffernutter]

I actually meant to reply to this... what stats are you looking at in comparison to autonomous cars?

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

Individual drivers aren't statistics. The people who are going to consider an autonomous car are not likely to be as stupid/careless as the statistically average driver. Your odds are still worse with autonomous right now.

Re:When you're dead...

[Oswald McWeany]

Source?

Honestly, I doubt your data on autonomous cars causing more death so I'm curious the source of it. Google have done over 1 million miles without a computer caused accident and there is a grand total of 0 deaths from fully autonomous cars (Tesla is driver assist not autonomous- it is intended to be used with Human driver on steering wheel watching the road- nothing more).

Re:When you're dead...

[Tim the Gecko]

Most human-driver-related deaths so far are based on incidents that would be easily handled by a human driver.

Seriously, signaling turns, slowing down when needed, stopping when needed, looking through the windshield instead of down at your smartphone... These are not rocket science, and yet people fail every hour of the day.

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

But you're not replacing those drivers. They are still driving their own car. The people using autonomous cars now could do better themselves.

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

I doubt your data on autonomous cars causing more death

What data? I'm claiming that statistics are NOT individual people. How am I supposed to cite statistics on that?

Re:When you're dead...

[Oswald McWeany]

You said: " Your odds are still worse with autonomous right now."

Where are you getting that data?

Re:When you're dead...

[queazocotal]

Could is not would.
The majority of 'good' drivers could perform better than the 'AI' on a good day, when they are paying attention.
I note that significantly more than 50% of people think they are good drivers.
Problems happen mainly due to misjudging risks.
'Oh - I'm tired, as it's 5:30 on a friday and I've got another hour to go, I better take that energy drink'.
-> drink spills due to the cap being hard to get off, and driver is distracted for 3 seconds and...
Good drivers may be good drivers most of the time.
Not all of the time.

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

How are you going to prove it with data? Each person is an individual.

Re:When you're dead...

[omnichad]

That's beside the point. My point is that overall driving statistics are not a good indicator of your own personal safety vs. an autonomous car. Nothing more.

Re:When you're dead...

[fluffernutter]

That's the point.. there can be no source.. Unless someone figures out what human accidents are only in the exact places that Autopilot works, doung only thing things that Autopilot does. Otherwise you can't compare them. Of course a human in a blizzard pulling out of their driveway is going to get in more accidents than Autopilot in new perfect conditions that it is limited to. Even that may not be an accurate comparison because Autopilot has a human (who is now shit scared because of the previous accidents) to take over for it.

Re:When you're dead...

[fluffernutter]

The thing you forget is that humans can always choose to drive slower and more carefully. We lose that control with automation, and in that case if the automation screws up then it is responsible for a death of that person who would have otherwise been more careful.

Motion Sickness

[rockmuelle]

I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car. Not sure what percentage of the population has the same issue, but I doubt it's insignificant.

More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity? How about pitch it as a way for people to have more time to relax and recharge? Self driving car, some good music, a comfy chair, and some good scotch for the win.

-Chris

Re:Motion Sickness

[hattig]

Indeed it seems that business is going to try and push employees for another 2 hours of time a day, even though the end result is even lower productivity than ever before due to the fact that people really only have about 6 hours a day in them to be productive, according to studies anyway.

So yeah, let's make commuting more pleasurable. Cars with cocktail cabinets, a games console, some music, leather wingback chairs, humidor, etc.
Because at some point the technology will work, and when it does, and when all cars are self-driving, the fears about watching the road will fade away, and car interiors will change drastically. Let's say this happens around 2040...

Of course in cities by then most people will be catching self-driving bustaxi type services because of congestion - but at least they will be nearly door-to-door.

Or maybe working from home will have actually happened seriously ... nah.

Re:Motion Sickness

[cruff]

I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train.

I also suffer from motion sickness, but sometimes I can manage to read in the morning on a regional bus route if the bus suspension and the road surface are in good condition and traffic is not stop and go. Later in the day there is no way I can do that. I expect it would be the same in an autonomous vehicle, so I probably wouldn't gain much time, if any.

Re:Motion Sickness

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Motion sickness can be caused by the dissonance between the what you see (fast movement) and what you feel (no rushing wind, your legs aren't doing any work, etc).

Autonomous vehicles could eventually allow us to darken the windows, which could prevent motion sickness.

Re:Motion Sickness

[rjune]

Sounds like your only alternative would be an audible book. I prefer reading myself, but some of them are pretty good if they are the right book (light reading) with the right narrator. On the other hand, if your car has good scotch, want to car pool?

Re:Motion Sickness

[The-Ixian]

We already have a large group of people we can use for this study. Please who take the bus or train to work every morning.

I and many others are idle for an hour or more while someone else drives us to/from work every day. There is even free wifi on the bus I use. Yet I don't do any work and nobody expects me to...

Re:Motion Sickness

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity?

Exactly. This is codespeak for "now you can do some more work on the way home". Screw that.

Re:Motion Sickness

[JeffAtl]

The act of driving (especially in traffic) is mentally draining. Just being a passenger and looking out the window instead of actively driving will make you more productive in other parts of your life

Re:Motion Sickness

[wonkey_monkey]

It's more often the other way around. The dissonance is between what you see (which, when not looking out of the window, is your relatively still surroundings) and what you feel (the car bumping around on the road, turning corners, accelerating and decelerating).

Re:Motion Sickness

[Oswald McWeany]

I intend to use the 90 mins a day spent commuting round trip on entertainment, not being productive.

Watch TV or listen to music whilst I kick my feet up. (I can listen to music now, but can't immerse myself in it- I still have to focus on road). Maybe I'll read- but I'd like to have a more luxurious chair in my car if I'm reading.

Re:Motion Sickness

[Guybrush_T]

In 5 years : "Study finds that autonomous driving caused an increase in alcohol addiction".

Re:Motion Sickness

[fluffernutter]

Unless you were going to watch entertainment for that 90 mins a day anyway, that's just time wasting; not gaining productivity.

Re:Motion Sickness

[Moof123]

Yep. 2 out of 3 family members in my household get motion sickness. My kid can watch movies on an ipad if we are on straight highway, even that can be a problem for my wife. Yet even when I am a passenger I never feel like I want to whip out a laptop or surf the web. I only get online if we need directions or check the weather. Maybe 1-2% of my time as a passenger on a road trip is spent being "productive". I cannot even sleep in a car or airplane, so that possible bonus is out.

Frankly I see autonomous cars as a truly cool solution in search of a need. The case for these being mainstream still seems weak and way over hyped and optimistic. My $0.02.

I find that riding my bike as my daily commuter provides health and mental benefits that exceed what an autonomous car ever has a chance to provide.

Re:Motion Sickness

[MooseTick]

"I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car."

There is more in life than reading. Maybe you could take up knitting and create personalized xmas gifts for the family. Or, if that gets you sick, you could nap for your commute. Or, if you can't sleep in a car, you could eat breakfast or dinner. Or, you could ponder the day's activities without reading/writing. Or you could trim your toenails. Or, you could pick that nose clean. Or, you could watch movies/TV. Or, you could iron your clothes during your commute. I suspect future fully autonomous cars will be laid out differently than current cars. I can see some being a room on wheels. It could have a bed, a table for working/eating/reading, and other household amenities.

Re:Motion Sickness

[dhasenan]

You could dictate to your phone during the trip. Or nap. Or relax. Or just not worry about traffic and other drivers. All more productive than navigating a two ton vehicle through a throng of other two ton vehicles, forced to concentrate on that task and nothing else.

Re:Motion Sickness

[fgouget]

I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car. Not sure what percentage of the population has the same issue, but I doubt it's insignificant.

I have no trouble using a computer on a car and do so regularly. Not sure what percentage of the population has no issue with motion sickness, but I doubt it's insignificant. (Yeah, we're both right.)

Re:Motion Sickness

[antdude]

Sleep. :D

Re:Motion Sickness

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

I love the /. mod system. +5 Interesting despite literally every response saying I'm wrong.

I'll bow to the collective knowledge of people actually suffering from motion sickness. Maybe there's some other technologies that could be added to autonomous cars to fix it, but simply putting up dark curtains sounds like it won't be enough.

It will give taxi/bus drivers a lot more free time

[elrous0]

Plenty of time

Useless study

[Timmy D Programmer]

That apprehension will fade fast, and folks will get to enjoy that time more.

Re:Useless study

[Gussington]

Take a bus and tell me if you enjoy that better? I ride a motorbike, no amount of automation will make my travel more enjoyable than me riding it. I'm sure some car people feel the same way.

I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[unfortunateson]

Working while traveling isn't high on my list of priorities. Watching an episode on Netflix, playing a VR racing game (admittedly slower on the highway than on the track), whatever.

And the comfort level will get there. The first generation will only be a little bit better than human reactions. The next version (hopefully a free software upgrade - funded by an auto-manufacturer/insurance alliance) twice as safe, the next version four times as safe, etc.

If it can't just be software upgrades, it's going to be a long, slow adoption: cars get replaced every 2-10 years - but then they get resold, so the average age of cars on the road is over 11 years.
(REF: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...)

Eventually, insurance lobbies will get the government to require autonomous driving: first on certain highways and city centers, then eventually everywhere. Just like seat belts, air bags, rear-view cameras.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[RobinH]

Google is one of the companies that's big into developing self-driving cars, and where does Google get most of its money? Advertising. Google is specifically pushing self-driving cars because a huge block of people's time is used driving where they would rather you surf the web and click on their ads.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Working while traveling isn't high on my list of priorities.

It's exactly nowhere on my list of priorities. It's not even in the "I'll think about it maybe someday" category.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[fmoliveira]

Insurance want some shit happen, or nobody will buy insurance.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[jimbolauski]

Even though cars from today are significantly safer then cars from 75 years ago they are still allowed on the road, there will always be cars on the road that are not as safe as the cars around it. Insurance lobbies don't care if you crash as long as the rates you pay are in line with your claim history.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[MooseTick]

"insurance lobbies will get the government to require autonomous driving"

They won't need to. They will just say its $100/year for autonomous vehicles and charge $25000/year for people to drive. Then it won't be a decision unless you are Jay Leno.

Re:I expect to be *entertained* not productive

[Moof123]

Current insurance prices cover actual payouts, plus a profit margin. Why would prices skyrocket for non-autonmous cars suddenly? I only pay about $800 a year for 2 drivers and three cars, and I would expect that if half the cars were autonomous the number of accidents even for regular cars should go down (fast reflexive defensive actions by HAL). So if there is even a modest amount of competition for business insurance should get CHEAPER, not fo up to $25k/year like you pulled out of your butt.

I see another issue.

[SuricouRaven]

Your work day shall begin an hour before you arrive at the office, and end an hour after.

"What, you didn't read all your daily meeting notes and emails and answer your voice mail while on the way into the office? You slacker! Now you're going to waste an hour of your paid company time catching up. If this happens again, your future here may not be secure."

Re:I see another issue.

[Joe_Dragon]

so you want me to clock in then when I get in to the car?

Re:I see another issue.

[Joe_Dragon]

going salary? So now you have to pay me at least 47K

Re:I see another issue.

[SuricouRaven]

It's very common for employers to 'informally' pressure workers to get some extra unpaid time in. Assign them more work than their office hours could accommodate, imply that they may lose their job if they can't keep up. What choice does the employee have but to work from home, or stay in after office hours for some unpaid overtime? Most employees are expendable and replaceable - they know it, and their manager knows it.

Re:You kids get off my road

[jellomizer]

The problem is the people who don't like to drive still needs to drive to get where they need to be.
I don't like to drive myself, however I drive 2 hours every day, without using my phone or other unsafe driving. But some times, after a long day of work, I would like to sit back and close my eyes. But that would be stupid while driving.

Re:yes but...

[jellomizer]

Dag-nabbit I still prefer external heating outside the home, not your young whipper snappers inside fireplaces. Where you are just itching to get your house on fire.

Re:Carsickness sucks

[jellomizer]

I bet you can probably just lay back and close your eyes.

Re:yes but...

[jcr]

THIS generation will quit watching the road as soon as the novelty of riding in an autonomous car wears off.

-jcr

time saved

[invictusvoyd]

Whatever time saved will be lost in suing Tesla for autopilot failure

Better than eating time with the family

[Bruce66423]

Given that is already happening, there's a slight chance this will allow people to avoid working at home. Sadly it's probably not a good one.

Be serious

[anegg]

Based on my observations of people traveling public transportation such as the subway or riding in car pools, I suspect that any time saved due to autonomous vehicle use will be spent surfing the web or incessantly checking social media to see if someone, anyone, as offered up a new crumb of intercourse to consume.

Sure, whatever

[Kjella]

My mom used to be up in arms about the microwave when we first got it, only to be used when absolutely necessary because it was cooking with radiation and radiation was dangerous. Now I'd say 9 out of 10 things are heated in the micro. With even the slightest bit of statistical evidence in its favor it'll be like riding the bus or taking a taxi in no time. Yes, I too got a control thing but if it's already not me driving then I'm not sure I trust people over computers. They fuck up pretty bad too...

What is going on with Slashdot?

[hampton2600]

Okay, first of all, this is clearly not news... it's from the freaking Daily Mail, as much a newspaper as the National Enquirer. Yeah, of course people *without* self driving cars who've never seen one before would be nervous. Also, people who've never seen a movie say they would have trouble sitting in a dark room for 2 hours. What is going on with Slashdot the last couple weeks? I used to come here for no-bullshit-tech-news, and now we have weird Hillary health posts, the pervious article about "Touch Disease" is total rubbish too. They seem to be going 50% total bullshit posts. I try and avoid HN, because of the comments section, but the editors here should just read over the entries there and copy the good ones. Here, let me do a quick look. 13 hours ago news that Tesla signed a massive contract with the California power grid. TECHNOLOGY NEWS! 3 hours ago Bash 4.4 released. TECHNOLOGY NEWS! 2 hours ago EU Court: Open WiFi Operator Not Liable for Pirate Users. TECHNOLOGY NEWS! Look, I like this place because there used to be good editorial insight into tech news and all the highlights were covered with little BS or outright bias or weirdness. It was never perfect, but damn it was better than other choices. But who the hell is the new editor? Did all the good ones leave? Is no one submitting decent news?

BS

[bigdavex]

People already fuck around with their phones when they are actually driving the car. They aren't going to be focused on the road at all after they become accustomed.

Assist

[fluffernutter]

If you have to watch the road then it's not autonomous, it's only an assist.

Re:Assist

[fluffernutter]

On the other hand, when it is truly autonomous, then people will use the time for something. It's just that we are very far off still.

wrong measurement

[sdinfoserv]

The real time savings will be seen in reduced commute times.
Less human errors, faster route and accident avoidance computations, increased speed on currently deadlocked roads - will all factor into less actual in the car time which WILL increase productivity.
Morning commutes from Everett to Seattle (30 miles) frequently require 1 - 2 hours per way. Accidents create hour + long traffic jams. Removing people from the equation once the "autonomous" piece is working will greatly alleviate traffic problems and greatly increase existing infrastructure capacity. Thus saving capital investments and time. There's the savings.

Re:wrong measurement

[fluffernutter]

There will only be major efficiency gains in commute times once 99% of all people have autonomous cars, and that may never be a financial reality. Manual cars will always be cheaper, so people will always have them.

Re:wrong measurement

[b0bby]

I bet the tipping point will be way less than that. Even 50% of the vehicles keeping a proper gap, not randomly braking, not piling into the vehicle in front would be a big improvement. If the cars behind are aware of an event ahead and can slow down to give it time to clear, all the non-aware traffic around will also be helped by the smoother flow.

Re:wrong measurement

[fluffernutter]

It might work at 50% *if* automated cars get a dedicated lane. This isn't always possible, and even if it is, there will be a revolt over giving preferential treatment to the people who can afford them.

Re:wrong measurement

[sdinfoserv]

I would agree
Additionally, I predict: just as we now have "HOV lanes" or commuter lanes only, we will see "autonomous lanes only" to handle the increased speed and quicker response time of which humans are incapable

Re:wrong measurement

[sdinfoserv]

We have this now, Seattle has expedited lanes that charge fees that increase as traffic slows. It can cost $10 for a couple of miles in the expedited lanes while general traffic lanes sit bumper to bumper on interstates..
If you don't think America is all about pay to play, then you've not lived here long. Housing, education, health care, legal representation are all examples where people pay more for better treatment.

Re:wrong measurement

[fluffernutter]

But what you are suggesting is not the same thing. What you are suggesting is more like having lanes for people who own Lexus', Mercedes, and Porsches only.

Re:I can understand the logic behind this

[fluffernutter]

For me it's all about "family time" or "not family time". Sadly, the drive to work will always be "not family time" no matter how autonomous my vehicle is.

give it 6 months without accidents

[Maxo-Texas]

Folks can get used to auto driving as easily as they can another person driving or riding a bus.

Right now the accident is fresh on people's minds.
People get used to things fast.

my thoughts exactly

[fullmetal55]

Most people will just be on their phones, mindlessly surfing/texting, it won't fix anything, and won't increase productivity, I think this is just some talking head trying to push for executive level support of this. What I see this actually being good for is people who are on the road a lot, (plumbers, repairmen, telecom installers, etc.) This is where productivity will be increased, instead of sitting in your truck idling after a job filling out paperwork, you plug in your next appointment and do the paperwork enroute. I also see this being abused by the company, "Why did you plug in Timmy's after your 9:30 appointment?"

How about

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Currently, in the US, the average occupant of a light-duty vehicle spends about an hour a day traveling -- time that could potentially be put to more productive use,"

Yeah, how about "fuck you"?

How about you stop trying to wring every last drop of "productivity" out of us and just let us relax and enjoy the ride? Maybe read a book, watch a movie, or just watch the scenery. Why does every single fucking second have to be spent doing something "productive"?

Re:How about

[nedlohs]

Those are all examples of more productive use, what exactly is your complaint?

Re:How about

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Those are all examples of more productive use, what exactly is your complaint?

That's not what they mean by "productive". What they mean is "more time to do more work", turning your daily commute into unpaid work hours. Fuck that.

If you want to work extra unpaid hours, be my guest. But as for me, I have no intention buying into this bullshit idea. This was the also behind the whole push for laptops and more capable cell phones- so you could be more "productive" while away from the office. Maybe you don't remember that.

Those kinds of ad campaigns are still in use today, touting how you can "always be connected blah blah blah", extolling the virtues of having the office travel with you so you can do spreadsheets while at the beach on your time off. Yippee, now even when you're on vacation in Bermuda you can still experience the drudgery of the office! Answer those emails, attend those meetings, check those voice mails! Never have a moment off the grid! Woo hoo!

Again, if you want to do this and be expected to work 24/7, be my guest. But some of us have lives and don't want the joy of being a worker bee every waking minute of our lives.

At my last contract my "boss" suggested that I put Outlook on my phone "so I could always be in touch". My counter-suggestion was for her to shove that idea up her ass, wrapped in barbed-wire. I phrased it a little more politely than that, but there was no mistaking the thrust (ha ha!) of my reply. "Work time is for work, and me time is for me" was more or less how I put it. If something super-critical came up they were welcome to call me, but otherwise, no. When I'm off the clock, I'm off the clock. And that includes my commute, unless they're paying for it.

Re:yes but...

[JeffAtl]

It has nothing to do with generations - it's all about novelty.

Consider jet passengers; inexperienced travelers get excited/nervous about taking off and landing. After a few trips, experienced travelers don't even pay attention.

It may start that way, but it won't stay that way.

[Mal-2]

Sure, when it's the new thing, people will be apprehensive and watch the road. Stress levels may actually be higher at this time, similar to being in a car with a young driver at the wheel. But three months in, or less, and I guarantee you that either owners will be confident in the abilities of their self-driving cars, or they'll be demanding changes (or worse). It's one thing when your vigilance actually buys you something – you can warn the inexperienced driver of a hazardous situation. Once people realize their cars are completely oblivious to their white-knuckle attitudes and don't care what they have to say, they'll stop watching the road because it does more harm than good.

Re:Next Best Thing to Being There

[Oswald McWeany]

No, but if you own a black car, it might get shot up pretty bad.

Why this obsession with productive?

[plopez]

We already have excess capacity. In addition, what is productive? Sending emails explaining the same points you explained in three other emails? Sitting through online meetings where the resolution is to have more meetings? Taking vacuous training courses for the resume?

Screw productive, I'm sleeping. Just like I do now when I ride the bus.

Time put to use? Yes... but how?

[bjdevil66]

For some it won't make much difference, since they're already using their phones to text/email/work behind the wheel while inching along in heavy traffic.

For the rest of us, society will have to work out some social mores about how that free time will be used... Do we want our bosses assuming we'll be working DURING rush hour (both ways) as well? "Yeah, you can leave a little early - just get me that update/report/patch by the time you get home."

Until then, I just hope I don't come across someone fapping to porn on his dash during rush hour 'cause there's no "gunning it" to get away from them. Imagine the back and forth of the crawl on the freeway between lanes - "There's the sick bastard's car again. That dude needs help.. And he thinks that tint is dark enough to cover the.. *gasp* oh dude, it's gay porn?? Gross... *sigh* Yeah, 911? There's a dude jacking off to porn in the Volvo right beside me. Isn't there a law against that? Can you get a cop to... Volvo, yes, Volvo - you know, the safe cars?... What's he look like? Hell, I don't know - Should I ask him to roll the window down to get a better look? Please hurry, though - somebody's getting it in the ass on the dashboard and I'm sick of being stuck wat... No, no! Just on the SCREEN. He's alone - sheesh... Ok, good. Thanks - I don't know how the cop's gonna get to us, though... What do I do in the meantine?... Just get away from the car, huh? Just how do I do that? Have you ever driven I-5 at 530PM? I'm not getting off the freeway - he probably is, though.. Damn it!"

Re:It will give taxi/bus drivers a lot more free t

[Joe_Dragon]

willing to dial down to jail / prison?? In usa may be the only way to get a doctor that does more then the ER.

Productivity

[sjbe]

I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car. Not sure what percentage of the population has the same issue, but I doubt it's insignificant.

Probably most people under the right circumstances. Some are more prone to it than others. It also depends on the stability of the vehicle, the route being taken, etc. If I try to read intensely in the back seat of a car without looking out on a twisty turny road with a bad suspension I'll certainly get nauseous.

More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity?

That's how you get economic growth. It's one of the dominant reasons wages in the US are higher than wages in Brazil or Russia or other places. People are obsessed with it because it matters a lot. Productivity growth is a very big deal in determining standards of living.

How about pitch it as a way for people to have more time to relax and recharge?

Some will undoubtedly use it that way. Driving does require some mental exertion so not having to drive can have benefits in being more rested at your destination even if you do little work along the way.

Re:You kids get off my road

[bondsbw]

I personally like riding as a passenger (without a phone in my hand) even more. I notice so many more things I can't think about while concentrating on the drive.

Daily Mail

[Verdatum]

Can we just stop linking to anything from Daily Mail on Slashdot. It's a rag. If Daily Mail is the best source that can be found discussing a study, it pretty much means that the study isn't worth discussing here.

"Study debunks theory that self-driving cars will make people more productive" in big bold letters at the top. No. This study doesn't do that at all.

You are trying to sensationalize to get views, Daily Mail. This should not be encouraged; not here at least. Slashdot's reader base is smarter than this shit.

Myopic study

[wonkey_monkey]

This "study" only applies to the very short term future, as do all autonomous car naysayers' arguments.

Also, it's not a study. It's a survey. It doesn't "debunk" anything, as the article claims. Typical Daily Fail, err, fail.

a new study claims that they will have little impact

Yes, that's the best thing about autonomous cars :)

It wouldn't help me, but...

[Daetrin]

I spend my commute time listening to audiobooks. In fact my commute has become my primary method of consuming novels and i rarely find time to read printed or ebooks outside of that. So even if i wanted to spend my commute doing something else while an AI drove i'd end up having to reschedule some other non-driving time to make up for the "reading" i wasn't getting done during the same period.

That said though, i don't think the same really applies to people who haven't already found some productive use for their commute time. The article seems vague and hand-wavey at best (as well as full of grammatical errors.) Just because 30-50% claim now they'd be too worried to do something else while the AI drove doesn't mean they'd feel the same way after owning or using such a car for several days or weeks. People are often far more willing to adapt to things than they would predict. And even if that number were valid the other 50-70% would still be getting more free time, so the generalized statement would still be false.

Can't save morons anything

[gurps_npc]

Those of us with a brain will quickly realize that for any auto-pilot approved for the general market, we are far more likely to cause an accident than we would be to save ourselves from one. We might double check it for one or two trips, but we would quickly realize it worked.

The smart people will get more time to read, talk, book their vacations, etc. We will gain time. (well, not me, I take the subway to work, I already read during my commute.)

The people not smart enough to make that decision? I got news for you, they were never productive in the first place, they were COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. They are the people that insist on driving around for 30 minutes to save $2 dollars on gas (it costs about 5-10 cents a minute to drive around - do the math.)

Re:Can't save morons anything

[OrangeTide]

After like the 10th time I'll be crawling in the back seat and taking a nap.

In the US, cars are almost autonomous already

[lamer01]

Most drivers are too busy texting and checking their social networks. They spend the minimum amount required to the task of driving.

Re:In the US, cars are almost autonomous already

[JustNiz]

Yes but the fact that most women do, doesn't make it right. Those people are fucking retards.

Bullshit

[Dunbal]

The study showed that nearly 36 percent of Americans say they would be so apprehensive using a driverless vehicle that they would only watch the road.

Short sighted study. People get used to things. And the generation that has never seen anything but a driverless car will not be about as nervous as a passenger on a commercial jet. Funny how people manage to read, sleep and even have sex on those.

You have that backwards

[dfm3]

That's not true. I suffer from motion sickness, and it has nothing to do with what your body feels (your sense of touch). It results from a discrepancy between motion detected by your inner ear and changes in your position and orientation as perceived by your eyes. Darkening windows is absolutely the worst thing you can do, as it prevents any opportunity to seek relief by visually orienting yourself to the exterior environment. Some of the worst cases of motion sickness I've ever experienced were times when I've been in boats with no, or in airplanes at night when everybody lowers their window shades. The back row of an MD-88 is the worst place I can sit since there is an engine mounted in place of the window - I get sick every time, but I have no trouble sitting in the next row forward.

Watch the road?

[PPH]

People don't watch the road right now while they are driving their shitbox cars. Give them driving assist and they'll be reading or working on something else during their commute, oblivious of traffic.

Better get used to unskilled driving. Once autopilots became a thing in aircraft, piloting skills began to deteriorate to the point that handling exceptions is a recognized problem. They call it 'flying the magenta line'. Car drivers will go through the same thing. You might actually have your hands on the wheel of your Tesla, but when it screws up, you haven't developed the skills to brake, change lanes or even evaluate the traffic flow around you.

wrong generation

[OrangeTide]

They asked the wrong generation. It might be 10 years before self driving cars are ubiquitous, so that means kids who are 12-18 today will be the ones mostly benefiting from the technology (they'll bee 22-28 by then). Some small percentage of them may even choose to buy/lease a self driving car instead of getting a drivers license.

Re:2nd amendment of driving

[OrangeTide]

Try not paying your registration and see how long you can keep your car in your possession.

You don't own anything, it's all an illusion.

Not me.

[JustNiz]

So let me get this straight? I'm meant to pay extra for a self-driving car just so that my employer can get more out of me?

Transit and Biking will give you more free time

[WillAffleckUW]

If you live in a growing tech city, switching from driving (average speed around 10 mph) to a combination of biking and transit (average speed twice that of cars, no hassle to park, cheaper too and more exercise) will save you time.

If you don't live in a growing tech city, your salaries will be stagnant, as the current GDP measures by census show.

It's your choice. You can read a book and hang your bike on the front of the bus or inside the light rail train too.

Re:Transit and Biking will give you more free time

[WillAffleckUW]

And in the case where you work in a "growing tech city" but can't afford to live there due to out of control housing prices?

In that case, you might as well live in Africa, as your distance to a light rail, commuter rail, ferry, or express bus might vary a lot. But if you're near one of those, you can bike to the Park and Ride and hope your bike is there when you get back

Re:Transit and Biking will give you more free time

[vovin]

Given 160K in the midwest vs 220K in SV it's no contest for me.

As a bonus, driving in the midwest is normal speed and there are a minimum of hipster douchebags running around.

Don't know why you are cherry picking economic data from 6 year old census data when you can see the obvious
economic indicators every quarter. It's pretty obvious that SV housing and rent are not sustainable while wages
are stagnant in the valley due to huge amounts of imported labor.

Besides ... the place is pretty much a dump outside the wealthy enclaves.

Re:Transit and Biking will give you more free time

[WillAffleckUW]

Census data is only correct in deciles, every 10 years. Anyone with any training knows that.

But, hey, you believe what you want.

I'll be zooming by you at twice the speed using bike plus transit.

So, a worst case...

[CrimsonAvenger]

...is that just under half the people using autonomous cars won't get any extra time to spend doing useful (to them) things.

Which implies that rather more than half (up to about 2/3) of people WILL have more time to spend doing useful (to them) things.

I fail to see how this "study", even in its worst case scenario, translates to "people won't have more time available if they have autonomous vehicles"....

Yes, productivity!

[jovetoo]

So important.

To calibrate this result...

[doom]

To calibrate this result, I'd like to know what percentage of drivers currently say they're watching the road, but actually are not.

I'm usually out on bike, and there's a definite pattern: when someone passes me too close, I look to my left... and see someone staring down at a phone.

Terrible Study

[hackel]

I'm sure that when trains were just being built, people were the same way the first few times they rode one. Apprehensive and staring out the window all the time at this marvel of technology. But they got over it. How idiotic to think that people wouldn't do exactly the same with a self-driving car, *especially* once they turn the seats around and remove manual controls!

Seen that before

[fgouget]

Housewives hoping that the washing machines of the future will give them more free time may be in for a disappointment. Increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of washing machines, but a new study claims that they will have little impact. The study showed that nearly 36 percent of Americans housewives say they would be so apprehensive using a washing machine that they would only watch the load. Meanwhile, UK housewives were even more cautious at 44 per cent. "Currently, in the US, the average housewife spends about an hour a day washing -- time that could potentially be put to more productive use," said Mike Sikav, research professor at the University of Michigan Washing Research Institute. "Indeed, increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of washing machines."

Wrong

[XSportSeeker]

Conclusion in the title cannot be taken from the study quoted.

First of all, what people say isn't always what people do. People have been anxious and suspicious about new tech forever... if we were to use such stupid metrics not to implement tech, we would never have invented the wheel, or used fire for anything.
Second, even if that was the case, you can never generalize the initial state or feelings towards a given piece of technology to how it's gonna be perceived once the usage becomes widespread. Go live a few days with the Amish and see how much less time you get by staying away from technology out of fear.
Third and perhaps most important: we don't yet have fully autonomous vehicles. How can you say that it won't give us any more free time if people haven't even tried it yet, nor we can even tell how they'll operate? The technology is still being developed, and it's expected that we'll get to fully autonomous vehicles in a few decades. Older generations will be anxious about it and resistant, sure, but as any technological revolution, the next generation will be the one to fully adopt it, driving in the backseat with no steering wheels.

This is all kinds of stupid. Protip: stay away from Daily Mail and it's shitty, biased and poorly written pieces. It's a fucking joke.

Reduce travel

[Bert64]

If you're truly serious about reducing the number of unproductive hours, then reduce the need to travel...

Encourage more home working...
Choose more sensible business locations so that staff are actually able to live nearby.
Have meetings via teleconf and videoconf.

For many people, myself included, a driverless car would be a very bad thing - many people get motion sickness, and reading while moving makes things much worse while actually driving and being in control of the motion helps greatly.

I'd just like to make the point that I've no need

[toooner]

Those surveyed clearly haven't experienced future technology or know how safe it will be so how can the survey have any credibility? Pointless article really.