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Alphabet's Waymo and Intel Are Launching Public Campaigns To Build Trust In Self-Driving Cars (theverge.com)
Alphabet's Waymo and Intel announced plans today to sponsor ads about self-driving cars. "Alphabet's Waymo is launching a public education campaign today called "Let's Talk Self-Driving" aimed at addressing the skepticism many people have about autonomous technology," reports The Verge. Meanwhile, "Intel said it would be airing its commercial starring LeBron James in the run-up to the NBA season opener on October 17th. From the report: The ad campaign will launch first in Arizona, before spreading to other states. Waymo is preparing to launch its first commercial ride-hailing service powered by its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans, according to a recent report in The Information. This public education campaign would appear to be a prelude to inviting ordinary people to take a ride in a driverless vehicle. Both companies recognize that in order to make lots of money, there will need to be a robust effort to persuade people that autonomous vehicles are as safe, if not safer, than human-operated ones. Recent polls suggest that most people wouldn't take a ride in a driverless car, even if they like the idea surrounding the technology.
Why not? Even if it's empirically shown that self-driving cars are safer than human cars (and this is going to happen soon), people are still not going to trust AI cars, just because. Maybe they saw a scary sci-fi movie as a kid, maybe they have a false sense of control behind the wheel, who knows.
If the rational case is already made but isn't getting through, it makes sense to advertise against peoples' in-born prejudice against self-driving cars.
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...especially supposedly technically knowledgeable people who are supposedly future-oriented. Here we are on the threshold of a revolutionary transformation in how transportation occurs and what I'm seeing so far here is an amalgam of: who can we sue when/if something fails?!?; it'll NEVER work 100% of the time! (omitting how shitty our current methodology scores); we need Standards(TM) first!! (ignoring how technology evolves); etc. Damn, just when I thought things could not get worse for America.