Posted on 06/25/2019 12:16:00 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
The purpose of this article it to emphasize the need to start small, and work up to the ultimate task. As an automotive engineer for more than half a century, who has dabbled a bit with software, I wholeheartedly endorse this approach. I have seen too many "big picture" projects fail, while numerous "start little, and build" projects have exceeded far beyond their initial goals. This has been especially true with software.
I happen to own cars with lane assist and adaptive cruise control. Yes, they steer and brake for me.
In the situation you describe, every time you drive down a two lane highway at 65-70 mph, you rely on the guy you meet on the other side to be alert, sober, and in control. A high percentage of them are not. Which would you rather trust, them, or software? I was in such a situation on a two lane highway a bit ago. I met a group of motorcycles coming at me. One swerved out to pass his buddy. Long before I saw this, my car flashed red warning lights, buzzed my seat, sounded a loud alarm, released the cruise control, and hit the brakes. The motorcycle safely swerved back, as he intended all along. However, my car appropriately very successfully warned me of his actions and reacted to them, well before I could have done anything about it. Similarly, the lane assist gently nudges my car correctly into the proper lane. It also buzzes the seat if I change lanes without turn signals. It's easy to over ride this, but it helps keep me alert.
These are simple tasks, and are hardly "self driving". But, along with ABS, TCS, active handling, GPS routing, and more, are the fundamentals of fully autonomous vehicles, and are indeed, software that controls your car. Most people will fully support them when they're ultimately ready for self driving.
A self-driving car has to choose between the safety of its occupants and the safety of people around it like other drivers and pedestrians. No way am I going to let a computer make that choice.
Driving Computer: “Due to unforseen and unavoidable circumstances, there will be an wreck in less than 3 seconds. More people will be killed or injured if I do A, than if I do B, even though B means the victims will be my occupants. Weighing potential casualties and liabilities to my maker, I must choose B.”
Me: “My family’s lives and welfare are worth more than the lives of any number of other drivers or pedestrians. I choose A and eff you computer.”
No self driving car. EVER.
We probably own the same car as mine does what yours does. The big difference is I am behind the wheel to take over IT AND WHEN he Auto braking fails to receive a signal to engage. I do not depend on nor would I be forced be at the whim of an electronic gadget over which I have no control?
It is simply a preference of mine. I am the sort of person who is not really all that comfortable in a car unless I am driving, even if it is not my car.
Sh*t happens and if I am to die in a car wreck I’d rather it be by my own hand then because of a machine.
I know just the solution, but it would require
iron rails to be laid on the ground between all the important destinations. It would be expensive and you would still need a certain number of drivers to connect to the smaller places and the short trips between those destinations. You could attach all the driverless cars in a long chain and carry a lot of people. I know it will never happen...
That is where I drive now. Six counts behind the truck in front of me.
My 92’ Samurai self drives sometimes.
I think I have a tie-rod going bad.
I’d like to build and fly that drone built on a go-cart chassis.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raVzAjMgLE8
If you have ever been to the intersection area of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Malcolm X, you would think you were in a post WWII area in Germany, etc. for the Africans.
Samurai? I think it must be a Kamikaze.
Visualize being in a self-driving car in the middle of the LA riots. And with no ability to override.
I could see limited application of self-driving technology in certain places, like enclosed retirement communities, taking people too old to drive safely to the store and back, as a community taxi service.
So you would plow through a crowd of hundreds of people at 65mph rather than hit a tree at 65mph? Interesting.
There's selfish, and then there's utterly-self-absorbed-sociopathic. I'm pretty sure you're even further down the scale than that.
Damn straight. And I’m perfectly happy being there.
The lives and welfare of my wife and daughters are worth infinitely more than they are.
Sort of like the idiotic question of “How many more children must die before you give up your firearms?” My answer is “All of them.”
I’m glad to see an expert in autonomous vehicles backing up what I’ve been saying for years. Level 4 is the minimum for a useful self driving car. Tesla’s solution, especially as sold and advertised, is dangerously incomplete. Any time there’s a proviso that the driver needs to be ready to take over control at any moment, you know the self-driving is not really ready for primetime. If the driver was really to monitor the car and traffic ahead and really be ready to take over at any moment, well honestly that sounds more exhausting to me than just driving the car myself. Of course, most people using it aren’t really to react quickly and take over, which is why you see stories of Teslas running into lane dividers and things like that.
Even the real level 4/5 autonomous vehicles out there are only useful in very restricted environments, from what I can tell.
I used to abhor the idea of self driving cars... then I got diagnosed with narcolepsy. I still think privacy, security, and personal independence are huge issues with autonomous vehicles, but in my case I’d eventually like to own one.
Elon Musk: “Cars you can drive will eventually be outlawed” because human drivers will be far less safe than self-driving cars.
https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/3/17/8232187/elon-musk-human-drivers-are-dangerous
Musk also said totally replacing human drivers was at least a couple of decades away (in 2015).
Not only is safety a factor, but so is cost. The cost of ownership, including insurance, will be much higher than using ride sharing, once self-driving cars catch on.
Imagine being chauffeured wherever you want to go in a luxury vehicle for $100 / month. (Musk predicts this service will drop to less than 18 cents-per-mile very rapidly.) You will also be freed from the distractions of driving, making trips by car more social or productive.
You will spend this time doing computer- or phone-based work for your job, or being entertained with movies or video games, or interacting socially (board or card games?), or posting on social media and Free Republic.
Imagine road trips, where a family of four can sleep while this service drives them across the country for much less than the cost of plane tickets. They will be able to stop for food, restrooms, or sightseeing, or to stretch their legs at their convenience along the way. The service would be door-to-door and more convenient than flying in many cases. Over time, such services would include amenities inside the vehicles, based on market demands.
Elon Musk: “Cars you can drive will eventually be outlawed” because human drivers will be far less safe than self-driving cars.
https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/3/17/8232187/elon-musk-human-drivers-are-dangerous
Musk also said totally replacing human drivers was at least a couple of decades away (in 2015).
Not only is safety a factor, but so is cost. The cost of ownership, including insurance, will be much higher than using ride sharing, once self-driving cars catch on.
Imagine being chauffeured wherever you want to go in a luxury vehicle for $100 / month. (Musk predicts this service will drop to less than 18 cents-per-mile very rapidly.) You will also be freed from the distractions of driving, making trips by car more social or productive.
You will spend this time doing computer- or phone-based work for your job, or being entertained with movies or video games, or interacting socially (board or card games?), or posting on social media and Free Republic.
Imagine road trips, where a family of four can sleep while this service drives them across the country for much less than the cost of plane tickets. They will be able to stop for food, restrooms, or sightseeing, or to stretch their legs at their convenience along the way. The service would be door-to-door and more convenient than flying in many cases. Over time, such services would include amenities inside the vehicles, based on market demands.
If you can build an autonomous system that costs less than $300,000 over 3 years, you made money.
Depends on how many things and people it hits insurance company not amused.
Autonomous system can’t foresee events about to happen failure ensues.
I’ve been in some taxi’s that I’ve regretted...insane driving, was glad to get out alive.
Most incidents are from drunk or distracted (phone) driving. Autonomous cars won’t have this problem or drive like that. If anything, the problem they’ll have is being too passive - many countries have a culture of driving which is based on very loose rules. People, cars, bikes, scooters, everywhere, where you have to drive assertively or you just stand still.
In many countries this is the biggest problem - but it isn’t safely getting from A to B. With HD maps they can even stay in their lane at night on snow covered roads. They will be better than people.
Unless going cross country, speeding and driving aggressively only saves a few minutes. Most drivers never do the math to see how little they are gaining by it. With $500 tickets these days, it's not worth the higher stress, risk, and fuel consumption.
Some billionaires might commute in the below fashion. The tractor could be replaced by a robot. What the rich do today, we'll be doing in a dozen years as the price comes down.
Harder than you think.
You can program the car for a deer jumping onto the road, but a family of feral hogs is different. Or, the mattress that suddenly flies off a pickup truck in the lane next to you and lands right in front of you.
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