Wait, wrong picture.
Posted on 06/25/2019 12:16:00 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
I have neither the wherewithal, nor the interest to build any car, so I ask Chris to assume Suzuki Motor Chairman Osamu Suzuki is on the phone. Suzuki’s global annual volume is around 3.5 million cars, all as reliable, ubiquitous, and as high-tech as a hammer. If the future really belongs to sensor-studded supercomputers on wheels, then Suzuki has a problem. Let’s assume Mr. Suzuki is asking Chris Heiser for help.
“Heiser-san, sumimasen, my people tell me self-driving cars are mote-mote,” I intone in a vain attempt at imitating the inimitable 89-year-old Suzuki. “What do I need to put into my cars to make them autonomous?”
Don’t start with the car,” says Heiser. “You need to start with the software. Self-driving cars are not an electronics-, or hardware-, or even a computing challenge. It’s a software challenge.”
“Wakatte naine, you don’t get it, Heiser-san,” replies the imaginary Osamu Suzuki . “Suzuki Motor is 109 years old. It’s so old, it’s even older than myself. We’ve been making cars since before the war. Our cars are as useful and as high-tech as a hammer. And you are telling me I should throw them away, and become an otaku, a geek? Not in my life, Heiser-san.”
Heiser is unperturbed: “Autonomous isn’t something you buy at a supplier and stick it in a car. You need to start with the software and the mission definition. What’s the mission, how do we get there, and let’s build a business case around it. You need to ask yourself: When the car is autonomous, what will it do? Is it owned by a person, or by a fleet, will it run in the city, in the countryside, will it go on the freeway, does it have to deal with fog, or with snow.”
“Yes, yes, yes, and yes,” answers the virtual Suzuki. “We make three and a half million cars a year. Half of India drives a Suzuki. And you are telling me we should make cars that only work when the sun is shining?”
For Heiser, a self-driving car is a Level 4 car, a car that can truly drive itself, except when and where it can’t. Heiser explains to the make-believe Suzuki that truly self-driving cars aren’t quite ready for snow, fog, or the monsoon in India. And not only therefore, they aren’t quite ready to be run down assembly lines by the millions and sold in all corners of the world. “India and Mountain View have a lot of differences. The idea of training a system in Mountain View and exporting it to India probably is not that valid. One size does not fit all.”
For Heiser, developing a self-driving car is as hard as going to the moon, “probably harder, because you’ll have to do moonshots at scale.” To his OEM clients, he recommends not to start with the Atlas rocket of the autonomous space, but to start with a few targeted missiles, and learn.
He recommends not to try to find out how to take the driver out of a car, but to think how an autonomous vehicle can provide a new revenue opportunity.
“A human taxi driver costs around $100,000 a year and taxi, because you have to pay for 2 people to keep the taxi running all day. In 3 years, you have spent $300,000 on people. If you can build an autonomous system that costs less than $300,000 over 3 years, you made money.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
I see dominoes and others offering driverless pizza delivery.
There goes a side gig i did on and off for 30 years :)
Ah, at 51 I guess I was getting too old for it anyway.
The future comes and no one can stop it.
Under no circumstances would I ever get into a car having no driver, not ever.
Whatta bout a backseat driver?
“Under no circumstances would I ever get into a car having no driver, not ever.”
Never say never.
Ok, if I am unconscious and someone puts me in one or dead where I have no choice then ok.
Of my own free will I will never ride in a driverless cars....never.
A driverless car would have to be programmed to handle any contigency, including those that are bizarre and unpredictable. Building it so that the driver can take over in an emergency is a non-starter, as well. A driver who has rudimentary skill and never practices (because the car does all the driving) will be incapable of taking over in an emergency—assuming he even sees the emergency develop since he probably is not paying attention to the road at all.
I could see trusting a computer to drive down the Interstate. That is a reasonably simple problem that computers are good at and people are not so good at.
But local roads are always going to be my job.
A sci-fi story from decades ago told of a future android revolution where they logically decided they did not need to be designed to do everything. E.g., an android dishwasher did not need legs.
Not me, no circumstances would allow me to rely on a piece of software to control a car traveling at 65-70mph.
This stuff works just fine....until it doesn’t and if it in any way fails or even hiccups at that speed, the result is catastrophe.
If I am to die in an accident I prefer to have some control.
Driverless cars will be relegated to 65 mph tucked in among the trucks on the right side lane.
Wait, wrong picture.
“Avoid Martin Luther King Boulevard.”
“But that is the shortest route.”
“Avoid Martin Luther King Boulevard!”
“Taking Malcolm X Highway.”
They will insist on all cars maintaining the correct interval, never exceed a speed limit, and always interact with each other for safety.
The very next step is to limit the places you can go, deny routes when they feel like it, limit the length of your trips (to reduce carbon emissions) mandate that one-driver trips waste fuel and require more people per trip, and completely lock your car down if there is an "energy emergency".
Automating transportation is handing your freedom of movement - which is what the invention of the automobile gave us - away.
You would request transport from point A to point B because you felt you needed to physically move and the central network would either allow or deny it. A car would arrive and take you where the network decided to put you. If allowed, another car would return you to point A.
The whole system of course would be considered infallible because nobody would ever hear a complaint.
I’m still waiting for the flying car.
They aren’t self driving. You are required to sit behind the steering wheel and be ready to take over at a moment’s notice. That is completely unacceptable.
LOLz
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