Driverless vehicles and droned, the so-called future

Poll question:
Should vehicles licensed to be driven on the PUBLIC roads be required to be driven by licensed drivers sitting behind the wheel?

My assumptions are we don't need them, we don't want them, they'll be terrible drivers on the road. It's not fair for some jerk to only risk his property endangering our lives. Build your own roads if you want to control everything. States rights will have to rule or we'll be forced into accepting these without a vote by the federal government.

Drones are going to be a nuisance. Keep them on your own property, dont trespass on mine or over mine. They're not needed, you're just greedy.

I think driver-less vehicles need to be proven at least as safe as the average human driver before before I'll consider letting them on the road without a backup human being to take over in a clutch. Let me add I'm skeptical about statistics about how many million miles they have driven with very few accidents.

Quote: Wizard

I think driver-less vehicles need to be proven at least as safe as the average human driver before before I'll consider letting them on the road without a backup human being to take over in a clutch. Let me add I'm skeptical about statistics about how many million miles they have driven with very few accidents.

That's assuming humans are safe. How many hundreds of thousands of accidents a year? What about all the tickets for dui, reckless driving, and other dangerous offenses. Can't imagine how many of those go without being caught.

On the flip side, I kind of assume that most professional drivers are on the high end of the safety spectrum. Except of course the taxi drivers. Those people scare the hell out of me.

I don't like driverless cars for the reason of losing jobs. If we automate everything like the Jetsons then where will all the jobs be?

I already trust these prototype driverless cars more than I trust human drivers right now. I think there should be someone behind the wheel in case of extreme circumstances (similar to pilots nowadays I assume). It will be interesting how insurance companies will handle this in the future though.

I have complete faith that it's possible with current technology to create driver-less cars that are safer than humans. I still think we have a long way to go before that is a reality though.

I see the bigger problem with increasing automation is the job market. I think basic income will be a necessity in an automated economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Driver-less cars are the future. For ever 1 accident that's actually caused by technology, it will save hundreds if not thousands caused by the morons that you see on the road each and every single day. People usually think "yeah it'll stop drunk driving" as their first go to... but seriously... how many OTHER kinds of accidents will this solve? I would already take a slue of "buggy" technology over the people I see on the road on daily basis.

It's going to open up a world of poverty, domination, and hopelessness. One of the mysteries will be who to save. If the car has to swerve, choice A, a million property damage, or your car, they'll choose killing you, over the more expensive, safer option.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

It's going to open up a world of poverty, domination, and hopelessness. One of the mysteries will be who to save. If the car has to swerve, choice A, a million property damage, or your car, they'll choose killing you, over the more expensive, safer option.

Combining iRobot with a little bit of :tinfoil: I see =P. These are questions that would undoubtedly be asked upon the cars release (as you're already asking them now). If the car has to swerve, I would imagine they could put protocols in to attempt to do it "the best it can" given having to swerve already indicates an incident. There's pretty much zero chance (at least for the first couple decades until we become complacent) that these vehicles would do anything other than absolutely savor human life.

The big protocol these automated cars will leverage is their distance between the drivers in front of them, given the calculation of speed/weight/etc. I don't have any hard numbers, but I feel like the majority of accidents caused by humans are due to not keeping the proper distance or reacting fast enough to simply break... taking the need to swerve away.

If a driverless car causes an accident who will be liable for that accident? If a driverless car is involved in an accident with a person driving a car is it going to be automatically assumed that the human was at fault? Considering that all of us who use computers have experienced many sorts of computer errors how can there be confidence in this technology when any one small error can be fatal? What about the fact that many people enjoy driving their car, not to work during rush hour in gridlock of course, but at other times? What if a passenger decided to change his destination while in transit. Could a driverless car make the judgement that it is not worth the risk to go from the far left lane to the far right lane on a superhighway in the space of 50 yards in order to reach the exit ramp; that it would be better to miss the exit and lengthen the trip?

Those sound like complicated questions, and they are a bit, but they are easily answered if you tackle them like any other mountain... one step at a time. When the cars have been tested for X million miles and show a < y% fail rate then we can more than likely assume (with 95% confidence I'm sure) the accident was caused by another vehicle that was not automated. In the case that it was, fun fact, we'll now have backups and history of the decisions the cars made that led up to the accident. Hopefully these will almost all be worked out in testing, but of course you're going to have accidents. Hell, turn on the news tonight and you'll hear about more accidents than these "glitches" would cause. After that they can take the history and patch updates in so it literally never happens again. Think about that... An accident that EVERY SELF DRIVING CAR IN THE COUNTRY would SIMULTANEOUSLY learn from and NEVER do again. That is amazing and astonishing. Think if ONE person got in a drunk driving accident and then EVERYONE in America actually LEARNED that they should drive after drinking, and then never did again. Now apply that across the board to EVERY SINGLE kind of accident you could have. Not only will these cars be safer to start than our already horrific number of accidents per year, but they will optimize them daily and have them running nearly flawless in a short order of time once wide spread distribution takes place.

p.s... because I saw this and it's a good laugh for this thread:

In Soviet Russia, Self-Driving Car Eject You, Then Park Perfectly

(it's a joke and this is not a self driving car...)

The problem with advancing technological brilliance is that there is no corresponding philosophical brilliance. There is no understanding of where we are going with all of this or what the ultimate goal is. Like a car speeding down the road with no destination, only determined to go very fast. Are we trying to make it so humans will no longer have to work? Many would say generally that it's purpose is to make life better. I don't think life is better than 35 years ago. Certain things are much more convenient but that is a small thing. The great suffering in the world has not been eased. Things are advancing just because they can. Not because there is any overall plan. It's a brave new world. But it's not a world that offers a person a lot of peace of mind.

Quote: Romes

Those sound like complicated questions, and they are a bit, but they are easily answered if you tackle them like any other mountain... one step at a time. When the cars have been tested for X million miles and show a < y% fail rate then we can more than likely assume (with 95% confidence I'm sure) the accident was caused by another vehicle that was not automated. In the case that it was, fun fact, we'll now have backups and history of the decisions the cars made that led up to the accident. Hopefully these will almost all be worked out in testing, but of course you're going to have accidents. Hell, turn on the news tonight and you'll hear about more accidents than these "glitches" would cause. After that they can take the history and patch updates in so it literally never happens again. Think about that... An accident that EVERY SELF DRIVING CAR IN THE COUNTRY would SIMULTANEOUSLY learn from and NEVER do again. That is amazing and astonishing. Think if ONE person got in a drunk driving accident and then EVERYONE in America actually LEARNED that they should drive after drinking, and then never did again. Now apply that across the board to EVERY SINGLE kind of accident you could have. Not only will these cars be safer to start than our already horrific number of accidents per year, but they will optimize them daily and have them running nearly flawless in a short order of time once wide spread distribution takes place.

p.s... because I saw this and it's a good laugh for this thread:

In Soviet Russia, Self-Driving Car Eject You, Then Park Perfectly

(it's a joke and this is not a self driving car...)

You're making some big assumptions there, Romes. We had an analogous situation (actually, ongoing) with TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system )with computers projecting aircraft future position and relative hazards so badly, we had to be absolved of separation responsibility for aircraft responding to a warning. There was even one midair in Europe using them with 2 jets;everyone died. It's been a problem for more than 20 years.

It's not going to be smooth, easy, or any time soon that we can transition. The software does make errors, and they can be fatal. I suspect eventually we'll get there, but it won't be without problems.

One thing to remember, any selfish jerk move, which Is legal, but taboo, could be done. If you very slowly accelerate, you save a ton of gas, but irritate anyone around you, because you're taking so long to get to the speed you want. If that car or truck has time, it might decide to waste your time letting you wait behind it or forcing you to pass it.

Sometimes it's legal moves which are bad driving and that's the scary part.

Driving in snowy roads, it's very tough to do. I drove on 90 once, couldn't drive faster than 30 miles per hour safely. There were the FedEx trucks going 60-70 passing me, as I prayed they didn't lose control. A truck without a life on board might make those moves.

Waited at a red light yesterday forever. The people in front just decided to turn right thinking it was broken. Then as soon as they left, it turned green, for only 5 seconds. Wonder how a program would react to that.

If I'm in Cleveland, something I want in Columbus, I won't drive there and back to get it, but will conserve resources doing a few things in one trip. Those golf clubs will waste all that gas in a self-driving car and make that trip, raising demand for fuel, and costing others more money besides what they decide to waste. Kind of like having a fuel efficient car, but all those SUVs blow it and you pay for the waste indirectly. Whole lot of benefit for the few at the expense of the many. Cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, marijuana get sin taxes, in the name of damage to society, but you won't see politicians standing up here.

It's raising the challenge of having a heartbeat quite high, making so many powerless and useless, while creating others so much power. We have AP business that just destroys so much, not creating anything new or contributing anything real. We let these internet companies gain monopolies tax free at expense of brick and mortar companies that had expenses, but helped society with their existence. Now they're invading in on the rest. They've destroyed so much and gained so much power, they're might wind up consolidated all in one company These advantages add up so much, they could rule ages. They're not inventing electricity or anything breakthrough to do it, just dominating. When you dominate, very easy to maintain, stifling society.

After seeing a recent 60 minutes on military drones, had a fearful idea. This automation will be so powerful, it could literally take over the world. They'll be so powerful, in the wrong hands, these machines push the power structure so much, governments could be toppled with a private war where private corporations can take over the land here and everywhere. Obviously once these things become weaponized, but the day will come. I can't see the general public having any defense to mass extermination if it so be chosen. Won't need the technological singularity if an intelligent, ruthless, greedy man has the power and realization he cannot lose.

I just realized these things are going to be hitting people's cats and dogs left and right. I hope they won't, will be programmed to stop as safely as possible, make sure the pets are clear before moving on. Except, they may just think the pets aren't worth it, just drive right on, maybe cut a $100 check instead. I'd never sell my pet for that, but that's about what others feel they're worth unless pedigreed. Loss of affection, mourning, just not possible to be compensated for I don't think. It's just unfortunate, because we don't want the cars doing things like this, the damages will be the main factor considered.

Quote: Romes

Combining iRobot with a little bit of :tinfoil: I see =P. These are questions that would undoubtedly be asked upon the cars release (as you're already asking them now). If the car has to swerve, I would imagine they could put protocols in to attempt to do it "the best it can" given having to swerve already indicates an incident. There's pretty much zero chance (at least for the first couple decades until we become complacent) that these vehicles would do anything other than absolutely savor human life.

The big protocol these automated cars will leverage is their distance between the drivers in front of them, given the calculation of speed/weight/etc. I don't have any hard numbers, but I feel like the majority of accidents caused by humans are due to not keeping the proper distance or reacting fast enough to simply break... taking the need to swerve away.

Lately I've been spending speeding like the devil late at night, don't really see the problem as long as I can stop when needed. That's one problem, safe driving can be dangerous to others and cause people long delays. Nobody really wants to go the speed limit all the time, if we did, we'd spend more time driving than we want. Seems like traffic laws don't really help in many ways, but if they were all followed to a tee, would be very bad.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Lately I've been spending like the devil late at night, don't really see the problem as long as I can stop when needed. That's one problem, safe driving can be dangerous to others and cause people long delays. Nobody really wants to go the speed limit all the time, if we did, we'd spend more time driving than we want. Seems like traffic laws don't really help in many ways, but if they were all followed to a tee, would be very bad.

I don't really see self-driving cars as needing to operate like people are driving them. The could approach intersections from 4 directions and regulate their position in an alternating pattern so there would be no stopping just careful timed interlacing.

Also time in them would seem shorter. You could put your attention to reading, watching a movie, or just sleep.

2 problems I imagine for self driving cars.

1. Just because they are safer doesn't mean they can automatically be considered "safe enough" for the road. Anytime a driverless car causes a death, it will be blamed, even if it has saved (an expected) 10 or 100 lives over that time. From what I remember, things like elevators have strict safety features and audits that must be met and the program running it must be verified to the n'th degree.

2. Eventually if/when all cars are interconnected with a network, well, this brings two problems within itself. The first is hacking -- either by overriding the "accepted" program such that you make it so your car always has right of way, or in a way to cause other cars to get into accidents. Your car sends a message to the other cars pretending to be a different car that you're going to make a turn, slow down, whatever -- that car doesn't even exist....or it does, but it's not doing what the other cars are expecting it to do. Or imagine (a terrorist?) creating a virus which spreads to all or at least many cars. And it basically just f***s with everything.

On top of that, is such a network going to have guaranteed 100% uptime? You simply can't have cars doing some of the things mentioned, like interlacing at an intersection, without a network that is 100%. Of course, the whole network thing is a ways off, I think, since the cars right now (IIRC) basically have a camera on top that spin constantly, and basically go off of images/video.

Driverless cars will be further refined in retirement communities, parks and themed commercial developments before they are turned loose on ordinary roadways in large numbers.

Most driverless vehicles will initially be large trucks on freeways since that is where the cost savings are great and the challenge is the least.

Will lower costs, won't improve lives.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

I just realized these things are going to be hitting people's cats and dogs left and right. I hope they won't, will be programmed to stop as safely as possible, make sure the pets are clear before moving on. Except, they may just think the pets aren't worth it, just drive right on, maybe cut a $100 check instead. I'd never sell my pet for that, but that's about what others feel they're worth unless pedigreed. Loss of affection, mourning, just not possible to be compensated for I don't think. It's just unfortunate, because we don't want the cars doing things like this, the damages will be the main factor considered.

I doubt that they will be programmed to think stopping for animals is "not worth it." The bigger task is to avoid hitting animals, as they do not always act predictably. Sometimes they dart out into the street for apparently no reason.

For that matter, so do children, and hitting a child is infinitely worse than hitting an animal. When I was learning to drive, my parents always cautioned me to watch for children playing, because they will occasionally dart out into the street without warning -- chasing a ball, avoid being tagged (does anyone even play tag any more?), etc.

Will automated vehicles be programmed to recognize and prepare for this possibility? I hope so, but I'm not confident that they will. At least not at first.

All the talk of liability made me think about.....

Why the hell aren't dashcams standard in every new car? It's not an expensive feature....

I don't see driverless cars being prolific in our lifetimes (the next ~40-50 years). At most, there'll be some major interstate routes populated with driverless trucks, but there is just waaayy to much law and infrastructure to hammer out before I can just push a button on my phone and summon a robot car to take me to work every day. Not gonna happen any time soon. Definitely not in the "5-10 years" people have been saying. Heck, I've been hearing "5-10 years" for at least five years now, and we barely have robot-assisted prototypes on the road.

dropped some people off at Detroit Metro Airport yesterday ... headed back out onto i94 east and saw a proto type self driving van driving down the highway....... as I passed it there was a driver in the seat but clearly he was just taking up space there. When you go the speed limit on that section of road you are a traffic hazard .

One thing I noted before passing was the drifting the van seemed to be doing... never hitting the lines but the wandering between them was there..... so I was thinking with fresh snow covering those little white lines where does the wandering end?

Waymo is placing orders for 1000s of the new Chrysler Pacificas to be used as driverless cabs

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2018/01/30/waymo-buying-thousands-chrysler-pacifica-minivans/1076716001/

Quote: gamerfreak

All the talk of liability made me think about.....

Why the hell aren't dashcams standard in every new car? It's not an expensive feature....

Because the government is already watching us. (-;

I hate technology like this. The only "improvement" is that the human in the driverless car can be even lazier than other drivers. How about we try to solve the problem of bad driving by humans, rather than just give up and let computers drive for us.

Would you be comfortable flying on a plane with no pilots? Or how about just one pilot? One pilot flying a 737 can be done today, and zero pilots could also be done just like driverless cars, but the FAA won't allow it because sometimes computers make a mistake, and if no one can take over, people die. The meanies at the FAA won't even allow an airline to fly a plane with just one pilot! (except very small planes)

There have been plane crashes were the pilots didn't input information in the computer properly or whatever (user error), and they didn't pay attention and just let the autopilot fly the plane, right into the side of a mountain or shot down over Russian airspace. Lots of blood and fire resulted, and that was with TWO pilots and a computer flying the plane.

For some reason, people are fine with thousands of people being killed in car crashes, but our tolerance for airplane crashes is incredibly low. If we want driving to be safer, wouldn't the smart thing to do be a requirement of having TWO licensed drivers in the car? I know only one steers and uses the accelerator, but having two pairs of eyes on the road is far safer. Yet we are going in the other direction, from one licensed driver not paying enough attention to the road to ZERO.

I'll be happy to endorse driverless cars on our roads as long as a crash with no injury requires the manufacturer to pay $100,000 and the owner of said driverless car $50,000 to the other party, a crash with injury is $500,000 manufacturer and $250,000 owner, and finally a fatal crash is $10,000,000 from the manufacturer plus $5,000,000 from the owner. No amount of testing in the world is going to get insurance premiums down to an affordable level with those numbers.

Why the hate on driver-less cars? The only improvement wouldn't just be laziness, but theoretically car travel would be safer.

Would I be comfortable flying a plane without pilots? AFAIK, most of the flight is already pilot-less. Your question makes it seem like a pilot-less plane is significantly more dangerous than one with a pilot.....a scare tactic.

Of course there are going to be errors, but how much safer do you think plane travel is now when it's mostly run by a computer instead of manually flown by a pilot the entire time? I certainly don't think it's more dangerous. So what's the problem, exactly -- that sometimes planes crash....?

So what would be the problem if driver-less cars were actually safer than a regular car, even if accidents still happen? BTW, I'd imagine if/when these things start coming out on the market, all normal laws and whatnot will still apply -- you'll have to have a driver who's attentive and not inebriated who can take over in case the car starts doing some wonky stuff.

Quote: KevinAA

I'll be happy to endorse driverless cars on our roads as long as a crash with no injury requires the manufacturer to pay $100,000 and the owner of said driverless car $50,000 to the other party, a crash with injury is $500,000 manufacturer and $250,000 owner, and finally a fatal crash is $10,000,000 from the manufacturer plus $5,000,000 from the owner. No amount of testing in the world is going to get insurance premiums down to an affordable level with those numbers.

IOW: You wouldn't endorse driver-less cars.

Quote: TigerWu

I don't see driverless cars being prolific in our lifetimes (the next ~40-50 years). At most, there'll be some major interstate routes populated with driverless trucks, but there is just waaayy to much law and infrastructure to hammer out before I can just push a button on my phone and summon a robot car to take me to work every day. Not gonna happen any time soon. Definitely not in the "5-10 years" people have been saying. Heck, I've been hearing "5-10 years" for at least five years now, and we barely have robot-assisted prototypes on the road.

I keep telling people that driverless cares may be the most over promised thing in our lifetimes. I see these goofy cars with no controls as "concepts." Tell me, how do you move such a car a few feet when needed? How does it function on a grass field parking lot? There is an efficient way to move a car about in these kind of situations. Steering wheel, gas and brake pedals. and a gear shift.

Then there is all the fuzzy logic. Road moves for construction, will the car ever be able to figure out that?

People think they will sit back and ride in 5-10 years. I'll take the other side of that bet.

The vehicle I saw was a "Hidden" Pacifica.... they had a really neat wrap on it to disguise it ...the picture included a old style electrical breaker box on the one side ( Pacifica's are green ....they can run on a battery)

Word is the plant that makes these vans is changing over production levels due to the size of the order WAYMO has placed for them...

Out west in Fort McMurray the land of oil mining talk of job losses due to these self driving dump trucks is in the news

https://cdllife.com/2018/energy-company-lay-off-400-deploy-self-driving-trucks/

Another thing I had thought recently, you'll never really own these cars. Always going to be dependent on the maker or system runner.

Quote: RS

Why the hate on driver-less cars? The only improvement wouldn't just be laziness, but theoretically car travel would be safer.

Would I be comfortable flying a plane without pilots? AFAIK, most of the flight is already pilot-less. Your question makes it seem like a pilot-less plane is significantly more dangerous than one with a pilot.....a scare tactic.

Of course there are going to be errors, but how much safer do you think plane travel is now when it's mostly run by a computer instead of manually flown by a pilot the entire time? I certainly don't think it's more dangerous. So what's the problem, exactly -- that sometimes planes crash....?

So what would be the problem if driver-less cars were actually safer than a regular car, even if accidents still happen? BTW, I'd imagine if/when these things start coming out on the market, all normal laws and whatnot will still apply -- you'll have to have a driver who's attentive and not inebriated who can take over in case the car starts doing some wonky stuff.

Most of the flight uses autopilot. Even a two-seater plane flown by one person has autopilot. The purpose is to keep the pilot from having fatigue -- not the type of fatigue from staying up all night, but the type of fatigue from having to hold the controls constantly (while talking to ATC on the radio). So autopilot improves safety a little because of that benefit.

However, the landing is often done by hand (depends on airline and aircraft type). When the computer does an auto-land, the pilot is still watching, just in case the computer screws up. Having the computer fly the entire flight means taxi around the airport (at least a crash there isn't necessarily deadly), take off, turn on autopilot just like a human used to do (hopefully no errors or the plane goes off course), navigate, "talk" to ATC (hopefully no screwups in transmission, otherwise another MH370)... maybe we could automate ATC too and just have computers communicate with each other. Any mid-air crash can be blamed on the computer, easy solution there for the NTSB.

So, yes, without a doubt, a pilot-free airplane would be much more dangerous than a one-pilot airplane, which is marginally safer than a two-pilot airplane (every so often one dies or goes bananas or makes a mistake that the other catches).

Back to cars -- if a "driverless" car requires a licensed driver not intoxicated paying attention to the road... isn't that just a regular car? I thought the whole point was to have a drunk or sleeping passenger (or heck, a dog or a box of stuff), being driven completely by a computer. I don't trust computers. It took me some time to be convinced that video poker didn't cheat you (though it might in an Indian casino). If it's a cheater, then it's just another slot machine.

Quote:

IOW: You wouldn't endorse driver-less cars.

No, I would, as long as compensation comes with it. If the result is unaffordability, that's fine too.