AI Controlled Cars, or Your Right to Drive

The only reason it would be "further away than we think" is because governments/insurance companies are reluctant to endorse it fully. The technology is already here.
He is right. It is indeed "further away than we think". For one, it requires $250K worth of sensors to operate. For another, the operator must be constantly alert to take over when it screws up. Both of these issues, among others, mean that it will likely be many decades before any sort of viable system is even feasible.
 
That video is done at ideal place in ideal conditions with empty roads. I would like to see the video of the car going through the Golden Gate among all the traffic. There is loads of situations you met everyday while driving i doubt a computer would resolve well, unexpected things happening in front of you, works in the road, cyclists, water, snow, roads in bad shape, and many situations where you need to anticipate what the other drivers are going to do...

I think it would be a bit easier if everybody stop driving and all cars become computerised suddenly. But humans and computers mixed would be catastrophic IMO.
 
If it could safely navigate rush hour traffic they would have a video of it, much less take the chance of a head-on collision when both cars are going 45+. Even another incident causing the Google car to go into the other lane and killing someone would mean millions in legal costs and massive PR issues.
 
a middle of the line solution may be to allow cars to be driven manually but have them react to hazardous changes then return control. It may involve syncing with other cars, or with a satellite that records road conditions. (apologies if already mentioned)
 
He is right. It is indeed "further away than we think". For one, it requires $250K worth of sensors to operate. For another, the operator must be constantly alert to take over when it screws up. Both of these issues, among others, mean that it will likely be many decades before any sort of viable system is even feasible.
I think we'll see this getting implemented within a few decades. Not sure how fledged out it will be, but I believe there will be a decently working system here by 2035 if not before.
 
As to the other point:
That is hardly heavy city traffic. But it is interesting because it shows there are other independent groups which are trying to do the same thing.

After the success in the DARPA Urban Challenge with their team CarOLO, two institutes of the Technische Universität Braunschweig from the departments of Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering have joined again for further research.
The scenario contains turn maneuvers, traffic lights, lane changes as well as parking maneuvers. For further information please refer to the project page.

Since summer 2010 autonomous test drives have been conducted on a first part of Braunschweig‘s inner city ring road. The tests were presented to the general public in October 2010 and were met with great interest by the media.

Autonomous Vehicles Complete DARPA Urban Challenge

Six of 11 autonomous vehicles finish 90-kilometer course with no major accidents

Google has been getting a lot of the publicity, but they apparently don't even compete.


Link to video.

This makes it look like the roads, at least in the U.S., are getting safer already.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Indeed they are, as I pointed out earlier. What is interesting about these statistics is that 4,600 of the 29,000 deaths were motorcycle riders and another 5,300 were pedestrians or bicyclists. So less than 20,000 people died while operating or riding in motor vehicles. But even including these deaths, there was one fatality per 100 million miles. With a proper licensing and drivers education program, we could quite possibly cut that at least in half.
 
As an enthusiast, I for one would be perfectly happy racing around a track to get my driving fix.

As a lover of driving to see beauty, I couldn't care less about spinning around a track. Driving the open road is one of life's truly great pleasures. I have no intention of turning that over to Johnny On the Spot.
 
That video is done at ideal place in ideal conditions with empty roads. I would like to see the video of the car going through the Golden Gate among all the traffic. There is loads of situations you met everyday while driving i doubt a computer would resolve well, unexpected things happening in front of you, works in the road, cyclists, water, snow, roads in bad shape, and many situations where you need to anticipate what the other drivers are going to do...

Well people don't handle bad driving conditions very well either - so far our bar for acceptable safety with robocars is literally orders of magnitude higher than it is for human drivers.

With a proper licensing and drivers education program, we could quite possibly cut that at least in half.

With high-tech robocars we could quite possibly cut it by 99%, while saving billions of dollars due to increased efficiency and saved time.

And I'm not sure why you're discounting motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians, robocars will be better at not hitting them too.
 
Based on this largely unproven technology? I'm referring to something which should have been implemented decades ago when it became quite clear the US was lagging behind many countries in this regard.

How can you allow independently operated motorcycles under this plan to ban independently operated cars? Why shouldn't bicycles also be banned because they occasionally cause a pedestrian fatality?

Why are pedestrians even allowed anywhere near streets?
 
Anecdotal, but out of the 300,000 miles driven by Google autonomous cars in real streets, there have been two accidents. One was caused when the human driver took over. The second was caused by a human driver rear ending the Google car.

Which means that I, a human, am demonstrably a better driver than the Google autonomous car-controller. :D
 
Me too by quite a large margin. And I don't have some guy poised to immediately assume control if I screw up.
 
Based on this largely unproven technology? I'm referring to something which should have been implemented decades ago when it became quite clear the US was lagging behind many countries in this regard.

How can you allow independently operated motorcycles under this plan to ban independently operated cars? Why shouldn't bicycles also be banned because they occasionally cause a pedestrian fatality?

Why are pedestrians even allowed anywhere near streets?

Yes, we should implement tougher licensing to get bad drivers off the streets immediately.

The current level of technology for robocars doesn't really matter, we've got an indefinite amount of time to improve them to whatever level of safety and efficiency society deems necessary.

Depending on the level of implementation, goals of the program and voting preferences, you can either allow motorcycles because they don't pose much risk to other people, or don't allow them because human drivers will muck up traffic too much.

Don't ban bicycles because they'll probably still cause fewer fatalities than robocars or basically anything else that causes any fatalities.

Pedestrians allowed near streets because they can't harm other people by being near streets.

Me too by quite a large margin. And I don't have some guy poised to immediately assume control if I screw up.

I assumed IglooDude was being facetious from his smiley.

It's essentially impossible to accurately compare driving ability of individual non-terrible drivers based on collision record, the sample size of collisions is far too small over their entire lifetime.
 
That's right. It is just as arbirtary and anecdotal as IglooDude's and my own personal experience.

Cars simply aren't all that dangerous given how much personal freedom you get in return. The primary factor is the driver. If he is relatively competent and alert at all times while operating the vehicle, it is arguably almost as safe as turning it over to a machine. Good drivers simply don't have accidents except on extremely rare occasion.
 
That's right. It is just as arbirtary and anecdotal as IglooDude's and my own personal experience.

I don't know what you're referring to, but clearly not anything in my post.

Cars simply aren't all that dangerous given how much personal freedom you get in return.

Good thing robocars give you pretty much the same amount of personal freedom. Complaining that they don't is like complaining that elevators without manual levers are restricting your freedom.

The primary factor is the driver.

Yes, that's why robocars will replace the bad drivers. You seem to be repeatedly missing that bad drivers put others at risk.

As a good driver, the riskiest thing I do on a daily basis is drive, and the risk is nearly completely due to other drivers.

If he is relatively competent and alert at all times while operating the vehicle, it is arguably just as safe as turning it over to a machine. Good drivers simply don't have accidents except on extremely rare occasion.

Good drivers are still much less efficient than robocars.
 
I don't know what you're referring to, but clearly not anything in my post.
I was responding to the very last sentence in the post immediately above it. I also refer you to Illram's post above, as well as Igloo Dude's post which I don't think was facetious at all.

You seem to be repeatedly missing that bad drivers put others at risk.
Then I'm sure you will have no problem quoting me, instead of stating just the opposite numerous times in this thread myself.

Since a fatality only occurs once every 100 million miles traveled, doing so for 300,000 miles is no major feat. That is particularly true if a human had to frequently interrupt the automated system, which we have no idea how often this occurs.

This system may very well eventually become refined sufficiently enough so that truly automated vehicles are possible. That they will quite likely reduce the number of fatalities. But until that day eventually occurs sometime in the likely distant future, we simply won't know how efficacious it really is in saving lives on the highway.

Good drivers are still much less efficient than robocars.
Then go right ahead and try to show that this statement is something more than your own personal opinion of what doesn't even really exist yet.
 
Many people here are missing the point of this hypothetical. Should we stop all progress because it is not instantly perfect? No point is working on automated cars, since we have zero evidence that they are better than human drivers right now.
 
I don't care if they are better than me. I'm an excellent driver, so even if they are 50% better, that's 50% better than excellent, so big whoop.

And as far as the criticism of my posts as being supposed "straw men" arguments or whatever, that's a load of bunk. You guys keep insisting, as Zelig just did again above that it's all about "putting others at risk" but you ignore that most wrecks are solo wrecks. So you claim to care about safety, but then you disregard the fact that most of the ones that are going to cause an accident are more a danger to themselves than anyone else. So again we have to accept that if you want to ban manual driving, you want to ban risky behavior and I want to know what makes driving so special and not other actions that people voluntarily take that is risky.

The reason? Because totalitarianists want to abolish my freedom to engage in the privilege of driving. Frankly, if they don't like my driving on the road, then they should just stay off the road.
 
As a lover of driving to see beauty, I couldn't care less about spinning around a track. Driving the open road is one of life's truly great pleasures. I have no intention of turning that over to Johnny On the Spot.
You can't see beauty if you're not physically holding a wheel? In any case, I'm sure there are numerous private roads that private enterprises can build in order to satisfy your need to drive. Billions of people have lived their lives without driving on the specific roads you drive on, or driving at all in fact; I'm sure you'll get by just fine. I'm sorry if your hobbies are limited to driving but I'm sure you could find another. Have you tried Skyrim?
 
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