Why driverless car's are a LONG way off.
Discussion
skyrover said:
1. Humans are actually very good at driving with around 1 death for every 100 million miles driven on average, something a machine will find incredibly difficult to match for the following reasons.
2. Machines are incapable of dealing with tasks that have not been foreseen by the software engineers and each possible eventuality programmed with acceptable solutions. It will take billons of miles driven and an absolutely enormous variety of situations and hazards for the software engineers understand and to solve.
3. Then there are legal, legislative and consumer acceptance barriers to get through, not to mention inter vehicle software communication/update standards to decide upon.
4. So sleep easy folks, ignore the hype, your steering wheel and pedals are safe for a long while yet.
I think you're wrong, for many reasons, but I'll go for these:2. Machines are incapable of dealing with tasks that have not been foreseen by the software engineers and each possible eventuality programmed with acceptable solutions. It will take billons of miles driven and an absolutely enormous variety of situations and hazards for the software engineers understand and to solve.
3. Then there are legal, legislative and consumer acceptance barriers to get through, not to mention inter vehicle software communication/update standards to decide upon.
4. So sleep easy folks, ignore the hype, your steering wheel and pedals are safe for a long while yet.
1. Yes, but even so, with driverless cars I think there'll be far fewer deaths, massively less injuries, fewer collisions, hugely fewer laws broken, less emissions and all the rest of it. So why wouldn't you?
2. I don't think so. All a driverless car has to do with situation it doesn't understand is slow down or stop, which won't give the driverless cars behind any problems either.
3. I agree that this will be the biggest problem - because humans are involved.
4. Given how (depressingly) quickly the past 30 years have gone by for me, I don't consider 30 years to be a long time at all. We'd best make the most of it. :-)
heebeegeetee said:
I think you're wrong, for many reasons, but I'll go for these:
1. Yes, but even so, with driverless cars I think there'll be far fewer deaths, massively less injuries, fewer collisions, hugely fewer laws broken, less emissions and all the rest of it. So why wouldn't you?
2. I don't think so. All a driverless car has to do with situation it doesn't understand is slow down or stop, which won't give the driverless cars behind any problems either.
3. I agree that this will be the biggest problem - because humans are involved.
4. Given how (depressingly) quickly the past 30 years have gone by for me, I don't consider 30 years to be a long time at all. We'd best make the most of it. :-)
Agree with everything except point 2.1. Yes, but even so, with driverless cars I think there'll be far fewer deaths, massively less injuries, fewer collisions, hugely fewer laws broken, less emissions and all the rest of it. So why wouldn't you?
2. I don't think so. All a driverless car has to do with situation it doesn't understand is slow down or stop, which won't give the driverless cars behind any problems either.
3. I agree that this will be the biggest problem - because humans are involved.
4. Given how (depressingly) quickly the past 30 years have gone by for me, I don't consider 30 years to be a long time at all. We'd best make the most of it. :-)
Stopping or slowing isn't always practical, partly because we will have a horrible period of time where there will be a mix of driverless cars and humans.
Just 1 example off the top of my head.
Motorway driving, kids on a bridge chucking bricks at cars below. First time a driverless car (we need some acronym that!) gets hit by one they program in a feature to take into account someone on the bridge. Next time it see's a person on the bridge it stops. Humans crash into the back of it and a pileup happens.
There will be ways around all the problems but there is going to be massive transition period. A human can tell from a good distance if the little scrote on the bridge is going to chuck a brick, the computer can't. It's the same reason humans are still involved in military drone attacks, people are still better at reading the bigger picture as well as picking out details.
Lets not pretend we all don't see daily mistakes and terrible drivers though, as such automated cars are almost certainly going to massively improve safety. I'd rather cycle through a town full of computer controlled cars than human controlled cars as they remove the emotions that cause the problems.
Atm with driverless car is if you were to buy one you would still need to be able to take control well that defeats the point of them surely.
For them to work there would have to be a blanket ban of driving I just cant see driverless car and normal cars working with each other both will be second guessing each other and will just slow the traffic down.
I just cant see it working the public don't want it and the road network isn't set up for them.
For them to work there would have to be a blanket ban of driving I just cant see driverless car and normal cars working with each other both will be second guessing each other and will just slow the traffic down.
I just cant see it working the public don't want it and the road network isn't set up for them.
EnglishTony said:
I think the major stumbling block is going to be customer resistance. Why would anybody want one?
Same reason people buy washing machines instead of buckets and mangles. For 95% of the population driving is not something done for pleasure.I drive 30k+ a year. If I could buy a fully automated car now I would.
My two cents; I think many drivers dislike driving and they and their passengers find crowded main roads stressful. Unlike many or most Pistonheads contributors they don't enjoy driving for its own sake. They would appreciate self-driving cars because it would be less stressful and they could do something else rather than driving. For delivery companies self-driving vehicles could be good so long as, with vans and lorries, there were people to load/unload them. Robots might get used eventually with commercial to commercial deliveries but commercial to home deliveries require a human at the destination. Some kind of extended (and mini) containerisation would help with that.
For commercial to commercial deliveries then self-driving lorries and vans don't have driver hour restriction.
We could imagine self-driving busses in bus lanes to separate them from human-driven vehicles. It's not a large extrapolation to imagine self-driving vehicle lanes on motorways.
Self-driving vehicles will not tail-gate or hog middle and outside lanes on motorways.
BTW, as a driving enthusiast I hate the idea of self-driving vehicles but DOT bureaucrats, BRAKE and similar charities, and taxi/delivery companies will, I fear, love them.
Chris.
For commercial to commercial deliveries then self-driving lorries and vans don't have driver hour restriction.
We could imagine self-driving busses in bus lanes to separate them from human-driven vehicles. It's not a large extrapolation to imagine self-driving vehicle lanes on motorways.
Self-driving vehicles will not tail-gate or hog middle and outside lanes on motorways.
BTW, as a driving enthusiast I hate the idea of self-driving vehicles but DOT bureaucrats, BRAKE and similar charities, and taxi/delivery companies will, I fear, love them.
Chris.
I think the biggest disappointment will be (for those that want this) you'll still be held to be in charge of the vehicle, there will be no texting/being picked up drunk from the pub/facebook/twitter etc...
Someone will have to be held responsible and it isn't going to be Google/Tesla or the CPU etc...it will be you.
Someone will have to be held responsible and it isn't going to be Google/Tesla or the CPU etc...it will be you.
Jazoli said:
I for one can't wait for driverless cars as it will make pulling out of junctions so much easier, and merging into lane, simply because the driverless car will stop and avoid an accident when you pull out in front of them 
it might stop, it might intentionally kill you though...Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self...
Highways England trials: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/trials-of-wirel...
... "ensure that trials are being undertaken for autonomous vehicles on motorways by the end of next year, to start to collect real world data on performance and potential impacts on capacity and operations"
... "ensure that trials are being undertaken for autonomous vehicles on motorways by the end of next year, to start to collect real world data on performance and potential impacts on capacity and operations"
EnglishTony said:
I think the major stumbling block is going to be customer resistance. Why would anybody want one?
There's about 4 million licence-holding over-70s for a start who are so reluctant to give up their independence despite failing health that it'll often take an accident to make them stop. That number will balloon as the baby boomers start hitting that age. About 2.5 million blue badges issued, many to people who drive despite pain and difficulty.
How many that have a boring commute in busy traffic and would be happy to free up the time for other things?
We're already at a point where adaptive cruise, auto braking, lane assist etc are in pretty mainstream mundane cars and not hugely expensive to implement. What will be standard on a Focus or Golf of 20 years time?
StottyEvo said:
EnglishTony said:
I think the major stumbling block is going to be customer resistance. Why would anybody want one?
Absolutely f
king steloads of people would love one for many many many very obvious reasons 
This comment has me a little baffled.
EnglishTony said:
Hoofy said:
Halmyre said:
EnglishTony said:
I think the major stumbling block is going to be customer resistance. Why would anybody want one?
Think of all that extra time you can spend on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/...Edited by Hoofy on Monday 30th May 14:16
I am white van man, (mole grey actually but still), I drive from site to site and install/fix things.
I would love to call up my van in the morning, sleep all the way to work, fix something, sleep, watch internet porn, text, surf, answer emails etc etc all the way home.
"How was your day dear?"
"Exhausting...."
Why wouldn't you want one?
I would love to call up my van in the morning, sleep all the way to work, fix something, sleep, watch internet porn, text, surf, answer emails etc etc all the way home.
"How was your day dear?"
"Exhausting...."
Why wouldn't you want one?
skyrover said:
Here's another dilemma.
Autonomous car malfunctions and pitches itself into a wall/pedestrian/vehicle/etc, resulting in fatalities.
Who is liable? Will anyone be prosecuted? Are the engineers who wrote the software now guilty of manslaughter?
Test case, precedent set.Autonomous car malfunctions and pitches itself into a wall/pedestrian/vehicle/etc, resulting in fatalities.
Who is liable? Will anyone be prosecuted? Are the engineers who wrote the software now guilty of manslaughter?
Next.
Driverless cars will be safer/better than human-driven ones once they're all we have - end-of. How people FEEL about that is one thing, but reality will be fewer accidents/deaths/injuries.
PROBLEM is, we can't just replace all the humans at-once, it'll take time - so AI has to learn to drive WITH humans and that's the harder thing to get over and it'll take time to get all that stuff to work together.
Yeah, they might screw-up occasionally - but human drivers screw-up CONSTANTLY and there's enormous rewards (in safety and money terms) behind AI driving so it's definately coming.
The vast majority of people will welcome (our new) AI (overlords) - tell your vehicle where to go and get on with other things and you'll arrive quicker and safer.
Driverless trucks already exist and are driving around Europe/the US (I know this because a mate of mine develops the software) - their biggest issue isn't tech, it's the fact that "truck driver" is the most common occupation in at least 30 of the states of the USA - that's a sensitive issue in itself.
Companies with fleets of cars will tell you that removing driver errors would save a FORTUNE in damage/lost time too, so they'll take this tech the moment it's available and it's not like fleets of van drivers and photocopier salesmen will fight that much?
That just leaves the enthusiast driver and - well - it's kinda like expecting them to run a few Steam Trains on your commute because "some people like Steam Trains". I'm afraid your hobby will become something you get 'once in a while' - or you can visit 'Steam Centres' (racetracks)...
Not much you can do about it really - so enjoy it whilst it lasts (it'll be a while yet but it IS coming)
p.s. on the legal responsbility front, insurance companies will horse-trade and bicker, pretty mush as they do now - only with MUCH more data on what happened (e.g. no drivers lying their arse off!!)
PROBLEM is, we can't just replace all the humans at-once, it'll take time - so AI has to learn to drive WITH humans and that's the harder thing to get over and it'll take time to get all that stuff to work together.
Yeah, they might screw-up occasionally - but human drivers screw-up CONSTANTLY and there's enormous rewards (in safety and money terms) behind AI driving so it's definately coming.
The vast majority of people will welcome (our new) AI (overlords) - tell your vehicle where to go and get on with other things and you'll arrive quicker and safer.
Driverless trucks already exist and are driving around Europe/the US (I know this because a mate of mine develops the software) - their biggest issue isn't tech, it's the fact that "truck driver" is the most common occupation in at least 30 of the states of the USA - that's a sensitive issue in itself.
Companies with fleets of cars will tell you that removing driver errors would save a FORTUNE in damage/lost time too, so they'll take this tech the moment it's available and it's not like fleets of van drivers and photocopier salesmen will fight that much?
That just leaves the enthusiast driver and - well - it's kinda like expecting them to run a few Steam Trains on your commute because "some people like Steam Trains". I'm afraid your hobby will become something you get 'once in a while' - or you can visit 'Steam Centres' (racetracks)...
Not much you can do about it really - so enjoy it whilst it lasts (it'll be a while yet but it IS coming)
p.s. on the legal responsbility front, insurance companies will horse-trade and bicker, pretty mush as they do now - only with MUCH more data on what happened (e.g. no drivers lying their arse off!!)
Edited by 405dogvan on Monday 30th May 14:47
skyrover said:
Here's another dilemma.
Autonomous car malfunctions and pitches itself into a wall/pedestrian/vehicle/etc, resulting in fatalities.
Who is liable? Will anyone be prosecuted? Are the engineers who wrote the software now guilty of manslaughter?
TBH I'd only get one if I can abdicate all responsibility once I've set the destination. Would be annoying if you mow down a bunch of school kids and then get done for it because you were busy sleeping. I mean, if you had to pay attention the entire time and couldn't just go about looking smug as other drivers get tired in stop-start traffic then you might as well buy a normal car!Autonomous car malfunctions and pitches itself into a wall/pedestrian/vehicle/etc, resulting in fatalities.
Who is liable? Will anyone be prosecuted? Are the engineers who wrote the software now guilty of manslaughter?
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