RE: Autonomous cars: do you feel lucky
Discussion
otolith said:
Terminator X said:
otolith said:
Stu08 said:
If autonomous cars become the norm - do you really think we won't be pushed down the path of humans no longer being allowed to drive due to the risk of AI and human interaction?
I don't think the problem will be that autonomous and human drivers can't coexist, they will have to do so from the first releases of autonomous vehicles (and have been doing so for the millions of miles they have already been driven on the roads). Coexistence will have to be a solved problem before they become the norm.I think what will push against humans being allowed to drive is the realisation that they are continuing to make mistakes with dire consequences when there is no longer no reasonable alternative.
TX.
RobDickinson said:
Its happening now, on real roads, mixed drivers, in the US.
Absolutely. But in specifically chosen areas. We are clearly at the point that autonomous vehicles can operate better than typical humans in certain conditions. I imagine that those conditions cover a very significant percentage of road use. Certainly they probably include motorways and typical A and B road driving. I imagine C road driving, surburbia and rural roads with their typical dangers are also well covered. We must note that driving in the US is considerably less complex than in other environments on the planet. In reality you could probably have taken one of those programmable toy cars from the 80s with the directional push pad buttons on the roof and scaled it up to work on US roads 35 years ago.
I think some valid questions have been raised as to regards whether we are as far down the road as the promoters are spinning and I suspect that there are plenty of conditions and environments where the tech of today does not yet work satisfactorily. Whether that be certain weather conditions or catering for certain human characteristics.
As an equity analyst in the past one area which was always very good to look at to gauge how far down the road an industry actually was was the military. The military tend to be a great indicator of progress as they have enormous budgets combined with the ability to adopt tech while it is still at the stage where it may/will kill users. Autonomous tech isnobviously hugely valuable to the military and you would expect them to adopt its use long before it is ruled safe to public use expected/legislated standards.
And as someone who has lived in a few of the world's global metropolis and visit many densely populated second and third world cities one thing that I do know for sure is that if autonomous vehicles do not carry with them the threat of death or injury to other road users then they won't work and will be confined to less populated areas until a workable solution is enacted.
What would be very interesting to see is how autonomous vehicles respond to a flock of sheep in the road. What are their options for moving that flock? That will give insights to key problems that the cars face when mixing with huge numbers of humans. Maybe they will program the cars to inch forward and take every bit of space as it presents itself and maybe it will transpire that this is enough to trigger almost all pedestrians to stop and step back off the road. But maybe enough humans will bypass that instinctive reaction as they realise they don't need to move and in reality have priority?
Terminator X said:
Autonomous cars (if they ever multiply up from 1 or 2 running around to serious numbers) will be forever stopped as either humans walk in front of them or human drivers do the same.
This argument makes no sense to me. Human drivers also stop to avoid running over pedestrians yet we're not constantly stranded by people wandering about in the road. Why would self driving cars be different?hairykrishna said:
Terminator X said:
Autonomous cars (if they ever multiply up from 1 or 2 running around to serious numbers) will be forever stopped as either humans walk in front of them or human drivers do the same.
This argument makes no sense to me. Human drivers also stop to avoid running over pedestrians yet we're not constantly stranded by people wandering about in the road. Why would self driving cars be different?hairykrishna said:
This argument makes no sense to me. Human drivers also stop to avoid running over pedestrians yet we're not constantly stranded by people wandering about in the road. Why would self driving cars be different?
Visit London and you'll appreciate what he is saying. Cars are constantly stranded by pedestrian waves swamping the road when it is not their right of way. And this is managed by other road users by simply driving at them to trigger the flip from sheep instinct which has lead them to follow everyone else onto the road into a flight or fight instinct which sees them stop and move back. And this happens in densely populated cities around the world. DonkeyApple said:
Visit London and you'll appreciate what he is saying. Cars are constantly stranded by pedestrian waves swamping the road when it is not their right of way. And this is managed by other road users by simply driving at them to trigger the flip from sheep instinct which has lead them to follow everyone else onto the road into a flight or fight instinct which sees them stop and move back. And this happens in densely populated cities around the world.
I work literally around the corner from Old Trafford and it's the same thing there on match-days. A few will just jump out into the road and then a flood of others will just blindly follow. "Car drivers are idiots"
"Cyclists are idiots"
"Pedestrians are idiots"
I hear you, they're busy solving the former issue as these are the ones actually actively killing people in traffic.
On thing at a time, for once, the priorities are in the right place.
And if you're in the back on your laptop, who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes while people cross the road?
"Cyclists are idiots"
"Pedestrians are idiots"
I hear you, they're busy solving the former issue as these are the ones actually actively killing people in traffic.
On thing at a time, for once, the priorities are in the right place.
And if you're in the back on your laptop, who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes while people cross the road?
ZesPak said:
"Car drivers are idiots"
"Cyclists are idiots"
"Pedestrians are idiots"
I hear you, they're busy solving the former issue as these are the ones actually actively killing people in traffic.
On thing at a time, for once, the priorities are in the right place.
And if you're in the back on your laptop, who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes while people cross the road?
It wouldn't be three minutes. It's not a momentary crowd disbursement from an event, it's a 12 hour constant flow from the moment the shops open to when they close. You simply wouldn't ever get near that road as the cars from 10am would still be sitting there and the whole area would have ground to a halt. "Cyclists are idiots"
"Pedestrians are idiots"
I hear you, they're busy solving the former issue as these are the ones actually actively killing people in traffic.
On thing at a time, for once, the priorities are in the right place.
And if you're in the back on your laptop, who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes while people cross the road?
There will need to be quite a radical solution and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Also, 'who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes?' Everyone who lives in London cares. Everyone.
otolith said:
DonkeyApple said:
There will need to be quite a radical solution and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Barriers, crossings and a jaywalking law?This entire discussion is so stupid, it boils down to:
Oh no, if they're no longer afraid of getting run over by 2T of steel, they might cross the road in front of me. Is there an option to have it still be a 2T pedestrian molesting machine so we can keep the plebs on foot off our roads?
Maybe instead of looking at pedestrians, we need less cars in city centers?
Edited by ZesPak on Friday 17th November 10:10
Once I’d put aside the rather depressing end of days feel about this, I attempted to consider exactly what it is about - the inevitable – autonomy that concerns me.
The loss of sensations of driving on a daily basis and relative privacy of movement - those things are a given.
But a fundamental need is, as much as is humanly possible, to be in control of our lives and movements.
Random dangers occur constantly on the road, but to varying degrees as drivers we are part of the decision making process, good or bad.
That’s how we get into our cars without undue concern about getting to the other end in one piece. We go about our daily lives – and decide what degree of risk to accept.
Complete autonomy is going to make roads safer. In pure numbers it has to be unarguable.
But roads are dynamic environments unlike any other. They are part of the fabric of a random world.
Relinquishing absolute control over our lives to algorithms that may fatally interpret these fluid situations – however infrequently - not only runs contrary to our instincts, it surrenders a chunk of human essence that cannot be measured in numbers alone.
The loss of sensations of driving on a daily basis and relative privacy of movement - those things are a given.
But a fundamental need is, as much as is humanly possible, to be in control of our lives and movements.
Random dangers occur constantly on the road, but to varying degrees as drivers we are part of the decision making process, good or bad.
That’s how we get into our cars without undue concern about getting to the other end in one piece. We go about our daily lives – and decide what degree of risk to accept.
Complete autonomy is going to make roads safer. In pure numbers it has to be unarguable.
But roads are dynamic environments unlike any other. They are part of the fabric of a random world.
Relinquishing absolute control over our lives to algorithms that may fatally interpret these fluid situations – however infrequently - not only runs contrary to our instincts, it surrenders a chunk of human essence that cannot be measured in numbers alone.
ZesPak said:
otolith said:
DonkeyApple said:
There will need to be quite a radical solution and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Barriers, crossings and a jaywalking law?This entire discussion is so stupid, it boils down to:
Oh no, if they're no longer afraid of getting run over by 2T of steel, they might cross the road in front of me. Is there an option to have it still be a 2T pedestrian molesting machine so we can keep the plebs on foot off our roads?
Maybe instead of looking at pedestrians, we need less cars in city centers?
Edited by ZesPak on Friday 17th November 10:10
But this element of the discussion is not remotely stupid it is just that you haven't yet grasped the situation. Go and spend some time on Oxford Street and also look at Oxford Street on a map and it might help you to see the point that is being made.
There are already lights that dictate who has right of way. There are already laws that dictate how users should operate and where it is plausible there are already barriers but these do not impact on how large, continuous crowds of pedestrians act. If autonomous cars are programmed to not project the fear of death or injury upon pedestrians at these types of junctions it is hard to see how they can work in environments such as London where they will stagnate at side roads and rapidly trigger spiralling contestion that encompasses the whole area. And that's just looking at the West End where there is one type of crowd, consider the Square Mile and I doubt autonomous vehicles would move far at all as individuals will rapidly adjust to take advantage of the fact that autonomous vehicles will stop every time and give them right of way
There is nothing stupid about this. It is simply about understanding both crowd mentality along with risk takers and how strong it is in key areas of densely pedestrian populated commercial zones.
It will be very interesting to see how firms like Uber who are desperate to dispose of their drivers will find a solution to getting autonomous minicabs to work in such environments.
DonkeyApple said:
It wouldn't be three minutes. It's not a momentary crowd disbursement from an event, it's a 12 hour constant flow from the moment the shops open to when they close. You simply wouldn't ever get near that road as the cars from 10am would still be sitting there and the whole area would have ground to a halt.
There will need to be quite a radical solution and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Also, 'who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes?' Everyone who lives in London cares. Everyone.
If human drivers can manage the situation I find it hard to believe that self driving cars won't. What's fundamentally different about the fact that a human is in control of the car? Both have to avoid running people over.There will need to be quite a radical solution and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
Also, 'who cares if you have to wait an extra 3 minutes?' Everyone who lives in London cares. Everyone.
hairykrishna said:
If human drivers can manage the situation I find it hard to believe that self driving cars won't. What's fundamentally different about the fact that a human is in control of the car? Both have to avoid running people over.
That is the exact point of this little diversion. You don't avoid running people over by stopping for them but by driving at them and making them move out of the road. That's how those particular junctions operate and they exist all over the world in large cities. The question is how will autonomous cars that are programmed to avoid a collision with a pedestrian be able to give that pedestrian the clear impression that it is going to hit them? 
JD2329 said:
Once I’d put aside the rather depressing end of days feel about this, I attempted to consider exactly what it is about - the inevitable – autonomy that concerns me.
The loss of sensations of driving on a daily basis and relative privacy of movement - those things are a given.
But a fundamental need is, as much as is humanly possible, to be in control of our lives and movements.
Random dangers occur constantly on the road, but to varying degrees as drivers we are part of the decision making process, good or bad.
That’s how we get into our cars without undue concern about getting to the other end in one piece. We go about our daily lives – and decide what degree of risk to accept.
Complete autonomy is going to make roads safer. In pure numbers it has to be unarguable.
But roads are dynamic environments unlike any other. They are part of the fabric of a random world.
Relinquishing absolute control over our lives to algorithms that may fatally interpret these fluid situations – however infrequently - not only runs contrary to our instincts, it surrenders a chunk of human essence that cannot be measured in numbers alone.
A very genuinely refreshing post; one which i can certainly relate to. It highlights many of my similar thoughts on the inevitable switch to autonomous cars, whenever that may be, that are most concerning.The loss of sensations of driving on a daily basis and relative privacy of movement - those things are a given.
But a fundamental need is, as much as is humanly possible, to be in control of our lives and movements.
Random dangers occur constantly on the road, but to varying degrees as drivers we are part of the decision making process, good or bad.
That’s how we get into our cars without undue concern about getting to the other end in one piece. We go about our daily lives – and decide what degree of risk to accept.
Complete autonomy is going to make roads safer. In pure numbers it has to be unarguable.
But roads are dynamic environments unlike any other. They are part of the fabric of a random world.
Relinquishing absolute control over our lives to algorithms that may fatally interpret these fluid situations – however infrequently - not only runs contrary to our instincts, it surrenders a chunk of human essence that cannot be measured in numbers alone.
I understand many comments on here, happy for the technology and it's potential advantages that come with it. However, for me, something will be forever lost. I simply genuinely love driving.
I think many will realise this too, in the end, but probably only once it's too late. As much as i winge about congestion and poor driving standards, it will be a tragic passing of a great passion of mine.
Driving and being able to drive is a great responsibility but is also a huge privilege. That will no longer be the case with self-driving vehicles. Climbing into such a car bears it's own risks, too.
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