A thread to discuss self-driving cars and other vehicles. No politics, please.
Technology, commercial aspects, legal considerations and marketing are all on-topic.
- Companies (e.g. Tesla Inc.) are only on-topic when discussing their self-driving products and research, not their wider activities. The exception is when those wider activities directly impact (or are impacted by) their other business areas - e.g. if self-driving car development is cut back due to losses in another part of the business.
- Technology that's not directly related to self-driving vehicles is off-topic unless you're discussing how it might be used for them in future.
- If we're talking about individuals here, that should only be because they've said or done something directly relevant to the topic. Specifically, posts about Tesla do not automatically need to mention Elon Musk. And Musk's views, politics and personal life are firmly off-topic unless you can somehow show that they're relevant to self-driving vehicles.
Cadillac plans to release a scaled back, more simple version of similar technology by 2015 - what they call "Super Cruise", which isn't total self-driving, but does let you relax on highways. It positions your car in the exact center of a lane, slows down or speeds up as necessary, and is said to be meant for ideal driving conditions (I'm guessing that means ideal weather, no rain or snow, etc.).
I am looking forward to such tech. If enough people prefer to drive this way, and the technology works reliably, it could result in safer roads with fewer accidents. Another possibility is that, using GPS and maybe the ability to know ahead of time which roads are most clogged, they can find the quickest route from place to place.
On the other hand, hacking could be a real concern, and I hope it doesn't become a serious threat. It's looking like we're living more and more like those sci-fi Everything Is Online worlds depicted in fiction for a long time.
(Mod edited to replace original post)
Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 29th 2024 at 4:19:56 PM
NOT THE BEES
The bigger problem is usually idiots who pull into the intersection without realizing the next block's worth of traffic is backed up, and then they just kind of stop in the middle of the intersection.
Impossible Gender Forge
I'd buy one.
Can't drive much worse than I can. Considering I never had older siblings to teach me.
This is kind of a jump, but:
Never Trust
Given the typical American male's attitude towards his car I don't expect this to catch on. You might as well ask them to castrate themselves.
Trump delenda est
I hate driving, but I don't know that I'd feel safe having something that can't react to emergencies the way I can when in a car. AI is awesome and all, but I think there's some situations in which I prefer to remain in control of the situation.
So that's what this does
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This is really the issue. Trusting anyone to drive for us is hard. Humans have been shown to be more willing to take risks when we are in control of the activity, even if the person willing to take control of the activity is obviously better at it than us. Trusting a machine to drive us? That will be the day.
Take flying for instance. Many people would rather drive because they prefer to be in control, nevermind the fact that driving is far more dagerous than flying. Likewise, the AI would probably be a safer driver than the average human seeing as most automotive collisions have a cause between the steering wheel ad the driver's seat, but most people would rather be in control, probably because we think we can handle unexpected occurances better than "other people/machines who might be operating the vehicle".
edited 10th May '12 2:01:10 PM by Balmung
I have balls.
Most planes these days are already capable of running mostly on autopilot, aren't they? Looking at it from that perspective, machine-driven cars don't seem too far from becoming commonplace...
They never travel alone.
NOT THE BEES
Flying is also a simple affair for AI, relatively speaking at least. Air is huge and most of what's up there is other planes with plenty of space to not hit each other. Contrast with cramped, crowded streets, windy roads, icy roads, drunken idiots who merge without looking, pedestrians and hippie bicyclists who don't look both ways, people who parked too far out, suicidal deer, landslides, potholes, road work...you basically have to keep track of everything a plane would and then about ten times more.
As for risk-taking when you're in control, that's another thing. When you're the one doing the job, it's a lot easier to focus on what you're doing instead of agonizing over what could go wrong. It's similar to how it's easier to tolerate motion sickness if you're the one driving the boat.
edited 10th May '12 2:37:59 PM by Pykrete
All of those listed seem to be manageable by having sensors picking up obstacles in the way and stop.
Most people use cars because they're convenient in comparison to planes...
Just saying.
Long as I get the option, I'm good...
NOT THE BEES
Stopping isn't always an acceptable solution. Long backwoods highways in poor repair are probably never going to be in better repair unless they outright collapse and get the state to pull their thumbs out of their ass. I've been in freeway blind-merge situations where I had to speed up to clear some asshole semi driver. I doubt the car would be able to recognize a deer cresting the ditch. Gridlock traffic and road work are exacerbated by stopping altogether. And so on.
edited 10th May '12 2:45:09 PM by Pykrete
So that's what this does
I would probably let the car drive. But then I am about to finish a doctorate in robotics.
Edit: Recognising a four legged animal is easy. Just saying.
edited 10th May '12 2:44:54 PM by Michael
I didn't say most, I said many. Hell, if I remember the numbers right, in 2002, there were an estimated 10,000 additional (as in more than 2001 plus whatever the estimated increase is from the increase in population) car-related deaths due to more people driving instead of flying out of fear stemming from 9/11.
edited 10th May '12 2:47:05 PM by Balmung
NOT THE BEES
Recognizing a four-legged animal when it's mid-bounce and already in front of you is easy. If you want to actually not hit it, you have to recognize it while it's still most of the way in the roadside ditch below road level, and sometimes you're lucky to see more than antlers.
So that's what this does
Still easy.
Now, if you want difficult, detecting a piano falling into the road from a rooftop party nearby.
edited 10th May '12 2:48:50 PM by Michael
NOT THE BEES
So explain to me how your car is going "easily" recognize a shape mostly obstructed by the road (which last time I checked is solid matter) and be able to tell if it's about to make a dash for it or is just grazing and minding its own business. Cause you know, if you brake for every deer you see out here, you'll be lucky to get to your destination in three days.
edited 10th May '12 2:53:34 PM by Pykrete
And how many sensors will be placed all over the car so it has 360 degree awareness?
And what if one of those sensors gets dinged by a rock? Or in freeway traffic your car suddenly slams the breaks because a piece of cardboard flies out of a truck and in the path of a sensor? What about having a sensor go down the same way that brake, tail, and headlights all go out on their own little schedule?
Too many unknowns in the safety department.
Yeah, believe it or not, we can program computers to do EXACTLY that, and possibly better than humans can. Remember that the computer can also pay attention to everything going on in 360 degrees without degrading how well it's taking in all that, whereas a human can only really see about 120 degrees (I'm guessing here, and it might be wider for others since I wear glasses) at a given time and suffers quite a bit of performance loss from split attention.
What happens when a human driver gets distracted? Or tired? Too many unknowns in the safety department there, too. And logically, if the autodriver is compromised, it could probably alert the biological backup to take the wheel and get it fixed.
edited 10th May '12 2:54:44 PM by Balmung
@ Pykrete: But stopping is the safest option almost most of the time, and if that asshole truck driver had an AI that forces him to stop when you're in front if him it wouldn't be a problem.
I have balls.
Couldn't you just take over the wheel yourself if you needed to though? I'd like to think that automated cars would still respond to turning the wheel or pressing the pedal, and just switch back to automatic if you let go of the controls without setting the car back to manual. I mean, you still have a responsibility to pay attention to the road, automatic pilot or not...
They never travel alone.
Once again, what about maintenance?
And if a piece of road debris like a wrapper flies in front of a sensor, how does it know if it's a solid object or not? Or if it's something thick like a piece of cardboard?
Congratulations, your AI just brake checked someone and got rear ended because it thought a coffee cup was a deer.
^
I thought the entire point of auto pilot was so you didn't have to do that shit?
edited 10th May '12 2:55:49 PM by Barkey
NOT THE BEES
You want a semi truck to slam on the brakes on a crowded freeway during rush hour next to an even more crowded merge ramp.
>_>
(and I wasn't in front of him. I was passing him on his side.)
edited 10th May '12 2:56:25 PM by Pykrete
Then there's the classic, world-renowned rear-ender known as the "set of lights? Oh: that set of lights! I didn't see they were red*!"
edited 9th May '12 4:20:31 PM by Euodiachloris