Self-driving cars are here!

There's also the matter of people who are perfectly "un-lazy" and willing to drive but can't, for whatever reason that causes them poor eyesight and/or reaction ability. (Like for instance, my not being behind the wheel of a car is, quite frankly, doing everyone's safety a favor.)

And individual cars provide more mobility than the network of public transportation (in the US, at least) currently does.

@Counterclock

As much as I'm a fan of walking (I consider up to an hour's walk to be fair game), it's not realistic to go back to a world of only getting around via walking, or even cycling, due to pure distances, not merely laziness.

edited 31st May '11 9:00:10 AM by Jeysie

Incidentally, the widespread proliferation of self-driving cars would also let us go faster. A lot of traffic is created by accumulated reactions times adding up.

That's basically my point.

Self-driving Cars aren't going to make people lazy.

It's not only self-driving cars, but the whole philosophy of getting everything as quickly and easily as possible. You can literally have everything you want at a simple push of a button. If you have money, of course.

edited 31st May '11 9:15:14 AM by MilosStefanovic

Everything except further improvement and analysis.

Exactly. How is that supposed to make people better? Why would someone used to getting everything easily want to take the effort to read a book or, heavens forbid, think about a serious problem? Having a perfectly easy and comfortable life simply leads to decadence and the inabilty to cope with any problems when they come.

edited 31st May '11 9:23:56 AM by MilosStefanovic

(Dare I say it? Yes...)

For Science!

edited 31st May '11 9:25:57 AM by Yej

Except that driving is purely a utility matter. You have to drive to get to work, do errands that require a lot of heavy carrying and/or distance travel, and similar things.

That doesn't mean you're going to automatically like it or be good at it. But right now you either have to tolerate it, or worse, go without it. (I've lost track of how many jobs I've had to give up because they weren't accessible via public transit.)

edited 31st May '11 9:26:23 AM by Jeysie

You have a point there. But this trend of automatizing some parts of life previously thought as basic is starting to seriously worry me.

Driving already robs one of this lack-of-pamperedness. Self-driving cars only speed transport up, giving more time to do things like exercise. Indeed, if you're arguing for removal of tools which 'weaken' us, why take offense at self-driving cars, but not normal ones? It is not a 'necessary evil', it is simple inertia. -edit- Ninja'd here.

I take no issue with self-driving cars. I'd quite like to see public transport (such as trains) use it, given that trains do not have to compete with human-driven fellow trains. As long as there are no problems, you'd only need human conductors to collect fares/give tickets, as well as to manage any issues with the train if something goes wrong.

Speaking of which, the largest issue is going to be with self-driven cars alongside human-driven ones.

edited 31st May '11 9:36:25 AM by AllanAssiduity

Exactly. How is that supposed to make people better? Why would someone used to getting everything easily want to take the effort to read a book or, heavens forbid, think about a serious problem?

I'm sorry, I have no idea where you're coming from

Your examples, I have no clue at all at how they relate to the argument.

People still plenty of problems that need solving, If the microwave replacing fire stoves is really that much of a change to humans that they find themselves incapable of solving problems then I'd start to worry.

What, so people who take the subway to work are inherently worse human beings than people who drive?

Only in America. God.

I am overjoyed. So glad to see less humanity involved in my day.

Some trains are already self-driving, for instance the Docklands Light Railway in London. However, common-carrier trains are more likely to go a similar direction as the airlines; still having human operators, but with more and more of the operation automated or semi-automated.

I hatehatehatehatehatehatehate driving with every fiber in my being.

I hope within 10 years all driving is automated.

There is a big difference between train and a car and this difference is traffic. It's much easier to write a program that handles stopping at stations than to write a program that handles traffic jams, speed limits, people on the road, animals on the road, roads being partially closed due to repair, traffic lights, the other cars, parking etc.

Even for a train, there are a good many issues that may arise that are impossible for automation to handle. What generally happens on the fully automated lines is that the equipment can be operated by remote control, if necessary. However, these systems are generally urban transit systems running on enclosed rights-of-way in a very limited geographical area.

Long-haul rail is a completely different issue, especially in the US where the distances are vast.

I don't think a railway is a valid comparison to a free-driving car.

That said, speaking as a programmer who just did a year-long project in terrain analysis, I don't like this. My computer crashes a hell of a lot more often than I crash my car. If I can barely trust it to handle an interface and file ops, why on God's green earth would I want to trust it with abstract spatial recognition with no input from me and my spine on the line?

edited 31st May '11 1:34:29 PM by Pykrete

Well obviously computer driven cars will need a proven safety record before anyone will let them operate automatically.

Shame we can't move away from being such a car orientated society...

We can, but nobody wants to rebuild cities for a fourth time.

What's wrong with cars?

edited 31st May '11 1:47:25 PM by nzm1536

Nothing is wrong with cars, but a casual look at my avatar gallery will show that I'm a bit biased in that regard, so YMMV.

Anyway.

It'll be a few decades before we have gobs of people who can't actually operate a motor vehicle in manual mode any longer, after they've grown used to having the car do everything for them.

it's ok, the number of horse riders is effectively nil, and the world didn't end.

However, there are a number of problems with a car oriented society, such as the way cities have spread out, and become inaccessible without a vehicle. This doesn't mean cars themselves are flawed.

edited 31st May '11 2:18:46 PM by blueharp

Self-driving cars would be totally awesome! And no, I'm not just saying that because I never learned how to drive, why do you ask?