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People used to be afraid of driverless elevators. (Planet Money)
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The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
of course they will, but jsut bcause a driverless car can be involved in an accident doesnt mean driverless cars are bed. humans are involved all the time. yet we continue to drive cars.
Totally.
People used to be afraid of regular old cars too! Today however it's only a leading cause of preventable death. Silly people.
Elevators in modern buildings go a hell of a lot faster than that. The fastest elevator in the world goes 45 MPH.
You are being logical. Most humans are illogical. Hence why many folks in the industry worry about this very topic.
FriedConsole
Banned
Yeah it is like when people who argue for nuclear power say something "people use to be afraid of tomatoes in the Middle Ages".
Can you look left, right, in front, back all at the same time? A self driving car can. It also never gets drunk or tired. And thanks to the ability to share data every car starts out with years of driving experience. While any new human driver has to learn everything from scratch basically.
kingwingin
Member
Wasn't there a driverless car that got into the bunch off accidents because real people would crash into it?
way more
Member
primitive technology always freaked people out. The would subscribe it's existence to magic or ancient gods. It's not like the real threats we have today from GMO's and Phenylalanine.
Planet Money also did a great write up on the real Luddites.
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/18/407749357/when-luddites-attack-destroying-machines-to-save-their-jobs
They were actually practical and well reasoned, up till thy brought out the sledge hammers.
Planet Money also did a great write up on the real Luddites.
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/18/407749357/when-luddites-attack-destroying-machines-to-save-their-jobs
They were actually practical and well reasoned, up till thy brought out the sledge hammers.
Dusk Soldier
Member
When I was a kid, pumping gas yourself was something poor people did. Nowadays everybody pumps their own gas.
ImpalingNarwhal
Member
It's natural to be somewhat apprehensive about new technology. It doesn't take that long to become commonplace.
Dusk Soldier
Member
Uber can't even afford real car insurance; how are they going to afford driverless cars?
The fear of the self diving car is very vailid as long as there are still human driven cars, ironically, Human factor is the biggest risk about self driving cars, because humans are erratic and unpredictable and it would require FLAWLESS technology and incredibly advanced AIs to react to humans diving like maniacs as they often do, if ALL cars were self driving, people would be less hesitant to the change.
sixteen-bit
Member
some people still are
kame-sennin
Member
You run into many of these in an elevator shaft?
Cars drive in a totally uncontrolled, unpredictable environment. This is a terrible analogy.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
Elevators people typically ride (in a mall, doctor's office, etc...) go very slow.
Yes it does; their point hinges on the idea that at one point in history "Driverless elevators" scared people and now they don't; and therefore you should be skeptical that driverless cars scare people.
You can't just say things like that without analyzing the things that scare people.
"Let's arm all children with automatic rifles."
"Woah, that's scary."
"You know at one point in history people were afraid of sunsets."
"Oh, well then I guess I shouldn't be scared of children with automatic rifles."
Do you naively believe that we will not be able to increase technology from where it is today? For example, if running into that is a problem now, that it will somehow be a problem later?
If you think that, then you don't know shit about deep learning. And this is the spook with automation: it is happening faster, disrupting many things at once, and is not even close to making something new for the usurped. We're merely creating a larger "have not" class in a society that says everyone has to be in the "have" class. The latter produces the former.
The Faceless Master
Member
even if driverless cars simply mowed over a pedstrian when put into a crazy fringe moral situation of 'do i hit another car or a baby stroller' they would save countless more lives via all of the normal avoidable accidents that just wouldn't happen. this crazy line of questioning on 'what if X^Y-3 happened' only reinforces how much better they already are than humans 99% of the time.
it's like when people tralk about not wearing seat belts because there is a better outcome in a small percentage of cases. except that percentage is higher than driverless cars vs humans.
it's like when people tralk about not wearing seat belts because there is a better outcome in a small percentage of cases. except that percentage is higher than driverless cars vs humans.
Our ego is in the way here. We somehow think we're the best, top of the line, whatever dick-stroking term you want to use. The more and more we understand nature and technology, the more of that idea on being the tip of a pyramid is no longer true. The idea that we just go with everything and are nothing special totally destroys people. It's funny to see.
A self driving car would be aware of the moose before a human could, and would never blink either.
But if the moose jumps in front of the car before the car can stop, a human isn't going to be able to stop it in time either..
edit:
also, so many new cars these days have so many assistive driving functions that I imagine if people are against getting in a self driving vehicle, they'll be eased into the idea because at some point, people won't even have to think about keeping their car in the lan because it'll make minor adjustments itself, pre-brake, etc. They're starting to do more and more of the "driving" themselves already.
Yeah I find it strange that most of the things brought up are near 100% likelihoods of accidents with humans involved.
"Oh yeah, well let's see what happens when a boulder comes careening off of a hill into a driverless car"...
Same thing that happens to everything else?
An elevator killed a woman in China recently: it was stopped between floors and started moving while she was halfway crawling through the door. Not the first time it happened either. This particular kind of accident would never happen with a human operator.
I find it amusing that people bring up the few limitations of driverless cars compared to humans ("it can't see the other driver is texting", "what if it has to chose between crashing into another car and running over a person?", etc) and completely ignore the various advantages it has over humans that can cut down on a lot of accidents.
DCs see everything around the car, at the same time. Their vision is not limited by the cockpit frame and tiny puny rear mirrors. They also have access to tons of real-time data about the car and its surroundings like speed, tire pressure, braking force, momentum, etc. which it can use to calculate how much to steer, how much to brake in ways only stunt drivers would know by feel.
These things drastically lower the chances of many accident situations.
Finally, in a situation where the problem are accidents caused by reckless human drivers crashing into the driverless cars, litigation is a non-issue: it was most likely the other driver's fault and there's a lot of footage and telemetry data to prove it.
I find it amusing that people bring up the few limitations of driverless cars compared to humans ("it can't see the other driver is texting", "what if it has to chose between crashing into another car and running over a person?", etc) and completely ignore the various advantages it has over humans that can cut down on a lot of accidents.
DCs see everything around the car, at the same time. Their vision is not limited by the cockpit frame and tiny puny rear mirrors. They also have access to tons of real-time data about the car and its surroundings like speed, tire pressure, braking force, momentum, etc. which it can use to calculate how much to steer, how much to brake in ways only stunt drivers would know by feel.
These things drastically lower the chances of many accident situations.
Finally, in a situation where the problem are accidents caused by reckless human drivers crashing into the driverless cars, litigation is a non-issue: it was most likely the other driver's fault and there's a lot of footage and telemetry data to prove it.
entremet
Member
The less reliable part of cars is the driver.
https://youtu.be/tiwVMrTLUWg
1 mile per hour? Where do you live?
No, it doesn't. Where in the story did you get the impression they are saying that you should be 'skeptical that driverless cars scare people'?
The Faceless Master
Member
i was stuck in two elevators in one day.
once in a skyscraper in midtown Manhattan and again later that day in an apartment building in the bronx.
still not scared of elevators.
i've also been on a ton of manually operated elevators all over NYC.
once in a skyscraper in midtown Manhattan and again later that day in an apartment building in the bronx.
still not scared of elevators.
i've also been on a ton of manually operated elevators all over NYC.
Well it was much more complicated than it is now. They had to slow down and stop just right to line up with a floor.
Also, elevators don't travel 1mph, more like 3 to 5. Non-express elevators.
Not what I meant; sorry if it was poorly worded.
The point of the article is that you shouldn't be so scared; you should be skeptical of those who are scared because history shows "well this one time supposedly people were scared and look how that turned out."
No problem, I was wondering if I was just misunderstanding. Part of the confusion I think is that Morning Edition linked in the OP just presented the intro to the Planet Money story. I happened to listen to the whole report on the podcast this morning so I probably got a different angle.
The full audio really focuses more on the 'Google trying to use some of the techniques one industry used in the past to ease concerns over automation'. And I think in general, the concerns over automation and loss of perceived control are pretty universal, even without finding the exact analogy. I don't think PM/NPR is trying to say that an elevator is the same thing, rather that the approach to those concerns might involve some similarities.
Well, to be fair, hackers are also more prevalent and capable than before. So it's not just trusting the technology presented. It's also asking people to trust that other people can't hack into it just to fuck with people.
Schweinehund
Member
I don't blame them.
I'm looking forward to smart cars but there's hardly a comparison to draw between the two here.
I'm looking forward to smart cars but there's hardly a comparison to draw between the two here.
I think the ultimate endgame is not having cars. Just a network of metro lines prolific enough so no matter where you live, there's a station very walkable from where you are.
SweetDonuts
Member
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Search for "elevator attendant."
kame-sennin
Member
Do you understand what a random variable is? Do you understand that there are more of them on the road then in an elevator shaft? Can you not understand why the difference makes the analogy in the OP a very poor one?
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