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U.S. Senate panel puts self-driving cars in fast lane

I'd definitely be interested in a self-driving future, but at the same time, I like to be the one in complete control of my vehicle. I'd definitely push the idea forward despite being skeptical. We have no reason to stick to what we have now when we are so close to QOL improvements.
I have no interest in ever driving a car again in my life. I know others don’t share the same sentiment but all of the things i enjoy about driving (blasting music and driving on the highways at night) will stay the same in a self driving cars.
 

Buckle

Member
Like the idea of self driving cars.

Looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future. Hopefully it advances significantly in my time.
 

chuckddd

Fear of a GAF Planet
There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States. There's going to be a lot of spinning to blame the lost jobs on democrats. Prepare yourselves.
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
Sooner than we expect
iur
You know how movies now-a-days have to have some dumb reason for why a character can't use their phone? I can't wait to see how they figure out why a characters is able to manually drive their own car.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Yes. My computer never malfunctions.

There exists computers with duplicate, redundant systems with instant failsafe failover where you can't even tell the computer just did it.

It's just that nobody is willing to pay for them for regular home computing.

Self driving cars are guaranteed to have redundant computers and failsafes.
 
I guess I'm kind of surprised that there is bipartisan support for this. I feel like tech companies are very easy scapegoats for lost jobs, etc, so I don't know why politicians don't turn on them. I guess tech companies are successful at lobbying?
 
There exists computers with duplicate, redundant systems with instant failsafe failover where you can't even tell the computer just did it.

It's just that nobody is willing to pay for them for regular home computing.

Self driving cars are guaranteed to have redundant computers and failsafes.
So, a 10000$ increase in the price of every car.
Also, cue Minority Report?
 

Loki

Count of Concision
What choice does a self-driving car currently make when presented with two options - one of which kills a pedestrian or hits another car and the other of which kills the self-driving car's occupant? Does it always look towards self-preservation first as a human driver would? Lotta ethical questions here, really.

This is not even to get into the fact that there is no way the tech will be viable in a place like NY for a very, very long time.
 
I guess I'm kind of surprised that there is bipartisan support for this. I feel like tech companies are very easy scapegoats for lost jobs, etc, so I don't know why politicians don't turn on them. I guess tech companies are successful at lobbying?
There is insane money to be made from self driving automobiles.
 

Kthulhu

Member
I would like a self-driving car future, but if Americans can't even give up guns, they won't give up their right to drive manually.



There could be issues in a partial self-driving car implementation, but when all cars are self-driving and driving synchronously, there will be zero accidents.

Just read this. Hopefully it'll change as more people are exposed to self driving cars.

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https://www.recode.net/2017/10/4/16...ing-autonomous-50-years-perception-survey-pew
 

Loki

Count of Concision
What choice does a self-driving car currently make when presented with two options - one of which kills a pedestrian or hits another car and the other of which kills the self-driving car's occupant? Does it always look towards self-preservation first as a human driver would? Lotta ethical questions here, really.

Anyone? I'm curious about this.
 
I would like a self-driving car future, but if Americans can't even give up guns, they won't give up their right to drive manually.



There could be issues in a partial self-driving car implementation, but when all cars are self-driving and driving synchronously, there will be zero accidents.

This isn't a realistic goal, nor is it a good idea to spread this misinformation. Accidents happen in all sorts of robotic-controlled environments, driving or otherwise. I absolutely believe the rate of accidents will go down dramatically with self-driving cars, but "there will be zero accidents" isn't realistic.
 

KingV

Member
Who knows? What I'm more interested in from an ethics perspective is who is liable if your car kills someone. Are you? Is Google/Tesla/Whoever? No one?

Or if your driverless car rear ends something. Who’s liable? This will be even more complex when the cars communicate to each other.

I assume that there will be some sort of emergency override brake pedal that the driver is responsible to press to avoid accidents, primarily as a way for companies to erase liability, even if it makes the overall system less safe.

But that will also be quickly seen as the sham it is, because nobody will pay attention to driving when they are not driving. The idea that anyone would is silly on its face.

There’s a whole lot of stuff unanswered questions about driverless vehicles, and I’m not nearly as gung ho as most of of GAF on it.

I’m sure it will happen, eventually, but the logistical, policy, and technical hurdles are frequently underestimated here, IMO.
 

mnannola

Member
Love this, but I still have some big concerns about driverless cars and how they will interact with everyone in a world with crazy ass drivers.

How will they know when to merge on a busy highway / street? Sometimes you just have to jump out there because there isn't a perfect opening. Will they wait for 10 minutes before merging?
 
I would like a self-driving car future, but if Americans can't even give up guns, they won't give up their right to drive manually.



There could be issues in a partial self-driving car implementation, but when all cars are self-driving and driving synchronously, there will be zero accidents.

You underestimate how far away that is.

Friend who works in one of the largest cities in the country recently got a demo of this in her city and she said it was horrible. Wouldn't go at green lights, was confused at construction zones, etc. She's involved in city planning to some degrees and her best way to describe it is the whole process is like A to M. We're at B or C right now and they know what M looks like but they want to skip D, E, F, G, etc in getting there.
 
Can't wait. It'll be a game changer for sure. Lots of things to think about. Will police have a override to command a car to pull over and shut off? Also who pays for accidents? Insurance? Driver? Software company? Manufacturer?
 

Sulik2

Member
Millions of drivers in the transportation industry are going to be out of jobs in 5 - 10 years. Nothing is being done to prepare them for the transition either. Driverless vehicles are a huge step forward for public safety once they hit mass saturation, but the human cost in lost jobs is going to be brutal.
 

KingV

Member
Answer the question as to your decision as a human driver first

This is actually a question that doesn’t need to be answered because we are all human and accept that you cannot always predict how you would react in a tense split-second situation, nor be expected to act perfectly rationally, nor weigh all of the potential outcomes against each other. What a human driver would do in that situation is irrelevant, because if you took 100 different humans none of them would do exactly the same thing with the same stimulus.

The self-driving car manufacturers have an obligation to program the car in a moral way because they have the benefit of having infinite time to think about the situation before it happens, and guarantee their product will act in the manner they think is most appropriate.
 

Instro

Member
My one thought about creating a system where the driver can take over would be that the problem is solved if you only allow the automated driver to be disengaged when the car has come to a complete stop somewhere off the road/highway. That would prevent knee jerk drivers from taking over when they think they need to. Presumably you could sell those cars for a higher markup compared to fully automated ones as well.
 
I have no interest in ever driving a car again in my life. I know others don't share the same sentiment but all of the things i enjoy about driving (blasting music and driving on the highways at night) will stay the same in a self driving cars.

Blasting music and highway driving at night is definitely my favorite thing about driving. I also love driving the back roads. I live in the middle of nowhere so it's nice to cruise on a middle of nowhere road.... At least when there's no deer. Self driving cars definitely won't stop those assholes unless self-drive compatible roads had tall fences with grassy nature bridges for animals to cross. I think the Netherlands have them, or at least one of the nearby countries there. I think self-driving vehicles should definitely be applied to city and highway, but country backroads should have a choice. If you've ever driven in downtown Columbus Ohio, especially in the morning, it's absolute hell because people are awful drivers there, so I'd love to have self-driving vehicles there.
 
Millions of driver sin the transportation industry are going to be out of jobs in 5 - 10 years. Nothing is being done to prepare them for the transition either. Driverless vehicles are a huge step forward for public safety once they hit mass saturation, but the human cost in lost jobs is going to be brutal.

They'll just be turned in to security guards for the cargo. Probably take a pay cut but I doubt the overall employment numbers will dip significantly.
 

muteki

Member
Please come soon.

Fuck my commute. This will probably happen way before any adequate public transportation here.
 

hydruxo

Member
I wonder what this means for drunk drivers. Not entirely familiar with how self-driving cars work, but I'm guessing you punch in an address? If someone is drunk in the "drivers" seat of a self-driving car but punches in an address, are they drunk driving or is it essentially a self-driving taxi? I mean they aren't actually driving but in a way they are operating the vehicle.
 
Millions of driver sin the transportation industry are going to be out of jobs in 5 - 10 years. Nothing is being done to prepare them for the transition either. Driverless vehicles are a huge step forward for public safety once they hit mass saturation, but the human cost in lost jobs is going to be brutal.

Not happening that fast per my above post based on what I've been told.
 

Vixdean

Member
Yeah I don't get the concerns over safety, human drivers run over and kill pedestrians every single day. At least if a self driving car does it, a corporation with actual money can be sued instead of a broke moron with no insurance.
 
I wonder what this means for drunk drivers. Not entirely familiar with how self-driving cars work, but I'm guessing you punch in an address? If someone is drunk in the "drivers" seat of a self-driving car but punches in an address, are they drunk driving or is it essentially a self-driving taxi? I mean they aren't actually driving but in a way they are operating the vehicle.

AFAIK, legally speaking, the car is driving and not the drunk guy.
 

Griss

Member
The amount of reclaimed leisure time is going to be incredible. Watch half a movie in the way to work, the other half on your way home. Or if it's busy season, get a jump on your work emails and other work in the car, adding crazy productivity.

That's to say nothing of the safety angle, which is the most important part.

Can't wait.
 

entremet

Member
What's gonna kill human driving is insurance rates. They will plummet for self-driving users over human drivers. Economics will win like it always does. I don't expect soon but in a generation or two.

Car enthusiasts will always be around, but they will pay higher insurance rates.
 
What's gonna kill human driving is insurance rates. They will plummet for self-driving users over human drivers. Economics will win like it always does. I don't expect soon but in a generation or two.

Car enthusiasts will always be around, but they will pay higher insurance rates.

I'm almost certainly always going to need manual override. I have to regularly drive onto an army base, and I don't fancy letting the car handle getting through an armed security checkpoint by itself.
 
This can't come soon enough. The fatality rates and the general lack of awareness and competence of the average American driver is a never ending health and public safety crisis. Because so much of the country relies on cars and not public transportation, we just suck it up and accept it. Even the earliest forms of self driving cars are substantially safer and more capable than the average driver. Once we start hitting the saturation point where self driving cars can communicate basic parameters to other self driving cars, we will hit a transportation revolution. Our interstate system will transform into a pseudo "rail" network practically over night. Cars aligning in packs based on shared destinations, utilizing drafting packs at distances perfectly safe for networked self driving cars but too dangerous for humans to reliably drive. Cars merging perfectly at bottle necks preventing the classic backups that can extend miles back from the congestion point. This will be on the level of the internet revolution in terms of wide spread impact. Cars with driver assist should be mandatory much sooner than later. As for the, "but my classic cars!" people quickly retrofitted disc brakes on older cars that used the inferior drum brakes. Moreover, sensors and computers are small, so there could be some compromise of a few systems well short of auto pilot that must be installed to make your car road legal in the years to come.
 

Instro

Member
Anyone? I'm curious about this.

I think first we need to establish what the scenario actually is that would put the car in this situation. Just saying it can only choose between the death of the pedestrian or the passenger is not realistic.
 
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