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[Kinitari]

I think the inevitability of self driving cars is more or less accepted by the general population and Gaffers alike, and while we probably can't agree on when this will happen "soonish" is probably good enough.

So it gets me thinking about how that's going to change how people live, if at all, and why.

For example, I think about where I'll want to live in a few years. Currently, buying a house in my city is extremely painful - but if you go out far enough from the city core, the costs are more reasonable. But, I'd hate being so far away from work and just downtown culture, and driving in sounds like the worst (I can't even drive anyway). That being said, if I imagine a world with something like self driving Uber at a reasonable cost, it completely changes the formula for me.

So with that in mind, it might change the formula for everyone - maybe grouping everyone together in tight urban centers become less important when getting anywhere becomes extremely painless. So does that mean a less centralized city of the future? More houses? How do we get around, what sort of weird opportunities present themselves, do you think?

Spoiler

I'm bored at the airport

 

[PdotMichael]

It's sad that people celebrate that we will still destroy the world with motorized private transport.

 

[RatchetWhiteGirls]

I love driving and have no intention of ever letting my car drive me. I don't even let my friends/family drive me if I can help it, I'm always the driver.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Like a sphere.

 

[Kurdel]

Seeing the shit storm something like Uber has caused, we will see politicians and people fight it before it is common and accepted.

 

[TheGravemind]

Hackers and agencies killing people for money or orders

 

[TheRealTalker]

lol I am just kidding more like

 

[entremet]

It's sad that people celebrate that we will still destroy the world with motorized private transport.

Hundreds of thousands people who die from vehicular deaths, most due to human limitations (fatigue, intoxication, distraction, poor visibility) isn't sadder?

 

[rokkerkory]

Self driving cars is blehz

I forsee a skillset that will be lost and bunch jobs lost too.

 

[Slo]

My family of 5 would own one car instead of three. We'd all summon it with our cell phones when necessary, and I'd direct it to pick my kids up from school and drive them home while I sit in my office at work.

 

[inner-G]

I can't wait for those super tube transport thingys

 

[forknknife]

With a whole lot of unemployed transportation workers rioting and burning up the streets. You just can't fuck with taxi drivers, look how it went with Uber in most countries...

I'm all for self driving cars but I'm sure it's going to be tough in the beginning.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

If my car could drive me to and from work I could take power naps and easily reclaim 3-4.5 hours from sleep in order to do me things with.

 

[IvanJ]

I bet even self-driving Uber cars will refuse to pick up black people.

 

[Ri'Orius]

It's sad that people celebrate that we will still destroy the world with motorized private transport.

I fully expect there to be self-driving shuttle/carpool services, especially in bigger cities. I feel like automation eliminates a lot of barriers: you don't have to worry about organizing it, driver rotation, loss of freedom from not having your car when you get to work, etc.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

More sex in cars.

 

[HylianTom]

All depends on if we can solve our energy/resource predicament. If we don't, private transport will be a luxury reserved for the upper classes.

We really fucked ourselves with the assumption that energy will always be cheap and plentiful.. and then by setting our living arrangement according to this assumption.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

a jump in the convenience of transportation similar to the move from landline phones to cellphones.

 

[Plywood]

More sex in cars.

People being conceived on the way to McDonalds.

 

[Sectorseven]

Mobile gaming will be even more popular.

 

[Lister]

A lot less of opening the local news site to read about the new 2 3 4 teenagers that died in a car accident the night before.

It will be a better world.

 

[……forgetit]

Traffic will be a lot more organized and efficient. The death of blind spots will be cool too when self driving cars talk to each other and get out of each other's way.

 

[easterislandhead]

Like that neo tokyo timesplitters level

 

[Blargonaut]

but 'self-driving cars = the future' is a dumb trend to pursue anyway

If humanity was smart, they'd ban personal vehicles altogether and instead invest in renewable(s)-powered automated mass transit city tram & rail along with sector-by-sector overhaul/re-purposing of all city roads towards bikes and pedestrian traffic only, combined with a systematic halt to urban sprawl with a focus on denser yet natural vertical compartmentalized living instead of horizontal land-greedy houses

with transport unions

 

[AMUSIX]

like this:

 

[Nipo]

People will be able to live an 8 hour drive from work. Sleep to and from the office and enjoy awake time at home. Hell you might not even have to waste a whole room for a bed since you won't sleep in it 5 nights a week.

 

[John Kowalski]

Not expecting it to become standard worldwide in my lifetime.

I also bet it'll become a class/luxury thing very quickly.

 

[Pantaghana]

but 'self-driving cars = the future' is a dumb trend to pursue anyway

If humanity was smart, they'd ban personal vehicles altogether

...what?

Don't get me wrong, high quality public transport is a great thing, but there will always be a need for personal vehicles and transport. Banning them completely is idiotic.

 

[phisheep]

So with that in mind, it might change the formula for everyone - maybe grouping everyone together in tight urban centers become less important when getting anywhere becomes extremely painless. So does that mean a less centralized city of the future? More houses? How do we get around, what sort of weird opportunities present themselves, do you think?

This idyllic future happened before, with the railways. And what happened is what we have now - people enduring long commutes to work, while all the excitement stays in the big city, so there are long commutes to entertainment as well.

 

[WaterAstro]

It needs to be a standard.

It's going to reduce pollution by a ton if entire cities switch to self driving cars.
Cars are the top contributors, but it's actually mostly because of traffic.

 

[n0razi]

I love driving and have no intention of ever letting my car drive me. I don't even let my friends/family drive me if I can help it, I'm always the driver.

I like driving too... but modern day bug city traffic is the furthest thing from driving... i embrace a robocar future where commutes are efficient and crashless where i can take my weekend car to the track

 

[mrklaw]

Initially not that different. They'll be used by rich people as chauffeurs and later by normal people. People will still own cars and be encouraged to by auto manufacturers

The logical end point would be that nobody owns cars and they just access time in cars like an automated uber, or Johnny cab. Less congestion as the cars talk to each other and can drive closer together, faster etc. But such a move would potentially create significant upheaval when the entire world is pretty much built around individual ownership of cars.

 

[Kinitari]

Initially not that different. They'll be used by rich people as chauffeurs and later by normal people. People will still own cars and be encouraged to by auto manufacturers

The logical end point would be that nobody owns cars and they just access time in cars like an automated uber, or Johnny cab. Less congestion as the cars talk to each other and can drive closer together, faster etc. But such a move would potentially create significant upheaval when the entire world is pretty much built around individual ownership of cars.

I think if you look at what car manufacturers are doing and saying, they're almost all signaling that they'll be moving to a service based model, asap - large manufacturers are either purchasing, investing in, or partnering with ride sharing services.


http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/technology/uber-gett-ridesharing-toyota-vw.html

On Tuesday, two of the world’s largest automakers, Toyota and Volkswagen, said they were stepping up to invest in technology start-ups that are working to change the way people travel by car. Toyota said it had formed a partnership with and invested an undisclosed amount in Uber, the biggest ride-hailing company. Gett, the app popular in Europe, said it was working with Volkswagen, and the automaker was investing $300 million in the start-up.

...

In January, General Motors invested $500 million in Lyft, the ride-hailing app popular with American users, with a focus on developing networks of autonomous vehicles. Ford Motor is making over its Dearborn, Mich., headquarters into a Silicon Valley-like campus of green buildings connected by self-driving shuttles.

And a few weeks ago, Fiat Chrysler and Google agreed to produce a test fleet of driverless minivans. Both BMW and Mercedes-Benz have started to pilot ride services.

Even other technology companies only tangentially related to automobiles are becoming more involved in ride services. Apple, which is working on its own autos project, said this month it had invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-hailing company that competes fiercely with Uber.

 

[fester]

It has to happen if we want a lot fewer deaths on the road.

Plus, the high speed pizza delivery we've always dreamed about will finally become reality.

 

[akira28]

more jerkoffs jerkin off.

a lot less sex than is predicted, unless tinted windows suddenly become legal.

 

[Kinitari]

Another good read:

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/27/11763610/detroit-silicon-valley-disruption

 

[The Cretan]

With self driving cars, the world will be a far safer place. Humans make more mistakes in driving than an AI, because of alchohol, age or inexperience. Also, if you are blind, very old or drunk, you can use a car if it's self driving. If it isn't, then you can't use it.

 

[Blargonaut]

...what?

Don't get me wrong, high quality public transport is a great thing, but there will always be a need for personal vehicles and transport. Banning them completely is idiotic.

It's only idiotic at the moment, but it's the real future we should be striving for with this technology, IMO.

Personal cars are only necessary because modern cities are so damn wide and too old and established to be cheaply revamped.

We should found and develop new, much denser cities where cars and trucks are banned from the start, because roads won't exist; have underground automated electric rail for commuters/the public, with a separate second network for commercial/industrial shipping and a third network of tunnels for emergency response, then above-ground bike and pedestrian footpaths weaving throughout the entire city at surface level, which would be dominated by modular skyscrapers for living and commercial purposes. No houses, just tower frames with easily-switchable compartments of variable size, through which you can cater for your tenants' custom needs.

Basically, the future that should result from this self-driving tech. is eventual phasing-out of personal vehicles in favour of automated public transportation, leading to new cities of towers where our transit and most infrastructure is situated underground, preferably mostly powered by renewables. Old cities should slowly adapt to this new standard or else be abandoned and die out to progress.

Start with one tower in a remote yet desirable location and expand accordingly if/when population increases.

/armchairfuturology

 

[John Kowalski]

Blargy don't you hate it when someone's a total door board with no sense of imagination?

 

[unholyrevenger72]

I love driving and have no intention of ever letting my car drive me. I don't even let my friends/family drive me if I can help it, I'm always the driver.

Don't worry, your insurance company will force you to jump on the autonomous car train.

 

[RatchetWhiteGirls]

I like driving too... but modern day bug city traffic is the furthest thing from driving... i embrace a robocar future where commutes are efficient and crashless where i can take my weekend car to the track

So long as it is optional I have no problem with it. I have no interest in restricting my manual driving to a track on the weekends, or a track at all.

 

[Ferr986]

Better. A world with self driving cars will always be a better world than without them.

 

[RatchetWhiteGirls]

Don't worry, your insurance company will force you to jump on the autonomous car train.

No going to happen. If some insurance companies try this massive amounts of people will be upset and take their business to the insurance companies that don't force you to be driven by your car.

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

It's going to fuck up a lot of lives.

Why?

Self driving vehicles doesn't just mean cars. Taxis are obvious. Not quite so obvious are truck drivers replaced by autonomous vehicles. Vehicles that don't need drivers. Trucks that don't need to take breaks to sleep. Trucks that don't need to make stops for the driver to sleep or to eat or visit the rest room. Trucks that are now cheaper to run, more efficient and safer than those with human drivers.

Transport related jobs are probably around 8-9% of the working population in the USA. That's a significant percentage of the workforce that will be no longer required. Imagine the knock on effect on businesses that rely on those drivers for passing trade that will now not get any custom. Or custom so low that it means those businesses are no longer viable. How can those redundant transport workers compete in a job market against autonomous vehicles which have running costs that are only a tenth of the wage required by humans? It's obvious that they can't.

The glorious high tech dream begins to look like a high tech nightmare for a lot of lives, industries and communities.

 

[Joni]

So long as it is optional I have no problem with it. I have no interest in restricting my manual driving to a track on the weekends, or a track at all.

It won't be optional. It will be mandatory at maximum 15 years after is safe and affordable, probably even sooner for new cars.

Not quite so obvious are truck drivers replaced by autonomous vehicles. Vehicles that don't need drivers. Trucks that don't need to take breaks to sleep. Trucks that don't need to make stops for the driver to sleep or to eat or visit the rest room. Trucks that are no cheaper to run, more efficient and safer than those with human drivers.

Autonomous trucks are already a half thing. Volvo has a road-legal system where one driver controls three trucks.

 

[RatchetWhiteGirls]

It won't be optional. It will be mandatory at maximum 15 years after is safe and affordable, probably even sooner for new cars.

Seems unlikely. They can't even take away peoples right to own guns, what makes you think they can pass legislation to take away peoples right to drive.

 

[John Kowalski]

It won't be optional. It will be mandatory at maximum 15 years after is safe and affordable, probably even sooner for new cars.

You know you're only setting yourself up to disappointment with that kind of thinking.

 

[Electric Eye]

From my cold dead hands! A self deiving future is a pipe dream. Why are there so many people on the roads, were are they all goin? A big chunk is work, long commutes to work headed from more affordable farther towns into cities were they could never afford to live. The self driving car is just a bandaid trying to cover much larger problems that if fixed there would be no need for robot cars.

 

[unholyrevenger72]

No going to happen. If some insurance companies try this massive amounts of people will be upset and take their business to the insurance companies that don't force you to be driven by your car.

No you misunderstood. Insurance companies won't not insure you for not driving an autonomous car. They will simply raise your rates, because you're the most dangerous thing on the road, so high that you won't have choice but use an autonomous car.

 

[SCHUEY F1]

Wonder how well self driving cars work in cold, winter conditions?