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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 16 2015, @01:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the who's-gonna-drive-miss-daisy? dept.

The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.

As these technology giants zero in on the car industry, global automakers are being forced to dramatically rethink what it means to build a vehicle for the first time in a century. Aspects of this race evoke several pivotal moments in technological history: the construction of railroads, the dawn of electric light, the birth of the automobile, the beginning of aviation. There's no precedent for what engineers are trying to build now, and no single blueprint for how to build it.

Self-driving cars promise to create a new kind of leisure, offering passengers additional time for reading books, writing email, knitting, practicing an instrument, cracking open a beer, taking a catnap, and any number of other diversions. Peope who are unable to drive themselves could experience a new kind of independence. And self-driving cars could re-contextualize land-use on massive scales. In this imagined mobility utopia, drone trucks would haul packages across the country and no human would have to circle a city block in search of a parking spot.

If self-driving vehicles deliver on their promises, they will save millions of lives over the course of a few decades, destroy and create entire industries, and fundamentally change the human relationship with space and time. All of which is why some of the planet's most valuable companies are pouring billions of dollars into the effort to build driverless cars.

After automation puts everyone out of work, will anyone need to drive anywhere anymore?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday December 16 2015, @02:05PM

    by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday December 16 2015, @02:05PM (#277077)

    There is an observation that if you want to see what you will be doing in the future, look at what the rich are doing now.

    The rich have had driverless cars forever: or rather, they have had cars they do not need to drive themselves ever since the invention of the cart - they have always had coachmen, chauffeurs, or somebody to do the driving for them. The key thing it allows is convenience, and lack of friction in your lifestyle. You can choose to drive a car for enjoyment, but for transport you just outsource the problematic bits to someone else.

    I can still imagine people will want to own their own cars, simply because the interior is a personal space, customised to their own (or their own family's needs). One of the big issues with hire cars and taxis is having to clear out all your 'stuff' at the end of the hire period.

    I can imagine the entertainment industry will be interested in monetising your free time - if you are not driving, you can be spending money being entertained, and also be advertised to. There will also be pressure from employers for you to work while being transported on your commute. After all, you aren't doing anything else are you? Commutes can also get longer in both distance and time.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 16 2015, @02:12PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 16 2015, @02:12PM (#277080) Journal

    If you can get Adblock on your device, you can resist the monetization of your commute.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16 2015, @03:54PM (#277152)

      Lets call them window blinds so you can obscure there million billboards that will pollute the every inch of highway space. After all, they will no longer be dangerously distracting...

      I don't think I would enjoy it at all. The boards I do see now (and plenty since I live in a high density area) are already annoying as hell. Especially the ones who are giant LCDs, and go from dark to bright making me think someone just turned on the high beams at night.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 16 2015, @09:41PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 16 2015, @09:41PM (#277319)

    There is an observation that if you want to see what you will be doing in the future, look at what the rich are doing now.

    You can estimate the likelihood of success by empathizing and estimating based on the past.

    So you ask a plantation owner 200 years ago how people will pick cotton today, and you'll get all sorts of weird commentary about other races being property or human-form androids or genetically engineered cotton picking animals. Nobody would have commented about diesel powered GPS driven farm equipment. Or pointed out that most/lots of "fabric" is weaved of fibers made from polymerized crude oil, not cotton or linen. Of course they'd have no idea what any of that is.

    So the odds are actually better than "the boring commute" will be replaced by the collapse of the corporate-crony capitalist economy. Or the end of cheap oil means the few survivors will be living at best a pre-petrochemical lifestyle, subsistence farming, wind powered trade, etc, such that most people will live a foot or two from where they work. Or the technological future will finally permit me to work at the computer on the desk next to my bed instead of driving 40 miles round trip to work on inferior desktop hardware. Or land zoning will move past "white flight", combined with economic decline, such that most people with jobs will rent apartments near where they work.

    Looking at one example in more detail, if "near where I work" wasn't a complete shithole, I wouldn't drive 40 miles round trip such that I can live and do recreation and raise kids in near paradise in both a relative and absolute sense. At some point 40 miles round trip is too expensive or its cheaper to convert urban neighborhoods from filthy crime ridden shitholes with horrific schools to something a little more civilized... it could (emphasis "could") happen. People have been calling for "it" to happen continuously for my entire adult life although it hasn't happened yet, LOL. Still, it could happen. And its more likely than HAL9000 taking over my car, anytime soon.

    • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday December 17 2015, @12:02AM

      by deimtee (3272) on Thursday December 17 2015, @12:02AM (#277404) Journal

      There is an observation that if you want to see what you will be doing in the future, look at what the rich are doing now.

      You can estimate the likelihood of success by empathizing and estimating based on the past.

      So you ask a plantation owner 200 years ago how people will pick cotton today, and you'll get all sorts of weird commentary about other races being property or human-form androids or genetically engineered cotton picking animals. Nobody would have commented about diesel powered GPS driven farm equipment. Or pointed out that most/lots of "fabric" is weaved of fibers made from polymerized crude oil, not cotton or linen. Of course they'd have no idea what any of that is.

      He said look at what the rich are doing, not ask them to predict the future. 200 years ago, were the rich out in the fields picking cotton by hand? If not, you just argued in favour of his point.

      Q. Do the rich drive themselves today? A. Only when they want to.
      Therefore his prediction is that in the future you will only drive when you want to, not just because you need to get somewhere.

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