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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?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday December 17 2015, @12:06AM
Those are great arguments that automated cars shouldn't phone home, not against automated cars in general.
Not that the ills you fear are here right now if you don't totally disable Onstar.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday December 17 2015, @01:10AM
They'll never be allowed to *not* phone home. That's the problem; The technology itself requires massive amounts of communication between the other drivers (only way to get "super harmonic" traffic) and the roads itself. Privacy is impossible when one car literally watches thousands, and thousands of car watch one.
With government being what it is, I can entirely foresee that the only way *they* will believe it to be safe is to require their ability to come in and control it. Of course, under the pretense of a warrant, probably cause, and immediate harm to other people. That's both control and information asymmetry from a group of people that deserve absolutely none of your trust.
It's all academic anyways, and it will never get off the ground. We have no security whatsoever, and it would be a matter of moments before a cyber attack succeeded in bringing all traffic to a halt. Most likely, with a few casualties and a lot of damage if malicious. All of the major corporations will fail utterly in providing both a system that can be controlled by government safely, and one that is autonomous. They're mutually exclusive. Were they to succeed, enter a world of no privacy from government, which completely screws us in a different way.
No. I either get to drive my own electric vehicle, after being vetted sufficiently enough to be considered professional and certified, with absolutely no networked electronics of any kind, or I don't drive at all.
That's the real issue. For people that will refuse like me, we're going to affect the economy. Our worlds will get far smaller, and our wallets can only travel so far in a day on foot privately. Were it to be completely free and like public transportation, it might be possible. With full burkas or Guy Fawkes masks, and that's only if they'll accept cash. If they demand traceable payments, then I'm on foot or a bicycle for the rest of my life. Again, that greatly reduces my opportunities for work, pleasure, and participation in the economy. On the other hand, it might be a great boon to local businesses.
I will simply not be monitored, or controlled in such a fashion. They need to wait till my generation dies off, and they can prey upon the youthful idealism and naivete of the younger generations today.
P.S - The entire conjecture is based upon fear and our unwillingness to admit that we simply suck at driving. I've witnessed a miracle in China, that can only be witnessed to be believed. That was traffic at least 3 times as dense as any L.A freeway traffic, but moving like schools of fish in the ocean. Average speed was 54 mph, which is suicidal when all cars are within 2 feet of each other (I'm NOT kidding) in America. Not only did I not see any accidents, but my driver made it over 4 lanes of traffic to the exit, diagonally, with barely perceptible communications to the other drivers. All of the people in this city are in a de facto hive mind on the road. Incredibly impressive, and it means, that *we* are the problems while driving. Get everyone certified, trained, and operating with different paradigms. It provably can work, so I don't buy the arguments that we must do it because of safety. We must do it because our drivers suck, are entitled little shits (younger generations), and can't put down the distraction-devices we all love so much.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:55AM
The technology itself requires no such thing. Which currently existing prototype depends on talking to all the cars around it (given that none of the cars around it have the technology)?
The more advanced features do require communication, but there is no technical reason the car cannot generate a new random UUID each time it starts.
Government demands are a more difficult hurdle and might ultimately require hacking to disable disablers, tracking, and commanded pull over "features". Of course, as I said, if you have OnStar you already have those problems PLUS it can listen in on the inside of your car. Rip it out NOW. Not sure what technical solutions you might have for license plate readers.