SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:02AM
This assumes that there is centralized control of *every* car.
Sounds a reasonable assumption to me.
It also assumes that the government in in possession of said centralized system.
Same.
Both of those assumptions are highly speculative and, with even a little thought to the potential viability of such a system, highly unlikely.
Highly speculative why? Aside from the obvious, that any control system tried by government will probably be centralized, we also have the huge factor that this unloads a large liability off the hands of the manufacturers of self-driving cars.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:23AM
Highly speculative why? Aside from the obvious, that any control system tried by government will probably be centralized, we also have the huge factor that this unloads a large liability off the hands of the manufacturers of self-driving cars.
Because any entrants into the market in the foreseeable future will be based on the "experienced driver" model being developed and tested by the major auto makers and Google. Which is a distributed, rather than a centralized control model. What's more, even if (and that's a big if) and when we have car-to-car communications for automated driving, that will be distributed as well (on an autodetect/bluetooth-like basis).
AFAIK, no one is working on centralized traffic control. If such a system were to be developed, it would almost certainly be applied for Air Traffic Control first, and there's no evidence that's happening.
Your paranoid fantasies do not approximate reality, friend. I urge you to liberally apply Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org] and realize that no one is out to get you. The government doesn't want to take your guns or your cars or your right to travel to the tittie bar or the amusement park, or anywhere else you want to go. Well, unless you want to go to a terrist training camp -- but if you want to go to one of those, they are out to get you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:13AM
Because any entrants into the market in the foreseeable future will be based on the "experienced driver" model being developed and tested by the major auto makers and Google. Which is a distributed, rather than a centralized control model.
Who will assume liability for this "experienced driver" model? How is it going to respond to top down orders from governments with control over its operation?
AFAIK, no one is working on centralized traffic control. If such a system were to be developed, it would almost certainly be applied for Air Traffic Control first, and there's no evidence that's happening.
Every plane flies through a region of centralized air traffic control when it takes off and lands. All airports are under centralized control. I think we'll see the same thing on the busiest stretches of highway.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday December 17 2015, @11:37AM
Because any entrants into the market in the foreseeable future will be based on the "experienced driver" model being developed and tested by the major auto makers and Google. Which is a distributed, rather than a centralized control model.
Who will assume liability for this "experienced driver" model? How is it going to respond to top down orders from governments with control over its operation?
Presumably the car owner -- or at least his or her insurance company.
Of which "government" do you speak? and how would such an entity give orders to an automated driver -- presumably speed limit information broadcast from the speed limit signs, I guess. Maybe even real-time traffic updates to route around accidents and high volume. Anything more is way beyond current technology.
You seem to be under quite a few misapprehensions about this suite of technologies. I'd suggest becoming more familiar with the topic before accusing the evil gub'mint about how they will misuse the non-existent technology you're blathering on about.
I get it. I really do. Gub'mint bad. Bad gub'mint! Where's my rolled up newspaper?
AFAIK, no one is working on centralized traffic control. If such a system were to be developed, it would almost certainly be applied for Air Traffic Control first, and there's no evidence that's happening.
Every plane flies through a region of centralized air traffic control when it takes off and lands. All airports are under centralized control. I think we'll see the same thing on the busiest stretches of highway.
My apologies. I should have been clearer -- I mean fully automated centralized air traffic control, without human controllers.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 17 2015, @01:40PM
Who will assume liability for this "experienced driver" model? How is it going to respond to top down orders from governments with control over its operation?
Presumably the car owner -- or at least his or her insurance company.
It was a rhetorical question. The car manufacturer and the managers of the network will bear liability, unless a government steps in the way. There's no way the driver or their insurance company will be liable for software glitches in the control system or miscommunications between vehicles.
Of which "government" do you speak? and how would such an entity give orders to an automated driver -- presumably speed limit information broadcast from the speed limit signs, I guess. Maybe even real-time traffic updates to route around accidents and high volume. Anything more is way beyond current technology.
Any scale of government from local up to global. And given your later discussion of misapprehensions, I think you're way out of touch with what's available using current technology. For example, one could enable large scale control just by pushing commands from satellite. It wouldn't need any more hardware than GPS uses (which is a similar satellite-based technology).
Further, we aren't close to extinction of the human driver now. When we are, we'll have more advanced communication and control systems too.