A very small survey of people of different ages suggests that there are age and gender differences in the acceptance of riding in automated cars. In summary, 2,600 people in the US replied and of them 38% of the men and just 16% of women would be happy to ride in an automated vehicle. About a quarter of respondents said they would feel safe in a driverless car while around two thirds said they would not travel unless there was a driver. No mention was made about their opinions of sharing the road with these massive projectiles when driving themselves in traditional cars.
Source : Driverless cars: Men and women have very different opinions on letting go of the wheel
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Men and Women Have Very Different Opinions on Automated Cars
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(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:41PM
Snipped from the original submission was a link to a timely Dilbert strip: http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-01-30 [dilbert.com]
And some discussion of possible early applications for connecte cars: http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/wikileaks-vault-7-dump-reignites-conspiracy-theories-surrounding-death-of-michael-hastings/news-story/0df1d06403d0223ce1cfc286a1e75325 [news.com.au]
Security shortcomings in automotive systems, though recognized, are still not taken seriously enough to fix [usenix.org] (video [youtube.com]) and will require a total redesign. The stakes just go up that much more when the driving becomes automated.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:43PM (1 child)
It's much less fun to complain about the driving to an automated car than to a human driver. ;-)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 02 2018, @01:58PM
It depends on who's in the car with you. I have been to the movies in neighborhoods where people have no problem yelling at a screen that can't hear them; it's often much more entertaining than the movie itself.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:47PM (45 children)
There can be only one driver, driving is a habitual activity, and most couples are comprised of a Man and a Woman; the Man ends up being the driver.
So, you'd think that women, who are used to being ferried about by an autonomous vehicle, would mind autonomous vehicles least.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:54PM (3 children)
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:35PM (2 children)
This is exactly why. They can't criticize the automated driver. Well, they 'can' but they know it is pointless since the computer won't know it is being criticized.
And without having something to criticize, they have no idea what to do otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:29AM
Your post leads to a serious question:
What percentage of men actually take notice of their wive's criticism of his driving? From personal experience, I allowed a girl's criticism of my driving to influence my driving to a very small degree, when I was young, and dating. After marriage, that influence decreased, with time. Today, after almost 35 years, I seldom even hear her comments. If and when I do, I just turn the radio up. Or, I tell her to "climb in, sit down, hang on, and shut up".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:43PM
The computer could go on the interwebs and give them celebrity gossip, diet advice and cat videos to keep their minds of the driving.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:58PM (3 children)
Without a man in the car what is a woman to do? Carry a dildo?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by bob_super on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:48PM
Their hands will be busy anyway.
BTW, S Jobs was sent to hell by the Council of Female Gods for making his damn phones so skinny they hurt.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
Flamebait!
Whoa! Damn! Special snowflake feminist frozen bitch moderator! Going for the kill... So tell me then, what do you gals do in the car when there's no man around? I doubt you're playing Gin Rummy...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:36PM
We lesbians drive U-Hauls, didn't you get the memo? :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:00PM (9 children)
I'm not so sure you're correct there. I frequently see men being driven around by women actually. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if many times, in married couples, the wife insists on driving because she thinks she's a safer driver. In my last marriage, that was the case (she believed she was safer, I disagreed but didn't argue it). In my current relationship, my girlfriend just prefers not to drive so I end up driving almost all the time, but her driving scares me sometimes so I don't mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:10PM (3 children)
From 2012 [usatoday.com]:
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:34PM (2 children)
Doesn't surprise me. I read quite some time ago how women are now the majority of people who make car-buying decisions. (i.e., most car buyers are women, and in couples, women have more power over the decision.)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:39PM
In the old days, they made cars resemble a woman's ass stuck invitingly up in the air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:27PM
In the old days, they made cars resemble a woman's ass stuck invitingly up in the air.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:36PM (3 children)
I frequently see men being driven around by women actually.
Probably because of the DUI
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)
This is modded Funny, but it should probably also be modded Insightful.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:55PM
And you really don't want your wife to see you driving your girlfriend's car...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:14PM
Or to avoid a DUI.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @11:43AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:03PM (4 children)
My wife was prone to motion sickness, being a passenger in a car, no matter who was driving, tended to make her green.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:49PM
That may actually be insightful. I understand that women are more prone to motion sickness than men. My wife wasn't, but my mother and both my sisters are, whereas I am not. I don't know about my brothers.
Also, I seem to recall reading that more women than men were bothered by motion sickness while wearing virtual reality glasses.
OTOH, I have no idea what the percentage difference is, or whether the effect is usually strong enough to be the deciding factor. (With my sisters it certainly would be.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:45PM (2 children)
The interesting part of that is that DOING the driving tends to eliminate motion sickness.
Just watching the road works as well, but passengers get distracted and look out the side windows, or at reading material or phones, and then they get motion sickness. Not seeing the cause of the movement (the turn, the lane change, the bumps) before the motion is felt seems to cause motion sickness.
Seeing the cause (ahead of time) and expecting it usually means no problem.
Steep turns during pilot training would get me queasy every time the instructor demonstrated it. When I was flying the plane, no problem. To this day, when I fly, I prefer to sit over the leading edge of the wing, and have a window seat for this reason.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday February 02 2018, @12:31AM
I think it may be less the predictable motion (curves, traffic, etc), and more the constant slight adjustments being made basically at random. Pretty much everybody wanders around the lane while driving, some by inches, some by a foot or more - generally speaking you steer towards whatever they're looking at in that moment. There's also variation in the frequency and sharpness of motion that can make a big difference in passenger nausea. As the driver of course, you're expecting every motion, even if you're not consciously aware that you're veering.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:37AM
As an old sailor, I'll vouch for the "watch the road" thing. Seasickness wasn't something that really bothered me - but in five years of sea duty, there were days that were worse than others. Generally, getting outside, on the weatherdecks, and watching the seas coming at you, relieved my discomfort.
Of course, the Navy's oldest remedy for seasickness is hard work. A person with a task in front of him, that demands his attention, is bothered by motion sickness far less than an idle sailor.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:21PM (21 children)
...or maybe men and women just have different attitudes to being alone in a car (whether for safety or social reasons) or their responsibility to passengers (possibly more likely to be kids in the case of women) or more strongly associate driving with personal freedom (Grandma didn't approve of women driving cars) or (heaven forfend) are, on average, less interested than men in having the latest tech gadget. Maybe women have more confidence in their driving ability than men (either rightly, and/or as a reaction to the "women driver" stereotype).
Or maybe the study was just skewed somehow... selection bias is almost impossible to avoid in a voluntary survey and it won't show up in your p value.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:42PM (20 children)
I think it's about *control*. when you're driving, you're in control and are responsible for your own actions. With *someone else* driving (whether that be a spouse, a relative, a taxi driver, an expert system, a bus driver or an airline pilot), they are in control.
Back in 2004, I chatted with a high school classmate who'd driven just about 2,000Km to attend our reunion. When I asked her why she drove rather than flew, she was shocked I'd even suggest it, given the events of September 11, 2001. She was adamant that flying just wasn't safe.
I pointed out that even with *all* the deaths (including those on the ground, not just the passengers) from airplane crashes/incidents, more people (by a factor of at least ten) died in automobile accidents every year than when flying.
Did that make a difference? Nope. Because she was in control behind the wheel of her car. It doesn't make logical sense, but it does make human sense.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:08PM (3 children)
After doing a quick survey of myself, 0 people have ever been involved in an accident of any scope while in a car I was driving. I do not know the same is true of a random pilot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:02PM (1 child)
Screw autonomous cars, how's the research on cloning TMB to drive 'em all going?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:37PM
Considering the fucker's only got one helix, surprisingly difficult. The ribosomes we're using to replicate the template keep going on strike; something about ethics and morals and things humankind would best not unleash on itself or something...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:25PM
You prove my point, Buzzard. Thanks!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:52PM (4 children)
A better reason to not fly is that you don't want your rights violated by TSA thugs. That agency needs to be abolished, but it won't be.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:41AM (3 children)
People who drive 2000 kilometers to a high school reunion are probably not worried about the TSA. Those of us who drive 2000 miles have more cause to be concerned with the TSA.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:34AM
Uhhh...not so much Runaway. I generally use SI units whenever possible. And yes, I went to high school in the US, as did (obviously) my classmate. And no, she didn't drive from Canada or Mexico.
Regardless, while we all hate the TSA (well I do, at least), my main concern when driving is not dying. I generally don't have that fear when flying.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @11:57AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @11:03PM
This probably borders on pedantry - but the US doesn't exactly use the imperial system. Like a lot of other things, we borrowed heavily from the old empire, but adapted stuff to suit ourselves. Would you rather buy an imperial gallon or a US gallon for the same price?
Hmmmm - OK, so looking at this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units [wikipedia.org] I find that a land mile in England was the same as a land mile in the US. Then again, this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems [wikipedia.org] claims there were differences in our linear measures.
I guess I could figure it all out if I spent a little time on it. Not that the differences really amount to anything.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 02 2018, @02:07AM (9 children)
The popular wisdom that flying is safer may not be totally accurate. For distanced traveled, yes, flying is safer. But I have heard that if measured by hours traveled, flying is about equal to driving in safety.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday February 02 2018, @03:42AM (5 children)
Per-trip, flying is more dangerous. In other words, every time you step into an airplane you are much more likely to die than when you get into a car. The big difference is that the typical person gets into a car hundreds, if not thousands of times a year, but into an airplane only a few times a year (if that).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:50AM (4 children)
Nope. In the US during 2015, for example, more than 35,000 people died in automobile crashes [dot.gov]. Zero people died in airplane crashes [ntsb.gov] during that same period.
Hmmm...let's see. I guarantee you that whatever values (okay positive numbers, which are the only ones that make sense in this context) you use for the denominators, 35,000/x is always greater than 0/y. Math is cruel, I know.
On a per-mile basis (and in absolute numbers), flying is, and has been -- for decades -- *much* safer than driving.
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-travel-1581.html [usatoday.com]
But don't believe me. Look at the statistics in the links I've helpfully provided (oh, and you're welcome) above. Even better, don't believe my links either. Do your own research. Or don't. It's no skin off my nose either way. Someone (you, in this case) being wrong on the Internet isn't a call to duty for me. [xkcd.com]
Have fun. Maybe go for a nice drive?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:00PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 02 2018, @03:24PM
If only there was a tunnel under the Bering Strait! See the unspoiled scenic wilds of Alaska and Siberia, travel the length of the Canadian Rockies and cross Russia's 11 time zones, retrace the route the Mongols took to Europe, and totally avoid the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds like fun!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 02 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
Your point is valid in terms of passengers in commercial service. However, there were fatal aviation accidents in the US in 2015 including that of commercial planes (without passengers):
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150211-0 [aviation-safety.net]
And there were fatalities of passengers in public use aircraft, just not on a commercially established carrier route:
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150625-0 [aviation-safety.net]
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150816-1 [aviation-safety.net] (had military personnel but was a contractor flight).
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150915-0 [aviation-safety.net]
Sorry for the nitpick, but the auto side counts all fatalities, not just commercial carriers. I still think the concept of your point is valid, though it would be interesting to map it out as a function of fatalities per travelling person per trip or something similar.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @06:25PM
Fair enough. I agree. All fatalities should have been included, not just "commercial" flights. I wonder though, given the source/destination (Miami to Venezula with a stopover in the Turks and Caicos), how many cars can make that trip (I suspect that would be zero, except, perhaps these guys [wikipedia.org] although that's dubious).
IIUC, at least two of the three crashes you listed were, in fact, commercial flights (i.e., with paying passengers on a plane owned by corporations which used the vehicles for commercial passenger flights, whether scheduled or not).
No apologies necessary. We should try (and I, apparently, failed) to include *all* relevant data to enable an apples-to-apples comparison.
Despite the fact that few people (in comparison to scheduled airline flights) fly in chartered/general aviation flights, it's useful to note *all* casualties.
It's instructive to note that two of the four crashes you cite:
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150625-0 [aviation-safety.net]
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150915-0 [aviation-safety.net]
occurred in Alaska, where (as I observed while in Alaska -- If there are any Soylentils who live there, please do chime in) in many cases automobile transit isn't just difficult, but is, in fact impossible.
The Miami to Venezuela flight you cite (which included a stopover in the Turks and Caicos) is, apparently (I tried several map/directions sites) not directly reachable solely by automobile.
Regardless, as you intimate, in absolute numbers of crashes and absolute number of deaths, automobile fatalities still overwhelm airplane fatalities by orders of magnitude.
tl;dr: In three of the four examples you cite, automobile transit wasn't even an option. As such, it seems that in those cases, it's not fair to compare that at all. More than half the deaths in those four cited examples were from the flights where automobile transit wasn't an option.
All that said, if someone wishes to believe they are safer in their car than on a plane, I won't further try to disabuse you of your delusions. In fact, I encourage you to go out for a nice drive and enjoy yourself. Please drive safely!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)
It's not "popular wisdom," it's a fact. Flying is safer (by orders of magnitude) than driving. What's more, that's been true for decades.
Please see my reply to another post [soylentnews.org] for relevant links to actual data.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:48PM (1 child)
The linked statistics do not contain any data on safety per hour of travel.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @06:26PM
Then I guess you have some work to do, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:00AM
These drivers may in fact be the most dangerous because they simply do not understand the risks of what they are doing. You can be involved in a life-ending collision and never see it coming. You will have no time to react. Being "in control" of the vehicle or not will not matter. These kinds of accidents happen far more frequently than all aircraft related deaths by huge margins.
Overconfidence is a killer. Riding a motorcycle around other vehicles and in bad weather really drives it home. Maybe she should buy a bike.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:48PM (54 children)
People use other dangerous powerful machines all the time. Elevators. Escalators. You literally put your life in the hands of a machine in some cases.
And . . . what about sharing the road with these massive projectiles that are controlled by drunk, uninsured, unlicensed, mobile phone distracted, road raging humans?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:54PM (43 children)
And . . . what about sharing the road with these massive projectiles that are controlled by drunk, uninsured, unlicensed, mobile phone distracted, road raging humans?
Exactly, that's what these idiotic Boomers never seem to understand. The roads are full of horribly dangerous drivers, and there's almost no enforcement to get these people off the road, as cops just want to give out speeding tickets. Driving a car is extremely dangerous and life-threatening because of these other drivers. We'll be better off with cars piloted by automation instead of moronic and road-raging humans.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tftp on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:00PM (15 children)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:23PM (6 children)
That's an optimistic assumption. More likely, it will teach only those cars created by the same company.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:39PM (1 child)
Of course, because government will make sure that all data about safety, crashes and other stuff is restricted and, as such, will cause more deaths just because they're involved [techcrunch.com]. Because [*rolls up newspaper*] gub'mint bad! Bad gub'mint!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:30PM
Why mod it 'troll'?
What we need are clearly-defined contracts, not a violently-imposed monopoly!
Commie bastards!
Anarcho-Capitalism [wikipedia.org] FTW!!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:02PM (2 children)
This, like all other problems, can be fixed with more government regulation. Then the whining will begin, despite the fact, that the corporations brought it upon themselves. Maybe they might act in a way that it would never occur to create a regulation.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:55PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:56PM
How about regulations which force these companies to make all of the software Free Software and have open hardware? If the cars do not respect users' freedoms, then they must be scrapped. Also, expect them to spy on people.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:05PM
More likely it will teach nothing useful at all, and will be ignored, blamed on human drivers, and tossed out as an anomaly, written off as a cost of doing business.
Humans are very good at watching for and avoiding crazy actions of other drivers, children, dogs, and objects.
That guy who just passed you with a phone to his ear, and a hamburger in his other hand is going to do something stupid sooner or later. The smart drivers will put distance between themselves and that pending accident. Everybody involved, even the burger-muncher, is safer as a result. Will the computer ever achieve this ability to predict human errors, or the errors of other computers? Will interpret the frantic looks over the shoulder as a need to merge left or right, even without a turn signal? Will it recognize the middle finger as the sign of a rolling road rage - best avoided?
To error is human. But humans learn to allow for and expect errors. To really fuck things up you need a computer.
Someone is sure to insist that the solution is to remove all human drivers. Along with the decisions about where, when, route, and for what reasons you may choose to go someplace. Even the decision to park in the shade will be removed from your purview.
Cars are not elevators.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:19PM (1 child)
What happens when knowing all the risks, they refuse to drive?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday February 02 2018, @01:00AM
Like the cybernetic elevators?
http://absolutelypointless.net/hhgttg/guide_s.html [absolutelypointless.net]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:50PM (2 children)
Have you ever worked in an "enterprise" IT setting, where virtually all of the company's computers simultaneously fell victim to the same automated hack, because they were all running the same Winblows 0-day?
I just love all the opinions that pop up here from people who have never experienced a fully self driving car. It's all hope-hype.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:14PM (1 child)
Yes.
No. Q.E.D.
Basically, everything in the world can be or is a weapon. Could be cars programmed to commit some suicide at some given time? Yes. But it is in our power to reduce this possibility to a minimum. Don't know about others, but I'm not giving up yet.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:06PM
Surely you aren't saying because it has never happened to you, therefore it has never happened to anyone?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:18PM (2 children)
You mean like software bugs are always fixed ?
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:30PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:48AM
The French Revolution ended a long time ago. And, ISIS/DAESH/Taliban have no power here in the states, or in much of the civilized world.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:01PM (16 children)
I see very dangerous driving all the time. What I see these years is probably at least one minor incident per 15 minutes of road time and one major incident every few trips. I think we agree on the awfulness of a significant number of the human drivers. Where we probably disagree is how many decades off safe autopilots will be on the market for cars.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:31PM (7 children)
Where we probably disagree is how many decades off safe autopilots will be on the market for cars.
I don't know that we disagree here; I haven't stated any strong belief about any specific timeframe where I believe automated cars will be the norm. Given the inherent complexity of driving, I'm somewhat skeptical, but they do have cars driving themselves around now for research purposes, so I'm keeping an open mind. We've seen other places where some technology went from R&D to being rolled out en masse in a very short amount of time: the internet, smartphones, etc., and it was very surprising and disruptive. Personally, I wish we'd work more on SkyTran; the system should be even safer (cars are suspended from elevated rails, so the operational complexity is a couple orders of magnitude less), not to mention much more energy-efficient (tiny, lightweight, electric-driven 2-person cars on Maglev rails with no intersections as they operate in 3D space, instead of 3000-lb. gas-driven cars on rubber tires on the existing mostly-2D road network complete with stoplights every few hundred feet), and much faster too (again, no stoplights). We still need automated road-going vehicles, as many places aren't dense enough for a PRT system like SkyTran, and other vehicles like trucks should be automated too, but we could cover so many travelers with PRT that we'd greatly increase time efficiency (people wasting their time in traffic) and energy efficiency (wouldn't need foreign oil with so many fewer gas cars needed).
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:23PM (5 children)
On the whole, I agree with your sentiments about the pace of technology. However, the examples you gave are actually terrible ones:
The Internet: Let's be generous and say that the Internet as we know it today came to be with HTML/web browsers, which was in 1990. The first APRANet link went live in 1969. That's about 20 years.
Smartphones: Let's be *really* generous this time and call the Inter@ctive Pager 900, announced on September 18, 1996 the first smartphone. The Osborne 1 was the first *portable* computer, released in 1981. Hmm...fifteen years. Not so long. But the first cellular phone (which is, arguably, in this day and age of apps mostly just being proprietary interfaces to web sites, much more important) was introduced in 1973, some 23 years before the first "smartphone."
As such, this sort of thing generally takes *decades* to meld disparate technologies into such disruptive applications.
Given the rapid development of mobile communications, computing power and expert systems [wikipedia.org] in other areas, it's not surprising that such technologies would be used, and are *already being used*, for transportation systems [wikipedia.org]. As such, I think it's more useful to gauge the advent of actual, commercially available, autonomous vehicles in terms of billions of road miles without an accident or failure (a rough analog to MTBF, perhaps?)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:57PM (4 children)
I don't think my examples are bad at all, when you look at things from the point-of-view of regular people rather than technologists.
The Internet: Let's be generous and say that the Internet as we know it today came to be with HTML/web browsers, which was in 1990. The first APRANet link went live in 1969. That's about 20 years.
To regular people, "the internet" didn't exist before about 1994, at least not in a form that they could access or care about. The MOSAIC browser was released in 1993, and that was the thing that really kicked things off, and within 7 years we had the Dot-Com boom and then bust. Regular people didn't care that academics were using ARPAnet in the 70s.
Smartphones: Let's be *really* generous this time and call the Inter@ctive Pager 900, announced on September 18, 1996 the first smartphone.
Again, no. I've never even heard of that thing, and I was certainly around at that time (and I do remember using MOSAIC when it was new). To regular people, the first real smartphone was the Apple iPhone, released in 2006. No one cared about WinMo and other crap that came before that; it was the iPhone's "slate" form factor and ease-of-use that really changed things and brought smartphones to the public consciousness. It wasn't long after that that Android became a real competitor, and suddenly everyone and their dog had a smartphone.
But the first cellular phone ... was introduced in 1973, some 23 years before the first "smartphone."
I never said anything about (non-smart) cellular phones. A phone that you can only talk on is simply not comparable in any sense to a modern smartphone. I barely do any talking on my phone; it's mostly for data and other uses: chat/texting apps, web browsing, GPS navigation, etc. This is like comparing a modern PC to a 4-function calculator. They're just not remotely the same kind of device.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:20PM (3 children)
Just to clarify, I wasn't attacking you. Nor was I trying to diminish your arguments. I merely wanted to point out that there's always history and (usually decades) long R&D cycles for just about everything. For example, without the work of Rutherford, Geiger, the Curies, Einstein and others around the turn of the 20th century, we wouldn't have had any real understanding of nuclear physics. Shooting alpha particles at gold foil bears little resemblance to the NIF and ITER hydrogen fusion reactors, but the Geiger-Marsden Experiment [wikipedia.org] was critical research without which atomic physics, quantum mechanics and all the attendant technologies stemming from those fields would have been set back until their discoveries had been *researched* by others instead.
You said, and I quote:
And in response to my post you said, and I quote again:
"Regular people" do R&D? I think not. And without that R&D, (in your examples, the Internet and smart phones) would not exist. Full stop. That's the way it has been for a long time, and will likely be so forever. The difference today is that with the Internet and ubiquitous connectivity (based on those decades of R&D), both the rate of change *and* (more importantly in the case of autonomous vehicles, IMHO) the volume of self-promotion have increased exponentially.
I was around, and actually working in IT when Mosaic (from NCSA [illinois.edu] -- which took Tim Berners-Lee's work and made it simpler to use, but again, NCSA folks certainly weren't, and still aren't, "regular people") was released and found it much better (well, at least when there were sites to actually visit) than Usenet, anonymous FTP lists, Archie, Veronica and Jughead. What is commercially available and what's in R&D are generally pretty far apart, except in incremental (like HTML/HTTP/etc.) improvements in the technology. The basic concepts and the technologies to support those concepts took decades to develop.
As for smartphones, without the cellular (or Wifi -- whose forerunner AlohaNet, actually predates Ethernet -- developed in the early 1970s) networks designed to carry data (often referred to as "packet radio") were developed along with AlohaNet back in the early 1970s.
ARPANet, AlohaNet, "portable" computing, continued miniaturization and density of transistors (first observed, but already in progress, in the mid 1960s) as well as a number of other technologies required *decades* of R&D before anyone could commercialize the Internet or create smartphones.
"Regular people" didn't know/see/care about that stuff until it was ready to be commercialized, and (as you pointed out in the case of smartphones, not even for a decade after it was first commercialized).
Even for the Internet, there were commercial entities doing business there long before Mosaic.
Back to your initial post, I agree with your reasoning and reticence to make predictions. There are too many unknowns at this point -- even with some cars on the road -- we're nowhere near ready for commercialization.
That said, R&D into autonomous vehicles has been going on for a long, long, time. Trains are a great example of that, as I linked i my initial post.
If you think that R&D begins when a corporation decides to design a product for mass distribution, you misunderstand what R&D is. I have neither the time or the inclination to to teach you the history of technology. There are many good books about it, and If you don't like to actually *read*, check out stuff like How We Got To Now [pbs.org] and other (inferior to books on the subject) audiovisual offerings.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:46PM (2 children)
Maybe I misspoke about the R&D thing, but as far as the internet is concerned, while the underpinnings of the internet (packet-switched networking, TCP/IP) were around long before the WWW, how long was it between the invention of HTML, HTTP, the WWW and its wide adoption by regular people? It wasn't very long. Obviously, they rely completely on those other technologies I mentioned, namely TCP/IP, but it's the same with self-driving cars: they rely on 1) cars (chassis, engines, suspensions, etc.; we have this stuff down pretty well at this point), 2) computer hardware (that's quite mature as well), 3) operating systems (also quite mature), 4) various sensors (radar cruise control and blind-spot monitoring is pretty commonly available these days on pedestrian cars), 5) GPS navigation (not quite as mature as the others, but millions of people use it daily), etc.
Same goes for smartphones; sure, they depend on the cellular technologies, just like self-driving cars depend on suspensions and brakes, but that stuff is old, mature technology, just like cellular tech was by the time the iPhone came out.
So my whole point is that once the enabling technologies are in place and converge, it frequently doesn't take that long for something built on top of them to take off commercially and become common. Most of the enabling technologies for self-driving cars have been around for ages (ICE engines, computers), and others are fairly mature as well. The "new stuff" is really the algorithms to make it all work. Also, don't forget, self-driving cars have been around as R&D projects for probably a couple decades now. I think there's a self-driving car from the 1990s at the Smithsonian. However, these older projects were used off-road, though in the 00s I think they started doing on-road projects.
So far, the research vehicles are showing great promise, and remarkably low failure rates. And when there is some kind of accident or incident, it's almost always the fault of some human driver who ran into the autonomous car, frequently because the robocar follows the traffic laws too well and isn't as aggressive as human drivers.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:54PM
You're missing out the fact that for safe mass adoption they also need:
6) Advanced neural AI with the ability to improvise when new problems present themselves and decades of knowledge of the many social cues and habits of human drivers.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @12:33AM
Yes. I agree wholeheartedly.
As I said from the beginning, I don't disagree with your arguments, I just thought the examples you used weren't that good.
So why don't we just agree to agree and snatch victory from the jaws of victory?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @06:01AM
I couldn't find it through a quick search since the search space is more polluted now and Google has gotten worse (no more scholar search link), but there were autonomous golf carts in the late 70s or early 80s. With a slight change in road design, we could have had automated transportation a decade ago. But that's a high up front cost and our culture doesn't value such things.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:13PM (7 children)
Seems to me your evaluation of "minor incident" of dangerous driving is defined as putting the key in the ignition.
If you were seeing that much danger every 15 minutes, you would also be seeing at least one in ten of those "dangerous driving" resulting in an accident.
Failing that, what you see and interpret as "dangerous" is, by definition, not dangerous.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:43PM (2 children)
Depends how you define a minor incident. I see minor incidents more often than every 15 minutes, by which I include : running red lights, being in wrong lane, tailgating, obstructive parking, cutting in, failing to signal, driver being on a phone, cuting the centre line - and I won't even count speeding. These are all things that a SD car would not do.
OTOH I have little confidence in SD cars reliably coping with other than clearly and nicely laid-out roads - like th ones I see in videos demonstrating how good SD cars are supposed to be. Where I live in rural Wales there are many single track roads with no reliable side verges, and on meeting a vehicle coming the other way a kind of waving negotiation takes place as to which of you reverses perhaps 500 yards to the nearest entirely unofficial patch of rough banking or undergrowth that it is possible to get up or into in order to allow the other one to squeeze past. An SD car is never going to enter such an area. It is going to need official passing places. In other words roads are going to need modifying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @03:25AM
While I agree with most of your post, I'm pretty sure that this part:
> and I won't even count speeding. These are all things that a SD car would not do.
...is incorrect.
SD programmers realized early on that their cars better move at the speed of surrounding traffic or they were going to get kicked off the roads pretty quickly. They might go at the slow lane speed on the freeway/motorway, but that can often be above the speed limit.
I've been on little lanes as you describe, happened to be outside Norwich, UK. Driving around a blind corner (due to tall hedges) and coming face-2-face with a large agricultural machine[*], there was no question of negotiation, I was in reverse as quickly as possible!
* It had pointy things sticking out all over.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:09AM
I'll have to agree. I see about 1-2 careless and/or dangerous actions every 10 to 15 minutes on the road. In a fairly low-population area. With low traffic. Lots of drifting over the centerline on undivided highways. Drifting across the fog line and into or nearly into the dirt. Cutting across a turn lane because they just realized they needed to make a quick stop at Wendys. When you think about it, seeing someone seriously injured or gore and death - where does everyone encounter this? On the roadways. It's so common. For many this will be the one setting they will ever encounter these kinds of gruesome events.
Automated cars will see in the dark, 360 degrees, with high resolution and will have reaction times 1000 times better than a human. They can make shitty decisions most of the time and they will still improve road safety.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 02 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)
If you were seeing that much danger every 15 minutes, you would also be seeing at least one in ten of those "dangerous driving" resulting in an accident.
Oh, I see plenty of smashed cars or cars in the ditch even though they are usually cleaned up within hours. I just don't usually see them get smashed up. Sometimes its even a bus or a tandem trailer. Two or so years ago it was both when a tandem trailer t-boned a partially full school bus just up the road.
In addition to nuke's list, some of which like failing to signal and failing to yield and leaving highbeams on, are merely status quo, I'd add a few more some serious some more serious: There are often kids dorking around with ATVs on undivided highways. I've seen ATV races at 60kph through residential neighborhoods. Back before the local highschool was shut down by the politicians, it was a regular occurence to see different motorcycles (not mopeds) travelling at highway speeds on pedestrian walkways. The most extreme case of that I saw slalom between sets of old people, a woman with a baby carriage and several dog walkers all while travelling about the same speed as me on the parallel highway. It's not uncommon to see people try to pass in their cars in the face of oncoming traffic on the undivided highway such that the oncoming traffic has to brake. Oncoming tandem trailers have drifted over into my lane coming with in centimeters of forcing me into the ditch. People are often engrossed in their phones, probably texting or watching a movie, not just talking though talking on the phone is common. Sometimes talkers have their good ear on the same side as their dominant hand so they are really contorted to keep one hand on the wheel. It's not uncommon to see street speeds in parking lots. In parking structures, it's not uncommon for cars and occasionally motor cycles to sprint. Getting passed on the wrong side happens occasionally. Once I got passed in a 50kph zone by a car going around 120kph, again on the right. Occasionally there are what I call rally turns, where the car hits the intersection almost at speed and turns sideways just before entering the crossing and relies on the grip of the drive wheels to pull it to the right direction and the friction of the tires going sideways to slow down its forward motion.
I'm sure there are more examples if I were to sit down and think about it. The slalom, 120kph, and drift were not so recent happening bewtween 1 and 3 years ago. The rest are all this winter.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:14PM (1 child)
I thought Michigan drivers were bad, but WTF do you guys live? Aggressive driving is par for the course here, but /unsafe/ driving? I see that very rarely, and usually it's drunk people late at night, or some guy on a fast bike running from the cops or street racing.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 02 2018, @01:00PM
some guy on a fast bike running from the cops or street racing
A few years ago a woman who was as high as a kite took out a road sign across the way on her way into the ditch. Supposedly she was running from the cops but they turned up long while later at a leisurely pace and then took her away. I'm curious as to how they knew where she was going. Not all accidents are due to bad driving. One old guy we knew had a fatal heart attack just up the road from us a few years ago and destroyed his car in the process. There are also minor annoyances such as the heavy equipment, such as all kinds of tractors and front loaders, commuting to and from work sites during rush hour. Farmers I don't mind because they do real work but many of these others are the result of privatizing the road maintenance and they don't have the right equipment and make do with all kinds of inappropriate earth-moving machinery to clear snow. Technically it is also illegal to burn fuel oil instead of diesel. That seems to have become a lot less frequent lately, but you still smell such a car or van every once in a while. Seeing people pass long lines on blind curves or in no-passing zones is also common.
Last week there were two conflicting reports of whether Chinese tourists would be able to use Chinese drivers licenses here while visiting. In another country, I used to know a lot of people from Mainland China and many of them considered making the car move forward as the only consideration in driving. One neighbor I only knew by sight took out a front porch that way even though it was set back far from the street. But that was decades ago.
Ok. Enough grumbling from me on that topic I think.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:05PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:54PM
I think that's probably true now, but I'm not certain whether it's actually true yet. It probably is, but...
I think I'll probably skip the first model out. Make sure the bugs are out. But I'll be quite happy for everyone else to buy in immediately. That way there'll be really thorough testing.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:53PM (8 children)
With the piloting code written and verified by humans paid peanuts on the hour and expected to deliver yesterday.
Right, what can possibly go wrong?
(perhaps a reference to BSOD may resonate with you? I mean, if you know what BSOD was)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday February 02 2018, @01:05AM (7 children)
The code in aircraft and spacecraft is generally extremely reliable. And even the code in the engine controller or ABS system in your car is reliable; when was the last time you experienced a software error with those?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 02 2018, @01:34AM (5 children)
Compare the R&D timeframe for a new airplane model with the timeframe for a new car model.
Compare the number of situations an airplane autopilot (or landing assist) has to handle with the number of situations a car "autopilot" needs to handle - eg tell me when the airplane autopilot needs to handle "kids playing ball on the footpath".
Compare the sensing equipment you can afford (in available space and weight) to mount on an airplane - phased radar array, radio equip - with the same for a car (some LIDARS, maybe some WiFi).
Compare the cost of infrastructure on an airport (radiobeacons, airstrip illumination/signalling) with the infrastructure of the same nature (semaphores, lane dividing lines, road signs) available on roads. Don't forget the maintenance state and related cost as well.
Do you really think I should continue enumerating the specific differences or are the above enough?
3 years back with the throttle control - overrevving or underrevving wildly - it went astray due to a defective sensor, needed to replace the sensor and the damned controller.
About $1800 and 4 weeks I couldn't use my car (fortunately those $1800 included the price for a courtesy car).
You may argue "that wasn't a bug". Maybe so, but it set into evidence one thing: no fallback solution from a failing electronic solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:09PM (2 children)
That's not a great comparison, because aircraft are so low volume that a lot of the components are bespoke for that model (or shared between a very small handful). In contrast, cars are high volume and high design turnover, so most 'car companies' buy huge amounts of off-the-shelf components from companies like Bosch. The R&D timeframes on these components are often several generations of car, but the end integrators just build with whatever the latest available parts are that year.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 02 2018, @12:23PM (1 child)
Implicit assumption: the problem had already been solved (by Bosch and the like).
Reality check level 4 car autonomy hasn't been reached, timeline to level 5 (complete autonomy) is everybody's guess [techrepublic.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday February 05 2018, @11:46AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday February 02 2018, @03:51PM (1 child)
3 years back with the throttle control - overrevving or underrevving wildly - it went astray due to a defective sensor, needed to replace the sensor and the damned controller.
About $1800 and 4 weeks I couldn't use my car (fortunately those $1800 included the price for a courtesy car).
What kind of car was this? And why would you need to replace the controller? Because the shop wants to make more money?
Compare the number of situations an airplane autopilot (or landing assist) has to handle with the number of situations a car "autopilot" needs to handle - eg tell me when the airplane autopilot needs to handle "kids playing ball on the footpath".
It can already handle that with the existing sensors. Also, if kids run out in front of cars, the driver is generally not at fault as long as they weren't speeding.
Compare the sensing equipment you can afford (in available space and weight) to mount on an airplane - phased radar array, radio equip - with the same for a car (some LIDARS, maybe some WiFi).
We have phased radar arrays on cars. Every car with "adaptive cruise control" has such an array on the front. That stuff has gotten seriously small and cheap. The arrays on aircraft are a lot larger and power-hungry though because they need far more distance ability (tens of miles, instead of maybe a quarter-mile at the very most).
Anyway, I agree that the complexity of driving is pretty daunting from a reliability perspective, when you're talking about the reliability of not hitting things and reacting properly to situations. I wasn't addressing that. I was addressing software reliability in the engineering sense: does it crash, is it buggy, etc.? Autonomous vehicle software can be perfectly reliable in executing its algorithms, while still not reacting that well to external situations and leading to a vehicle crash. The complaint before was that software is generally buggy, and I was pointing out that we already have lots of software that really isn't. Of course, you have a valid complaint about throttle-by-wire control software not handling a hardware fault gracefully, but even here this isn't evidence of "buggy" software, just a poor algorithm for handling hardware faults. As I asked before, when was the last time your engine controller blue-screened? This stuff just doesn't happen with properly designed embedded software.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:54PM
The two are related. The more complex the situation the software has to face, the higher complexity of software.
The more complex the software, the higher chances of bugs.
And no, even when I used BSOD as an example, I wasn't restricting myself to "software crashes" - I used the example to show that any complex software will have bugs, some with fatal consequences. Especially commercially developed software, where the sales critters prevail in front of engineering.
Look, satellites are lost due to bugs and I have good reasons to believe the software they run is less complex than one needed for a level 4 or 5 car autonomy.
And really, I can't give a dam' if the software is so robust it doesn't crash and continue to run through its various bugs oblivious to consequences.
Mate, ABS software is so simple it can be implemented mechanically/hydraulically - it was certainly implemented this way in the '50-ies [wikipedia.org]. There can be no meaningful comparison between the complexity of ABS "software" and the one required by driveless cars.
Given the difference between a software that any decent microcontroller can run and a software to recognize and react properly to road situation, if you think the last will be bug-free, ...
Implicit assumption: the cars will have "properly designed embedded software".
Reality check - the auto industry couldn't design an entertainment system separate from the car control/navigation, which led to serious vulns. And this less than 3 years ago [wired.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @03:40AM
> ABS system in your car is reliable; when was the last time you experienced a software error with those?
Last week, and every time I come to a snow-covered icy patch in a nearby mall, where the road is slightly downhill and then turns. These conditions are common here, all through the winter. The damn brakes make the usual noises (the ABS pulsing pump is working) and the car does not slow down to any useful extent. Luckily this car still has a manual hand brake that will lock the rear wheels and build up a wedge of snow that provides *some* deceleration. Obviously I now approach this spot slowly, and still wind up sliding through it--the sight lines are good enough that I can see if any other cars are going to be there and slow down even more in advance if needed.
The software is defective and when I've discussed with some of the authors (I work in a related auto engineering field) they throw up their hands and say that they haven't yet figured out how to deal with "deform-able surfaces".
How is your autonomous car going to deal with this? My guess is that it puts on the brakes and the ABS has it sliding right off the road.
Another car I use is old enough that it does not have ABS. This situation is easy to deal with -- just lock the wheels (very light brake pedal pressure since the surface is very slick). This builds up wedges of snow in front of *all four wheels* and the car slows down fairly well. Of course with wheels locked, it starts to slide and/or spin. After a second or two, I judge that it's time to release the brakes for a moment, long enough to do a little steering and get back on course. Then lock the wheels again. Repeat. No drama after a little practice.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:55PM
Escalators and elevators are much simpler machines and require vastly simpler software to control. Yet accidents [telegraph.co.uk] happen with both all the time. Most of them are minor some are major, but they happen all the time despite the simplicity. Just ask any lift inspector. The software for controlling cars is not even to the half-baked stage yet and it comes, for the moment, on top of all the other problems that recent cars have with their existing internal networked control systems.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:11PM (2 children)
But an escalator is never out of order, it just becomes stairs. "Escalator temporarily stairs, sorry for the convenience." -Mitch Hedberg
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 01 2018, @10:31PM (1 child)
People sometimes lose limbs on escalators.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Friday February 02 2018, @05:50PM
Just wait at the top, the limbs will show up there eventually.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:18PM (5 children)
This might sound like a valid argument if I weren't a programmer. But I am and I wouldn't trust code written by God himself and reviewed by Donald Knuth to control the number of cars we have on the roads every single day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:16PM (1 child)
Sounds a little pessimistic? Or are you just a bad programmer?
You do realize that that 1,300,000 people are dead on the roads in the world everyday people of idiots on the roads? All software has to do is kill less than 1,000,000 people per year and we are greatly reducing the most likely violent reason you are going to die...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:19PM
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:15AM
I would trust written by the lowest of the low short-term contract Java web applet programer to control vehicles over the typical human I see on the road.
The fact that it will pay attention to it's sensors and not poke around on a phone half the time will, taken by itself, save numerous lives. Imagine. Imagine what it would be like to be on the road with vehicles that "know" how to drive in the first rain and snow of the season. Imagine the bliss of it.
The typical human's vast, limitless, over-confidence in their abilities is truly marvelous.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:11PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 02 2018, @02:03PM
Not when you consider it's going to be on the road with those average shitty drivers (and the ones far worse than average). Accounting for predictable input is easy. Accounting for insane bullshit? Not so much.
Random examples of crazy shit to account for: cows in the road, thick smoke that you can't see through and don't want to be breathing covering the road from wildfires, stupid motherfucker pulled over and getting out of the driver's side door, tractor trailer worth of eggs dumped all over the road. These are each and every one things I've seen and dealt with easily while driving, some crazy bitch who starts to turn left across your lane but freaks out when she sees coming you and stops across both lanes leaving you not remotely enough time to stop. That last one made for a fun near-death story but I wouldn't trust most human drivers to be able to handle it well much less a computer.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.