ARE SELF-DRIVING CARS A THREAT ??

Self-driving car technology is advancing at almost light speed. Lots of companies with mega money are heavily into it. AVIS just inked a big bucks deal for some company to manage their self-driving fleet ... which doesn't even exist yet. It won't be long before we see a lot of these cars on the road. When they become the majority of the vehicles out there, I'm afraid that it's gonna be hard to buy a car/truck that you can drive yourself, if not impossible. The ones available will probably cost a fortune. Then the government (probably in California first) will pass some law saying that only self-driving cars are allowed on the freeways, because cars driven by people cause accidents.

I told my son to never sell his 2010 Ram 2500 4x4, and if he does, to sell it to me. It has a 5.7L hemi and a 6-speed manual. Like the 60s-70s muscle cars, you'll never be able to buy something like that again.

Am I wrong about this scenario ?? What do you guys think ??

- JAMES

 

As much of a threat as cars were to horse & buggies.

 

For now they are a threat.. but they won't release automatic cars to the general public until they can guarantee the software behind them is almost perfect. The automatic car industry couldn't survive if they were bugged and were killing people in certain scenarios. For now they'll probably stick with trucking routes/deliveries before they add in custom locations and routes.

 

We're still at the point where the self driving cars can do most of the work, but it needs driver attention for sudden changes in the route as well as any sudden hazards.

We're a long way from Demolition Man style cars.

 

They maybe a threat. But no more so than stupid people....and the world runneth over with them. They're prolific breeders

 

But that is actually be part of the programming, the cars will have to make a calculation on whether crashing and potentially killing you is the better option than hitting another vehicle and potentially killing others as well.

But if all the vehicles are self driving than the odds of an accident are drastically reduced, as lets face it humans are terrible drivers. As more and more cars become self driving the number of accidents will decrease.

 

That is the scary part, people will not like losing the ability to make split second decisions. I read somewhere (can't remember where) that that is one of the main reasons major airlines do not use automatic planes besides auto pilot. A computer will be more specific and do its job, but a lot of people will not like the loss of human interaction and decision making. Obviously if only computers are interacting then it is a much safer option. But, you will always have those who would not like lack of control and that will pose another problem with automatic cars having to interact with spontaneous driving from humans.

 

Accidents are the 4th leading cause of death in America. In 2014, of the 136,000 accidental deaths, 34,000 were motor vehicle accidents. It's hard to believe that self driving cars can't improve on this statistic.

 

The technology for driverless cars is in parallel with other technologies.

People who I consider smart are worried about where it is leading, so perhaps we should be thinking about it also

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_on_Artificial_Intelligence

“Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history...unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.” Steven Hawking

 

They are a major threat!
What is promised. . .


What will actually happen. . .

 

We constantly hear about operating systems being hacked, the thought of someone gaining access to driverless cars at 70 mph with malicious intent is concerning.

Also to expand on another post about the car making ethical decisions on who should die in the event of an accident, say for instance the car has to choose between swerving into four 3 year old children or six geriatrics how do you build into programming that simply number of lives lost may not necessarily be the deciding factor in those critical decisions. Not to be completely morbid and say older people are less important just curious how the car would be programmed to react.

 

It will give new meaning to:

Fatal Error Reading Drive C:

Abort, Retry, Fail?

 

But it is creating a new job market......... a big one.

GM is in for $1MM to own/invest. This link shows the jobs for the next 10 years

https://boards.greenhouse.io/cruise#.WVKNd-kpDIV

https://www.getcruise.com/

Trucking, running at night, is on the cusp of happening in Tennessee.

 

I just hope I am long-dead before all this nonsense happens.

We are trying to save way too many stupid peoples' lives with technology. I'm okay with stupid people dying off.

 

Network infrastructure and security are valid concerns; AI having to choose who to run over is not.
A self driving vehicle isn't going to drive at a group of people at 70 mph and try to make a last second decision as to how to minimize casualties. Rather, this is something a human driver would do.

 

I read about self-driving cars in cities, but what about narrow, unpaved, mountain roads? I drive those more often than I do city streets. I believe it will be a long time before self-driving cars can handle back roads.

 

I personally can not imagine a scenario where those are the only two options.

 

It's not that difficult. Self-driving car is going down a four lane road at 45 mph in moderate traffic through a residential area in the far right lane. I drive through plenty of these areas in Charlotte daily.

Four children run into the street to chase a ball or toy or whatever because their parents are too preoccupied to watch them. Human error/stupidity causes the situation.

The car has options to choose from:

1.) Swerve into car beside it in left lane pushing both cars potentially into oncoming traffic at speeds of approximately 45 mph.

2.) Swerve right into a a group of six power-walking retirees on their way back to the retirement community for active seniors.

3.) Mow down the kids.

Scenario three has the least potential casualties, scenario one has the most and scenario two is in the middle. So since you can't take the human element out of autonomous driving completely due to outside forces how do you program a car to deal with a scenario like this? I find it hard to believe that scenarios like this would not be discussed in the planning stages of self-driving cars.

 

Yes they are! Which is why I am stocking up on ammo.