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Licensed pilot here (learned to fly in 1987). People need to look at self-driving cars in the way pilots use an auto-pilot. Auto-pilot is most useful in two si
by brianmcconnell 11y ago
Licensed pilot here (learned to fly in 1987). People need to look at self-driving cars in the way pilots use an auto-pilot.
Auto-pilot is most useful in two situations. 1) long cross country legs where there is not much flying to do (just maintain heading and altitude), so A/P frees the pilot up to manage other systems, enjoy the view, etc, and alleviates fatigue, 2) flying a precision instrument approach, reducing the risk that the pilot will succumb to spatial disorientation in the setup for (usually manual) landing.
With cars, auto-drive capability will be useful in reducing accidents in two modes: 1) long duration highway driving where fatigue is a big issue, 2) intervening to prevent a distracted driver from causing an accident (rear end collision etc).
I'd be perfectly happy with a car that can drive itself in cruise mode on the interstate, but requires an alert driver on local roads (with the added bonus that if I am about to slam into something, it will brake to avoid or lessen the impact).
Something for the liability crowd to consider, self driving cars won't be able to avoid every potential mishap, but they will be able to reduce their severity. A car that can automatically brake to reduce its speed by 25% just before impact, will reduce its kinetic energy by roughly half, and the potential for injury by more still.
- crpatino 11y agoThis is a very insightful comment, from a person who has first hand user experience with self-navigation systems. Sadly, if you dare utter blafphemy against the Almighty God of Technology, bad karma will happen to you. This is even against the hacker spirit. We loathe IDEs and cherish emacs/vi close to our hearths because what we want from automation is augmentation of human capabilities, not self mutilation + prostaethics. How can people not accept that the same formula can work best for cars?
- pathsjs 11y agoThe fact is that auto-pilot cars, as you describe them, won't be nearly as revolutionary as self-diriving cars. The latter would allow people to put to good use the time to commute to work; they would improve car-sharing to the point that people would not need a personal car and parking could become a problem of the past; they would allow you to get back home safely after some drinks; eventually people would not need to learn to drive at all. The mere augmentation of human drivers, as useful as it would be, would not change much in our habits
- J-dawg 11y agoI made a similar comment elsewhere in the thread before reading yours. I think the evolution of self-driving cars will be through the gradual improvement of auto-pilot cars until the human just has to sit there and do nothing 99% of the time (but still be legally in control).
- stillsut 11y agoYour comment made me think: Could driverless cars kill the domestic airline industry? If I could get from NY to Florida in less than a day in my driverless car, and at sub-$2-gas, who would want to do the security check-in, luggage ripoff, flight delay thing when going less than 1000 miles?
- knughit 11y agoAre you familiar with Amtrak.com?
- grillvogel 11y agoat least on the west coast, amtrak routes are slower than driving and more expensive than flying