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One accident might set back consumer driving for 50 years, but not commercial. The safety record simply needs to be much better than human drivers, which shoul

by vgoh1 10y ago

One accident might set back consumer driving for 50 years, but not commercial. The safety record simply needs to be much better than human drivers, which shouldn't be too hard, because one driver is already taken out of the equation. And there are billions upon billions to be saved, in our corporatocracy of the USA, it WILL happen. Bad roads shouldn't be too much of a problem, they can just use humans on the bad roads, the bulk of our highways are in good shape. Snow is an issue, yes, but remember that they will have the highways perfectly GPS mapped, great reaction time, and commercial vehicles can have big ugly shrouds to keep cameras clean. There is also the possibility of hiring temporary human drivers for the worst snow days, but I don't see that happening because I honestly think the robots can have a much better safety record in snow. The plastic bag/rock thing could be a problem, that could be partially solved by just assuming it's a rock, pulling over to the side and waiting for a remote human to identify it, and clearly mark the truck as autonomous so the humans on the road know to expect different behavior from it. That's not a perfect solution, but we have thousands of the smartest people working on it - there is enough money at stake, it will be solved.

mattlutze 10y ago
Public and political perception need to consider autonomous commercial trucking to be safe, rather than safer. "Safer than human drivers" all too easily becomes "we can't control when these robot trucks my crash into a mother driving her kids to school," when you put it into the political regulation arena.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  > Public and political perception need to consider autonomous commercial trucking to be safe, rather than safer. No, safer than humans is the bar.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    That should be the bar, because it's the morally correct one. But public opinion is far from rational, and corporate interests would choose the suboptimal route if they could get away with it.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  So it's all fine when a lorry rear ends and pancakes a car because the driver fell asleep?
  - gambiting 10y ago
    No, but if a driver falls asleep it's clearly their fault, if they survive the accident they will be charged with manslaughter. If a driverless truck rear ends a car because of a glitch or a mechanical fault where it didn't see the car in front for some reason, then I can only imagine the corporation recalling all of them at huge cost, and possibly paying millions of dollars in damages. I think the point is that when humans crash the responsibility is easy to establish, but we have no framework to work with once computers crash(and they will). And no, "they are still safer than humans" is not a valid defense when someone dies.
    - karmacondon 10y ago
      The company making the vehicles will be responsible for any damages, and paying a massive insurance premium I'm sure. There will be legal consequences for gross negligence and anyone damaged will be made whole. I don't see how that's any different than the system we have now. And the emotional appeals cut both ways. How long before the parents of a child killed by a drunk or sleeping truck driver say "Why was he driving anyway? Why wasn't he replaced by a machine that wouldn't drink a six pack and nod off while at the wheel?"
      - moskie 10y ago
        > How long before the parents of a child say ... "Why wasn't he replaced by a machine?" The ultimate point being that the answer might be "decades." It might take that long for the prevailing opinion amongst the public and/or politicians to change that way. And it is affected by the actual accidents involving automated vehicles in the short term.
      - intended 10y ago
        That's partly an effect of being on HN. In non tech circles - the vast majority of the world - people are pretty famous for measuring risks by perception and not statistics. The idea of a robotic truck taking away jobs while also being a risk to life? America would take up mass transit before it buys into that system. Man I can see the headlines and political/ emotional arguments now. Godless SV tech priests rob Americans of the last few jobs they have. 1% and automation, no job left behind.! It's useful to remember that People refused seat belts until the argument was irrefutable. Hell doctors didn't wash hands regularly until it was drilled into their heads that they were infecting patients. And when it come to automated personal care - I bet that People will utterly, vociferously, oppose the loss of their agency in controlling their means of movement. People have romanticized the man and the horse, the man and the bike, the car - but it's because it's a matter of controlling that power. Selling that to the American public and the world at large is a multi generational effort.
- saturdaysaint 10y ago
  Did cars or trains need to be perfectly safe? Even modestly "safer" autonomous vehicles would save thousands of lives every year and provide priceless benefit to society, giving us millions of productive hours and giving people that can't drive (the elderly and handicapped) new independence.
celticninja 10y ago
I agree re: the rock/bag, err on the side of caution because any potential delays will be dwarfed by the overall savings of autonomous vehicles and lead to safer driving for other road users.
- deathhand 10y ago
  Wanna know the great thing about humanity? We have almost solved this problem, twice: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112882857/new-scanning-laser-sees-object-composition-062513/ http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112882857/new-scanning... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231041901_Portable_LIBS_system_for_determining_the_composition_of_multilayer_structures_on_objects_of_cultural_value https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231041901_Portable_...
wang_li 10y ago
Why do you think a truck driver is more expensive than an autonomous driving system? Have you priced enterprise software lately? It's not like you'll pay a flat-rate one-time fee and have your robotic driver available to you. You'll end up paying based on your vehicle capacity, on the annual mileage, on the annual driving time, possibly even on the market cap of the purchasing company. Then you'll pay annual costs for support of the software. Beyond a mandate from the government, I have a hard time seeing the trucking industry giving all their profits over to google, tesla, gm, mercedes, and co.
- jfoster 10y ago
  Once the technology is built, it would make sense for the tech company to price their solution somewhere between $0 and whatever the status quo costs. Then they will want to sell as much of the tech as possible, so the pricing will be such that it is prioritized by the trucking companies.

by vgoh1 10y ago

mattlutze 10y ago

Public and political perception need to consider autonomous commercial trucking to be safe, rather than safer. "Safer than human drivers" all too easily becomes "we can't control when these robot trucks my crash into a mother driving her kids to school," when you put it into the political regulation arena.

gnaritas 10y ago
> Public and political perception need to consider autonomous commercial trucking to be safe, rather than safer. No, safer than humans is the bar.
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  That should be the bar, because it's the morally correct one. But public opinion is far from rational, and corporate interests would choose the suboptimal route if they could get away with it.
emp_zealoth 10y ago
So it's all fine when a lorry rear ends and pancakes a car because the driver fell asleep?
- gambiting 10y ago
  No, but if a driver falls asleep it's clearly their fault, if they survive the accident they will be charged with manslaughter. If a driverless truck rear ends a car because of a glitch or a mechanical fault where it didn't see the car in front for some reason, then I can only imagine the corporation recalling all of them at huge cost, and possibly paying millions of dollars in damages. I think the point is that when humans crash the responsibility is easy to establish, but we have no framework to work with once computers crash(and they will). And no, "they are still safer than humans" is not a valid defense when someone dies.
  - karmacondon 10y ago
    The company making the vehicles will be responsible for any damages, and paying a massive insurance premium I'm sure. There will be legal consequences for gross negligence and anyone damaged will be made whole. I don't see how that's any different than the system we have now. And the emotional appeals cut both ways. How long before the parents of a child killed by a drunk or sleeping truck driver say "Why was he driving anyway? Why wasn't he replaced by a machine that wouldn't drink a six pack and nod off while at the wheel?"
    - moskie 10y ago
      > How long before the parents of a child say ... "Why wasn't he replaced by a machine?" The ultimate point being that the answer might be "decades." It might take that long for the prevailing opinion amongst the public and/or politicians to change that way. And it is affected by the actual accidents involving automated vehicles in the short term.
    - intended 10y ago
      That's partly an effect of being on HN. In non tech circles - the vast majority of the world - people are pretty famous for measuring risks by perception and not statistics. The idea of a robotic truck taking away jobs while also being a risk to life? America would take up mass transit before it buys into that system. Man I can see the headlines and political/ emotional arguments now. Godless SV tech priests rob Americans of the last few jobs they have. 1% and automation, no job left behind.! It's useful to remember that People refused seat belts until the argument was irrefutable. Hell doctors didn't wash hands regularly until it was drilled into their heads that they were infecting patients. And when it come to automated personal care - I bet that People will utterly, vociferously, oppose the loss of their agency in controlling their means of movement. People have romanticized the man and the horse, the man and the bike, the car - but it's because it's a matter of controlling that power. Selling that to the American public and the world at large is a multi generational effort.
saturdaysaint 10y ago
Did cars or trains need to be perfectly safe? Even modestly "safer" autonomous vehicles would save thousands of lives every year and provide priceless benefit to society, giving us millions of productive hours and giving people that can't drive (the elderly and handicapped) new independence.

celticninja 10y ago

I agree re: the rock/bag, err on the side of caution because any potential delays will be dwarfed by the overall savings of autonomous vehicles and lead to safer driving for other road users.

deathhand 10y ago
Wanna know the great thing about humanity? We have almost solved this problem, twice: http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112882857/new-scanning-laser-sees-object-composition-062513/ http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112882857/new-scanning... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231041901_Portable_LIBS_system_for_determining_the_composition_of_multilayer_structures_on_objects_of_cultural_value https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231041901_Portable_...

wang_li 10y ago

Why do you think a truck driver is more expensive than an autonomous driving system? Have you priced enterprise software lately? It's not like you'll pay a flat-rate one-time fee and have your robotic driver available to you. You'll end up paying based on your vehicle capacity, on the annual mileage, on the annual driving time, possibly even on the market cap of the purchasing company. Then you'll pay annual costs for support of the software. Beyond a mandate from the government, I have a hard time seeing the trucking industry giving all their profits over to google, tesla, gm, mercedes, and co.

jfoster 10y ago
Once the technology is built, it would make sense for the tech company to price their solution somewhere between $0 and whatever the status quo costs. Then they will want to sell as much of the tech as possible, so the pricing will be such that it is prioritized by the trucking companies.