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That really means nothing. If you asked people "do you want a machine that dries your clothes" or "do you want a computer you carry in your pocket" a long time

That really means nothing. If you asked people "do you want a machine that dries your clothes" or "do you want a computer you carry in your pocket" a long time ago you probably would have received tepid interest.

pessimizer 10y ago
That's completely untrue.
rjdagost 10y ago
It most certainly doesn't mean nothing. It means that that there are significant trust issues that must be overcome before autonomous driving technology can get widespread acceptance. This is not a pure engineering problem that must be solved. Technologists can endlessly repeat "autonomous driving is inevitable" but that alone won't make it so.
- slavik81 10y ago
  How can you trust a thing that doesn't exist? It's certainly understandable why people might hedge their bets. It's a lot to ask to get commitment to something sight-unseen. I have faith that the trust will arrive soon after the technology does. In the article, they state that Google thinks it will be 30 years before cars will be fully capable without steering wheels. If I were a survey respondent, I wouldn't want to wait that long to get my next car either.
rdtsc 10y ago
I think most people have driven a car with cruise control. Some cars have the "stay in lane" feature. People have certainly been riding in cars driven by others. I don't think it is a huge leap for them to imagine what it would be like riding in a passenger seat but car just drives itself. As most political science people would know, it depends how the question was asked. It can be asked to insinuate that there would be a Windows 7 computer running their car and it would be taking the person 80 mph on the highway or through the crowded 5 lane bumper to bumper traffic to a job interview, or some important appointment they might say "no". They can immediately imagine horror scenarios happening. I only found the abstract to couldn't see how questions were formulated: http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/SWT-2016-8_Abstract_English.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/SWT-2016-8_Abstract_Engli...
mbesto 10y ago
Neither of those is an immediate evolution of their predecessor. Autonomous cars literally have the exact same structure of their predecessor (the manually driven car), they just simply automate the manual labor required to operate the machinery.
thaumasiotes 10y ago
> If you asked people "do you want a machine that dries your clothes" [] a long time ago you probably would have received tepid interest. You can ask this question of people today and still receive at best tepid interest. Dryers are unpopular in China.
- dboreham 10y ago
  And Europe* *Washers with the built in dryer that never really works don't count.

pessimizer 10y ago

That's completely untrue.

rjdagost 10y ago

It most certainly doesn't mean nothing. It means that that there are significant trust issues that must be overcome before autonomous driving technology can get widespread acceptance. This is not a pure engineering problem that must be solved. Technologists can endlessly repeat "autonomous driving is inevitable" but that alone won't make it so.

slavik81 10y ago
How can you trust a thing that doesn't exist? It's certainly understandable why people might hedge their bets. It's a lot to ask to get commitment to something sight-unseen. I have faith that the trust will arrive soon after the technology does. In the article, they state that Google thinks it will be 30 years before cars will be fully capable without steering wheels. If I were a survey respondent, I wouldn't want to wait that long to get my next car either.

rdtsc 10y ago

I think most people have driven a car with cruise control. Some cars have the "stay in lane" feature. People have certainly been riding in cars driven by others. I don't think it is a huge leap for them to imagine what it would be like riding in a passenger seat but car just drives itself. As most political science people would know, it depends how the question was asked. It can be asked to insinuate that there would be a Windows 7 computer running their car and it would be taking the person 80 mph on the highway or through the crowded 5 lane bumper to bumper traffic to a job interview, or some important appointment they might say "no". They can immediately imagine horror scenarios happening. I only found the abstract to couldn't see how questions were formulated: http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/SWT-2016-8_Abstract_English.pdf http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/SWT-2016-8_Abstract_Engli...

mbesto 10y ago

Neither of those is an immediate evolution of their predecessor. Autonomous cars literally have the exact same structure of their predecessor (the manually driven car), they just simply automate the manual labor required to operate the machinery.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

> If you asked people "do you want a machine that dries your clothes" [] a long time ago you probably would have received tepid interest. You can ask this question of people today and still receive at best tepid interest. Dryers are unpopular in China.

dboreham 10y ago
And Europe* *Washers with the built in dryer that never really works don't count.