5 ms·

The incentives likely don't matter in the future because the future of Uber is driverless cars.

by barney54 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 10y ago
In the future, we'll have unicorns towing magic carpets, so Uber won't matter.
- ktta 10y ago
  I'd also like unicorns towing magic carpets and appreciate the sarcasm, self driving cars are not the 'unicorn' anymore. Uber is actively investing in prepping for a self-driving world.[0][1] https://newsroom.uber.com/mapping-ubers-future/ https://newsroom.uber.com/mapping-ubers-future/ http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/31/12338268/uber-maps-investment-500-million http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/31/12338268/uber-maps-investm...
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    When a ~$100k Tesla can't successfully avoid a stationary guardrail or a turning semi, even under the limited conditions that it's autopilot actually attempts to run under, I'd say it's massively premature to suggest that there's anything like a driverless future coming in even the medium-term for affordable vehicles. There's just too many variables on our roads and the stakes are too high. If they are coming, it's more than 25 years away IMO. Remember 25 years ago, cars weren't super different from today. ABS was first in a production car in 1971. I think the average car on the road now is 11 years old, so there's bound to be unpredictable manually-driven cars still on the road for a long time that any driverless cars would still have to contend with as well. Self driving cars are pretty much unicorns.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      It isn't about single accidents; its about statistics. Autodriven cars don't get tired, or drunk, or fool around with the playlist. There is so much low-hanging fruit that its entirely conceivable that autodrive is already safer (statistically) than human drivers. Add to this, that each time a special case comes along, the software can be patched and it won't happen again. Something humans are terrible at - learning from others' mistakes.
      - tedmiston 10y ago
        I think parent comment was suggesting that human-driven cars that behave erratically are better handled by opposing humans rather than software (that has not been exposed to dealing with the novel situation). (Not that auto-driven cars don't produce less accidents when other human-driven cars behave expectedly.)
        brokenmachine 10y ago
        I'm imagining that driverless cars could work well on very predictable roads that are exclusively for driverless cars. But on real roads with questionable maintenance and other unpredictable cars on it, I just can't see it happening unless there's some major change to the roads infrastructure.
      - brokenmachine 10y ago
        So when an autodriven car maims little Johnny, before they patch the bug to not run over future infants, then who's responsible and has to pay? What if other cars maim more infants before they get around to patching what is now a known bug? You can't blame the driver, they weren't driving. The car manufacturers can't accept blame, as it costs a lot if you have to factor in the cost of a lifetime of support for a maimed infant. Even ignoring the fact that it only works on highways and not normal surface roads, Tesla's "beta" Autopilot feature takes no responsibility because the driver is still supposed to be holding the wheel. Also as any software developer would tell you, software updates would also be a problem in themselves. If you propose that cars be auto-updated automatically, I wonder how insurance would work when the car is running different software to the software it was originally insured with. Critical saftey systems can't get auto-updated without a lot of testing. What if the auto-update mechanism gets hacked, or maliciously changed by a disgruntled self-driving car employee? What if a legitimate update causes another bug where it maims the elderly now instead of infants? Do they roll back to the infant-maiming software now? I'm being silly but updates on critical safety stuff isn't so simple, especially with the legal ramifications. I think legal issues will be a problem for self-driving cars, maybe even a larger problem than the actual designing a working self-driving car problem. Someone has to be responsible for inevitable accidents (bugs?). After a century of being able to blame the driver, car companies won't want to change that status quo. Maybe insurance will decide that they'll cover self-driving cars if they prove themselves to be safe, but we'll see.

The incentives likely don't matter in the future because the future of Uber is driverless cars.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Spooky23 10y ago

In the future, we'll have unicorns towing magic carpets, so Uber won't matter.

ktta 10y ago
I'd also like unicorns towing magic carpets and appreciate the sarcasm, self driving cars are not the 'unicorn' anymore. Uber is actively investing in prepping for a self-driving world.[0][1] https://newsroom.uber.com/mapping-ubers-future/ https://newsroom.uber.com/mapping-ubers-future/ http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/31/12338268/uber-maps-investment-500-million http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/31/12338268/uber-maps-investm...
- brokenmachine 10y ago
  When a ~$100k Tesla can't successfully avoid a stationary guardrail or a turning semi, even under the limited conditions that it's autopilot actually attempts to run under, I'd say it's massively premature to suggest that there's anything like a driverless future coming in even the medium-term for affordable vehicles. There's just too many variables on our roads and the stakes are too high. If they are coming, it's more than 25 years away IMO. Remember 25 years ago, cars weren't super different from today. ABS was first in a production car in 1971. I think the average car on the road now is 11 years old, so there's bound to be unpredictable manually-driven cars still on the road for a long time that any driverless cars would still have to contend with as well. Self driving cars are pretty much unicorns.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    It isn't about single accidents; its about statistics. Autodriven cars don't get tired, or drunk, or fool around with the playlist. There is so much low-hanging fruit that its entirely conceivable that autodrive is already safer (statistically) than human drivers. Add to this, that each time a special case comes along, the software can be patched and it won't happen again. Something humans are terrible at - learning from others' mistakes.
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      I think parent comment was suggesting that human-driven cars that behave erratically are better handled by opposing humans rather than software (that has not been exposed to dealing with the novel situation). (Not that auto-driven cars don't produce less accidents when other human-driven cars behave expectedly.)
      - brokenmachine 10y ago
        I'm imagining that driverless cars could work well on very predictable roads that are exclusively for driverless cars. But on real roads with questionable maintenance and other unpredictable cars on it, I just can't see it happening unless there's some major change to the roads infrastructure.
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      So when an autodriven car maims little Johnny, before they patch the bug to not run over future infants, then who's responsible and has to pay? What if other cars maim more infants before they get around to patching what is now a known bug? You can't blame the driver, they weren't driving. The car manufacturers can't accept blame, as it costs a lot if you have to factor in the cost of a lifetime of support for a maimed infant. Even ignoring the fact that it only works on highways and not normal surface roads, Tesla's "beta" Autopilot feature takes no responsibility because the driver is still supposed to be holding the wheel. Also as any software developer would tell you, software updates would also be a problem in themselves. If you propose that cars be auto-updated automatically, I wonder how insurance would work when the car is running different software to the software it was originally insured with. Critical saftey systems can't get auto-updated without a lot of testing. What if the auto-update mechanism gets hacked, or maliciously changed by a disgruntled self-driving car employee? What if a legitimate update causes another bug where it maims the elderly now instead of infants? Do they roll back to the infant-maiming software now? I'm being silly but updates on critical safety stuff isn't so simple, especially with the legal ramifications. I think legal issues will be a problem for self-driving cars, maybe even a larger problem than the actual designing a working self-driving car problem. Someone has to be responsible for inevitable accidents (bugs?). After a century of being able to blame the driver, car companies won't want to change that status quo. Maybe insurance will decide that they'll cover self-driving cars if they prove themselves to be safe, but we'll see.