4 ms·
The fears are not of technology but of loss of control. What you describe is similar to how some are afaid of flying in an airplane yet readidy drive a car, des
by athenot 10y ago
The fears are not of technology but of loss of control. What you describe is similar to how some are afaid of flying in an airplane yet readidy drive a car, despite the latter having several orders of magnitude more probability for death.
- iamatworknow 10y agoExactly. There are a lot of people who simply won't trust a "robot" to drive for them, regardless of their safety record.
- mr_overalls 10y agoYou'd be surprised what people can reconsider when there's a financial incentive. Drastically higher insurance costs for human drivers will likely be one such incentive.
- iamatworknow 10y agoThere are plenty of people who will just fail to see the financial incentive, even after it's become obvious to people like you and I. Unless the cost becomes truly debilitating (and, granted, at some point it probably will) they won't change. Don't underestimate how stubborn people can be, especially if they're Americans who feel their freedom is being threatened.
- dragonwriter 10y agoThe cost of personally owned vehicles is already out of reach of lots of urban Americans; for them, differences in the cost of on-demand rentals (taxi, etc.) will be quite noticeable and have significant effect. Suburban and rural residents will rely on personally owned, human driven cars longer, sure.
- CyberDildonics 10y agoThere are already trains that people get on that don't have a person operating them directly. Many people get on them without even thinking about about what is steering them.
- djsumdog 10y agoAutomated trains are substantially different, and I do mention them in the original article I referenced: http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the-transportation-problem/ http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...
- marchenko 10y agoTechnology - especially the technology required for a network of self-driving cars- creates the possibility of catastrophic failure. A multi-car pileup is a tragedy, a multi-highway pileup is a catastrophe. Also, losing control is generally psychologically unpleasant. I'm not sure we should exclude this from the cost/benefit ledger.