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It’s great to explore this topic. You can have a lot of fun in picking a random industry and imagining the effect that self driving will have. Health - beyond

It’s great to explore this topic. You can have a lot of fun in picking a random industry and imagining the effect that self driving will have. Health - beyond the obvious effects on the emergency room, what else? Ambulances willl quite clearly be affected. Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? Or would the entire emergency room itself be on wheels? (Less likely.) Will seniors stay at home for longer? Absolutely. How will this affect the need for aged care nurses? Will their doctors come to them? But we can go even deeper. How will autocars affect people’s desire to exercise? Will more people ride bikes as a result of the increased safety of the roads? Education - at first glance, it’s hard to see. But this is the one I’m currently most excited about. Primary and high school education are both built on cars - we just don’t realise it, but a crucial underpinning factor for parents using a local school is its convenience for them in dropping their kids off and picking them up. When that goes away, what happens next? The demand for better public high schools will explode as the friction in going to a high school 25 minutes away in an awkward direction evaporates... This makes for much more fertile territory for new schooling concepts - if I want to start a new kind of high school, one where the kids spend a bit of time each day tending to farm animals or perhaps studying entrepreneurship, it now becomes 10x easier to build critical mass. And given how much people care about their kids educations, I expect the movements in this space to be highly disruptive. Those are two. On health, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Then there is - tourism - logistics - distribution (imagine Amazon’s FBA on steroids) - housing (what happens to all those garages? Do we build shipping-container sizes homes that fold it wherever they park?) The best way to understand the depth of the upcoming changes is to pick a seemingly unrelated industry and explore how current car-related assumptions underpin it. It becomes clear, to me, that the internet of vehicles will be even more disruptive then the internet itself.

Eridrus 9y ago
People already take.an Uber rather than wait for an ambulance if they are stable enough. You call an ambulance when moving is dangerous.
jaclaz 9y ago
>Health - beyond the obvious effects on the emergency room, what else? Ambulances willl quite clearly be affected. Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? Besides ambulances (which should be used for emergencies where medical/paramedical assistance is needed on the spot),I mean you can take a taxi (or Uber) to go to the hospital if you can move and don't need immediate assistance, consider the amount of "periodic" (daily, weekly or bi-weekly) transporting of (otherwise healthy, but not enough to be self-sufficient) patients that cannot drive or walk for long distances, like - as an example - people under dialysis or chemioterapy. Right now (at least here in Italy) usually the service is assured by volunteers that drive an ordinary car supplied by the (public or private) assistance, in most (not all) cases the patient can get into the car (and get out of it) without any assistance, and the time the volunteers provide could well be used for a number of other (needed) chores in assistance.
brudgers 9y ago
Every and each of the proposed benefits of vast public policy initiatives supported by a generous public purse in support of autonomous cars could be as easily derived from a similar public policy initiative to create public transit infrastructure.
- jsloss 9y ago
  I’m not convinced that’s true. The friction involved with public transit (limitations schedules, routes, and sharing of vehicles) are enough to limit much of the usage outlined in the above comment.
  - brudgers 9y ago
    Vehicle fleets don't solve the spatial and temporal realities that are reflected in the schedules and routes of public transit. A fleet of vehicles has to be staged to meet fluctuating demands. Mathematically, on demand vehicles are probably harder to schedule because of random variation in queuing. Consider a population of workers each of which sometimes works from home. Some days an unusually high, but not statistically unlikely, number of riders all stay home: the idling vehicles need to sit somewhere. Other days, a statistically likely but atypical number of riders don't work from home and there are not enough vehicles to go around. Public transit addresses fluctuation with a low nominal cost of providing surplus capacity to normal operation in the form of standing room. Public transit can be sized more closely to peak demand. On the other hand, from 20:00 to 06:00 the peak demand capacity of an autonomous car fleet needs to be parked somewhere. Between 06:00 and 08:00 and again between 18:00 and 20:00 the fleet needs to be moved to storage.
- jahewson 9y ago
  Sure, in a city. But I really question that in places likes Southern California with its endless, winding suburbs. The place is built for cars.
  - brudgers 9y ago
    The A16Z utopia proposes strong public policies based conclusions drawn from Denmark (about the size of Rhode Island) and the Netherlands (smaller than Delaware). Anywhere a car can go, a bus can go. To put it another way, a premise that autonomous cars will work in places like Southern California is that an autonomous car will be at your doorstep whenever you need to leave. The ideal fleet to achieve this is one car dedicated to only serving your schedule. Anything else has all the drawbacks of party line telephone service.
eclipxe 9y ago
At least where I am in the US (SoCal) distance to school is not a primary concern. The barrier to choice is not distance but school district boundaries and assignments.
mrisoli 9y ago
I remember seeing a concept video ages ago that touch on many the things that self-driving can change(from Audi I think). I always think in a fully self-driving world there would be huge shifts in the real estate market, living further from your workplace/school won't be such a problem if the commute is easy and the time is consistent, but also in a way that is more convenient than public transportation, similar to how there's higher demand for living close to good transportation links. Also, if the car can drive itself then you don't have to park it close to you when you don't need it, it can stay at a remote location while you work then "pick you up" when needed. I also wonder if that could have any effect on car ownership, one of the biggest hassles of living just with uber is that it might just fail you when you need it, either because of surge pricing or lack of drivers, such as late hours or major events, if Uber eliminates the need for drivers it can deploy its fleet at 24 hours a day besides maintenance and therefore could guarantee it's users a minimum supply in a certain area at all times. Then again, would Uber own those cars? Does it make sense for them to lease unutilized car time from owners similar to what people do with idle CPUs for crypto mining? Thus allowing owners to have some passive revenue.
- visarga 9y ago
  > Does it make sense for them to lease unutilized car time from owners similar to what people do with idle CPUs for crypto mining? I wouldn't want to find a used condom on the floor of my car when it picks me up, or vomit after a night of transporting party goers.
  - rimliu 9y ago
    Yeah, I imagine using shared self-driving cars would be as fun as using public toilets.
    - yazaddaruvala 9y ago
      Lyft cars do not feel like public toilets.
      - 9y ago
ctdonath 9y ago
Assuming "hard" self-driving... Education: more kids "driving" themselves to school. There's an age where a kid could be trusted to walk alone, but not ready to "drive" there. Get in car, car takes kid to school & back. The one thing stopping my kids from going to a preferred school is we can't drive 'em there at that time; give me a trustworthy car and I'll let it take them there. Play: like above, parents will be more likely to let the kid travel a non-trivial, non-walkable distance to play with friends. No longer bound by parental availability, parents can just authorize the kid to get in and be taken somewhere. Parking: there will be a "Napster"-type stage of anarchy where self-driving cars won't park, they'll just slowly roam around until the owner calls it back. I've spent a whole day in NYC driving in circles (while the family enjoyed scenic stops) in lieu of finding & paying for expensive parking; would be nice to just get out and let the car wander, using roads as "parking in motion". This will lead to legislation & new solutions requiring aimless vehicles to actually get off the roads, albeit into more compact storage. Tourism: lots of people dislike dealing with taxis. I'd certainly be more comfortable with an automated "pick your destination on a map" UI, evolution of getting rid of elevator operators. Travel: huge hit on travel industry. My family rarely flies anywhere, opting instead for painful overnight 1000+ mile drives. Many people will be far more likely to do such trips when they can get on a major long-haul freeway and completely ignore the driving process. No more trying to stay awake on a boring overnight drive, just doze off completely, waking up only for refueling or nearing destination. I'll happily drive the complex parts at start/end, but it's that 700 mile stretch that's agonizing as driver. Housing: longer commutes will be more tolerable. I will live in an acre+ site, and let the car deal with traffic while reading/working/napping. So long as I can ignore the commute, I'll put up with a much longer one.
- yazaddaruvala 9y ago
  Similar to "parking in motion" we might even see "housing in motion"
  - ctdonath 9y ago
    Good point. Short term parking gets leveraged, car moving to a new spot every few hours while occupants sleep.
CM30 9y ago
> Health - beyond the obvious effects on the emergency room, what else? Ambulances willl quite clearly be affected. Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? Or would the entire emergency room itself be on wheels? (Less likely.) Well, the car can't go through red lights or overtake in certain locations to get to the hospital more quickly. That could be an easily ignored issue in some cases (if traffic is light or if it's easy to get to the hospital from your current location), but good luck if there's a traffic jam or the car needs to ignore certain laws to save your life.
- jdminhbg 9y ago
  That depends on how far out you're projecting. In a hypothetical all-self-driving future, a car with a sick occupant could broadcast its emergency mode to the rest of traffic to let it through.
- tossaway1 9y ago
  Ambulances do a lot more than transport patients. It's already the case that you can usually get someone to the hospital faster than waiting for an ambulance. Typically if you're using an ambulance you're going to need someone to provide medical assistance on location and/or help load you onto a stretcher.
jacquesm 9y ago
Ambulances do a lot more than just move people around, they carry doctors who stabilize the patient prior to transportation so that a relatively small problem does not turn into a critical one.
emanreus 9y ago
> Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? If you can just hop in and go to the hospital by yourself you don't need an ambulance.
- andrewmunsell 9y ago
  You can have a non-life threatening injury that prevents you from operating a car yourself, and without access to something like Uber or having another person to drive you, could necessitate calling an ambulance. A study was done (I haven't read the whole thing) that seemed to indicate cities with UberX had a reduction in ambulance use: http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2017Papers/201708.pdf http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2017Papers/201708.pdf (Though the wording of the GP was slightly ambiguous and seemed to compare a time-sensitive emergency to being able to take some other vehicle to the hospital)
- dominotw 9y ago
  Or use Uber or a taxi
YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
>> It’s great to explore this topic. You can have a lot of fun in picking a random industry and imagining the effect that self driving will have. Yes, it will be interesting to see the public's reaction in a few years, when the promised revolution fails to materialise. ______________ [1] I say this with some insight borrowed from people in the automotive industry. A commenter in another thread has recommended the following Medium post: We’re still very much in the early days of making self-driving cars a reality. Those who think fully self-driving vehicles will be ubiquitous on city streets months from now or even in a few years are not well connected to the state of the art or committed to the safe deployment of the technology. For those of us who have been working on the technology for a long time, we’re going to tell you the issue is still really hard, as the systems are as complex as ever. https://medium.com/self-driven/a-decade-after-darpa-our-view-on-the-state-of-the-art-in-self-driving-cars-3e8698e6afe8 https://medium.com/self-driven/a-decade-after-darpa-our-view...

Eridrus 9y ago

People already take.an Uber rather than wait for an ambulance if they are stable enough. You call an ambulance when moving is dangerous.

jaclaz 9y ago

>Health - beyond the obvious effects on the emergency room, what else? Ambulances willl quite clearly be affected. Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? Besides ambulances (which should be used for emergencies where medical/paramedical assistance is needed on the spot),I mean you can take a taxi (or Uber) to go to the hospital if you can move and don't need immediate assistance, consider the amount of "periodic" (daily, weekly or bi-weekly) transporting of (otherwise healthy, but not enough to be self-sufficient) patients that cannot drive or walk for long distances, like - as an example - people under dialysis or chemioterapy. Right now (at least here in Italy) usually the service is assured by volunteers that drive an ordinary car supplied by the (public or private) assistance, in most (not all) cases the patient can get into the car (and get out of it) without any assistance, and the time the volunteers provide could well be used for a number of other (needed) chores in assistance.

brudgers 9y ago

Every and each of the proposed benefits of vast public policy initiatives supported by a generous public purse in support of autonomous cars could be as easily derived from a similar public policy initiative to create public transit infrastructure.

jsloss 9y ago
I’m not convinced that’s true. The friction involved with public transit (limitations schedules, routes, and sharing of vehicles) are enough to limit much of the usage outlined in the above comment.
- brudgers 9y ago
  Vehicle fleets don't solve the spatial and temporal realities that are reflected in the schedules and routes of public transit. A fleet of vehicles has to be staged to meet fluctuating demands. Mathematically, on demand vehicles are probably harder to schedule because of random variation in queuing. Consider a population of workers each of which sometimes works from home. Some days an unusually high, but not statistically unlikely, number of riders all stay home: the idling vehicles need to sit somewhere. Other days, a statistically likely but atypical number of riders don't work from home and there are not enough vehicles to go around. Public transit addresses fluctuation with a low nominal cost of providing surplus capacity to normal operation in the form of standing room. Public transit can be sized more closely to peak demand. On the other hand, from 20:00 to 06:00 the peak demand capacity of an autonomous car fleet needs to be parked somewhere. Between 06:00 and 08:00 and again between 18:00 and 20:00 the fleet needs to be moved to storage.
jahewson 9y ago
Sure, in a city. But I really question that in places likes Southern California with its endless, winding suburbs. The place is built for cars.
- brudgers 9y ago
  The A16Z utopia proposes strong public policies based conclusions drawn from Denmark (about the size of Rhode Island) and the Netherlands (smaller than Delaware). Anywhere a car can go, a bus can go. To put it another way, a premise that autonomous cars will work in places like Southern California is that an autonomous car will be at your doorstep whenever you need to leave. The ideal fleet to achieve this is one car dedicated to only serving your schedule. Anything else has all the drawbacks of party line telephone service.

eclipxe 9y ago

At least where I am in the US (SoCal) distance to school is not a primary concern. The barrier to choice is not distance but school district boundaries and assignments.

mrisoli 9y ago

I remember seeing a concept video ages ago that touch on many the things that self-driving can change(from Audi I think). I always think in a fully self-driving world there would be huge shifts in the real estate market, living further from your workplace/school won't be such a problem if the commute is easy and the time is consistent, but also in a way that is more convenient than public transportation, similar to how there's higher demand for living close to good transportation links. Also, if the car can drive itself then you don't have to park it close to you when you don't need it, it can stay at a remote location while you work then "pick you up" when needed. I also wonder if that could have any effect on car ownership, one of the biggest hassles of living just with uber is that it might just fail you when you need it, either because of surge pricing or lack of drivers, such as late hours or major events, if Uber eliminates the need for drivers it can deploy its fleet at 24 hours a day besides maintenance and therefore could guarantee it's users a minimum supply in a certain area at all times. Then again, would Uber own those cars? Does it make sense for them to lease unutilized car time from owners similar to what people do with idle CPUs for crypto mining? Thus allowing owners to have some passive revenue.

visarga 9y ago
> Does it make sense for them to lease unutilized car time from owners similar to what people do with idle CPUs for crypto mining? I wouldn't want to find a used condom on the floor of my car when it picks me up, or vomit after a night of transporting party goers.
- rimliu 9y ago
  Yeah, I imagine using shared self-driving cars would be as fun as using public toilets.
  - yazaddaruvala 9y ago
    Lyft cars do not feel like public toilets.
    - 9y ago

ctdonath 9y ago

Assuming "hard" self-driving... Education: more kids "driving" themselves to school. There's an age where a kid could be trusted to walk alone, but not ready to "drive" there. Get in car, car takes kid to school & back. The one thing stopping my kids from going to a preferred school is we can't drive 'em there at that time; give me a trustworthy car and I'll let it take them there. Play: like above, parents will be more likely to let the kid travel a non-trivial, non-walkable distance to play with friends. No longer bound by parental availability, parents can just authorize the kid to get in and be taken somewhere. Parking: there will be a "Napster"-type stage of anarchy where self-driving cars won't park, they'll just slowly roam around until the owner calls it back. I've spent a whole day in NYC driving in circles (while the family enjoyed scenic stops) in lieu of finding & paying for expensive parking; would be nice to just get out and let the car wander, using roads as "parking in motion". This will lead to legislation & new solutions requiring aimless vehicles to actually get off the roads, albeit into more compact storage. Tourism: lots of people dislike dealing with taxis. I'd certainly be more comfortable with an automated "pick your destination on a map" UI, evolution of getting rid of elevator operators. Travel: huge hit on travel industry. My family rarely flies anywhere, opting instead for painful overnight 1000+ mile drives. Many people will be far more likely to do such trips when they can get on a major long-haul freeway and completely ignore the driving process. No more trying to stay awake on a boring overnight drive, just doze off completely, waking up only for refueling or nearing destination. I'll happily drive the complex parts at start/end, but it's that 700 mile stretch that's agonizing as driver. Housing: longer commutes will be more tolerable. I will live in an acre+ site, and let the car deal with traffic while reading/working/napping. So long as I can ignore the commute, I'll put up with a much longer one.

yazaddaruvala 9y ago
Similar to "parking in motion" we might even see "housing in motion"
- ctdonath 9y ago
  Good point. Short term parking gets leveraged, car moving to a new spot every few hours while occupants sleep.

CM30 9y ago

> Health - beyond the obvious effects on the emergency room, what else? Ambulances willl quite clearly be affected. Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? Or would the entire emergency room itself be on wheels? (Less likely.) Well, the car can't go through red lights or overtake in certain locations to get to the hospital more quickly. That could be an easily ignored issue in some cases (if traffic is light or if it's easy to get to the hospital from your current location), but good luck if there's a traffic jam or the car needs to ignore certain laws to save your life.

jdminhbg 9y ago
That depends on how far out you're projecting. In a hypothetical all-self-driving future, a car with a sick occupant could broadcast its emergency mode to the rest of traffic to let it through.
tossaway1 9y ago
Ambulances do a lot more than transport patients. It's already the case that you can usually get someone to the hospital faster than waiting for an ambulance. Typically if you're using an ambulance you're going to need someone to provide medical assistance on location and/or help load you onto a stretcher.

jacquesm 9y ago

Ambulances do a lot more than just move people around, they carry doctors who stabilize the patient prior to transportation so that a relatively small problem does not turn into a critical one.

emanreus 9y ago

> Why would someone wait minutes for one to arrive when they can just hop in an autocar to go the hospital? If you can just hop in and go to the hospital by yourself you don't need an ambulance.

andrewmunsell 9y ago
You can have a non-life threatening injury that prevents you from operating a car yourself, and without access to something like Uber or having another person to drive you, could necessitate calling an ambulance. A study was done (I haven't read the whole thing) that seemed to indicate cities with UberX had a reduction in ambulance use: http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2017Papers/201708.pdf http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2017Papers/201708.pdf (Though the wording of the GP was slightly ambiguous and seemed to compare a time-sensitive emergency to being able to take some other vehicle to the hospital)
dominotw 9y ago
Or use Uber or a taxi

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago

>> It’s great to explore this topic. You can have a lot of fun in picking a random industry and imagining the effect that self driving will have. Yes, it will be interesting to see the public's reaction in a few years, when the promised revolution fails to materialise. ______________ [1] I say this with some insight borrowed from people in the automotive industry. A commenter in another thread has recommended the following Medium post: We’re still very much in the early days of making self-driving cars a reality. Those who think fully self-driving vehicles will be ubiquitous on city streets months from now or even in a few years are not well connected to the state of the art or committed to the safe deployment of the technology. For those of us who have been working on the technology for a long time, we’re going to tell you the issue is still really hard, as the systems are as complex as ever. https://medium.com/self-driven/a-decade-after-darpa-our-view-on-the-state-of-the-art-in-self-driving-cars-3e8698e6afe8 https://medium.com/self-driven/a-decade-after-darpa-our-view...