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And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules a
by GenerocUsername 8y ago
And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.
I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.
- joncrane 8y ago> And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away. It's also possible that human/pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.
- splouk 8y agoOr jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/2/automated-vehicles https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/2/automated-vehic...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- vinay427 8y agoWe do it for many pedestrian crossings across railroad tracks, so it's not unprecedented, but obviously on a different scale.
- bryanlarsen 8y agoThat's a very good argument but I don't think it will come to pass, for this reason: http://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off http://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off There's something about driving that turns ordinary people into assholes. I've observed it in myself. Bus passengers are much more considerate, and I think that passengers in self-driving vehicles will behave like passengers, not like drivers. So if a pedestrian cuts them off they'll just shrug and keep playing their game or whatever they're doing. I hope.
- ksenzee 8y agoMy theory is that people act like jerks behind the wheel, and come across as jerks even when they're not, because drivers have no way to apologize or ask please or do any other polite thing. All they can do is honk the horn, which is like yelling "HEY!!" If there were a communication mechanism for "excuse me, the light is green now" and "oops, so sorry, didn't see you there" driving would be easier and more pleasant.
- rm_-rf_slash 8y agoDangerous driving can result in damage, injury, or death. That is why people are so volatile behind the wheel. I don’t think there is any system of communication that can prevent or stop road rage. Dampen, maybe, but that’s about it.
- eric_h 8y agoIf the internet has taught us anything, it's that anything that facilitates conversation facilitates all types and styles of conversation. I'd posit that a more sophisticated inter-car communication system would add at least one new road rage incident for every one it prevents.
- SmirkingRevenge 8y agoThey often find other ways to express their jerkiness, like stepping on the gas, swerving around you and cutting you off, or aggressively tailgating, or you know... hand gestures.
- panic 8y agoExactly! Every communication you try to make in a car can be interpreted as aggressiveness, which escalates anger on both sides. You need a way to de-escalate.
- paulific 8y agoYes, in Japan there is a custom of briefly tooting the horn to say thank you (for example when someone lets you in in front of them) and they still have problems when people have different ideas of what constitutes "too long".
- marnett 8y agoif this happens i will surely protest self-driving cars. cities should be built for pedestrians, not cars.
- zdragnar 8y agoDon't protest self-driving cars, protest the laws you feel shouldn't apply to you. After all, there are plenty of other reasons jaywalking laws might become more strictly enforced.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoThe term "jaywalking" was a slur invented by car companies to steal rights from pedestrians. If cars can't avoid people, the cars need to be separated by physical barriers or removed.
- zdragnar 8y agoThis is in no way contradicting my point. A pedestrian may illegally have entered a road, but still have right-of-way, and self driving cars will need to account for that. However, protesting self driving cars will not change whether walking in the street is legal, since it already is not. Therefore, whether you do so and get fined by police is entirely up to their discretion, which could change at any time for any reason. If you want it to be legal, protest the illegality, not the car company.
- jkFeiwi 8y agoIf I'm not mistaken, car makers first lobbied to outlaw jaywalking. So if it's anything like the past, protesting self-driving cars and protesting the laws will amount to the same thing.
- zdragnar 8y agoThe laws are already on the books. Police could choose to apply heavier enforcement regardless of whether or not self driving cars become a thing. If the law itself is unjust or inappropriate, protest the law.
- skrause 8y agoIf stricter enforcement of jaywalking laws is required for self-driving cars to work, you can already forget about those cars in almost all other countries where jaywalking laws don't even exist and certainly won't be accepted in the future.
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- someonewhocar3s 8y agoCamera's, bro. Automated micro-ticketing on facial & misdemeanour detection.
- pretendscholar 8y agoThere's something really repulsive about this solution that I can't really eloquently articulate. Every advance in technology seems to further restrict and control people.
- princeb 8y agoor less for increased safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space
- 8bitsrule 8y agoThe world is already overly car-centered. If cars can't see and stop for people, then they've become an expansion of that problem. I live in a place where, once you're off the curb on corners where there's no light, cars are required to slow/stop for you. Many people will voluntarily do that even if you're NOT off the curb yet. It feels like a courtesy. The scenario you're describing, OTOH, feels even more alienating than what we're already suffering. What in the hell gives you, sitting on a seat in a car, more right to travel through a space than a walking human being?
- icebraining 8y agoMany people will voluntarily do that even if you're NOT off the curb yet. It feels like a courtesy. Eh, as a pedestrian, I hate that. I have to conscientiously turn my back to avoid impeding the traffic when I don't want to pass! Still, I agree with you; self-driving cars that can't be trusted to slow down and stop for pedestrians should not pass the licensing requirements. And not just for humans, either; we're not going to teach other animals to follow traffic laws any time soon. I've already seen too many cats killed by assholes speeding over the limit on residential streets.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoAdaptations are still localized. Pedestrians have "adapted" to just expect everyone to brake always on most college campuses. If you treat a factory floor or intermodal facility like a collage campus nobody will be surprised when someone has to use a garden hose to wash you off of whatever multi-thousand pound metal thing you got in the way of.
- stale2002 8y agoOn a similar note, the innovation of Serri, and other "AI" programs was not to get computers to understand how humans talk. The innovation was getting humans to speak in a way that computers understand.
- matte_black 8y agoNope. You can never count on humans to change behavior to fit a technology. As soon as self-driving cars learn local customs, the customs will have been changed. Self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoPittsburgh left custom is 50years old or more
- Someone 8y agoIt may be worse. If cars are very good at avoiding colliding with pedestrians, why would pedestrians look out for cars at all before stepping onto a street? We may have to tweak the car’s software to be assertive, bordering aggressive, in busy neighborhoods, if the car is to make progress at all.
- icebraining 8y agoNo. Let the passenger deal with that if they're annoyed. Machines should be always "humble". A human in front may be an inconsiderate jerk, or they may be trying to prevent the car from hitting something they're unlikely to detect.
- rockostrich 8y agoThis is already happening in the trucking industry. Self-driving trucks are being developed to be able to drive 99% of the trip that's on highways and then human drivers take over for the local 1%. To make it easier, transfer hubs are being built near cities off major highways to make everything easier and non-disruptive. The same thing could be done with cars without the need for the transfer hubs and it basically is already done.
- frankharv 8y agoI can't beleive they would do a trail run with an automous truck weighing 80,000lbs barreling down the freeway. This revolution should have started with mundane tasks, such as city street sweepers and perhaps garbage trucks. Vehicles that move slow on a predefined path in the night. Then advance to faster moving objects like taxis. Just like the DARPA Grand Challenge that started this mess. Many of those vehicles were industrial usage, not consumer.
- chris11 8y ago> This revolution should have started with mundane tasks, such as city street sweepers and perhaps garbage trucks. Honestly I would think that automating a slow moving vehicle in the city would be a much harder engineering challenge. City driving can be a lot messier than driving on the freeway.
- 0x00000000 8y agoThe stakes are much lower though. A standard car drifting into the oncoming lane is basically death. If it can't handle city driving, the methods are probably too immature to put people's lives against.
- mrep 8y agoPretty much all interstates have barriers between the directions to prevent head on collisions.
- aurailious 8y agoEssentially make the freeways "car trains" as the autobahn implies. Eventually over time you add automation to other kinds of roads.
- hughw 8y agoI think "bahn" translates to "path". Autobahn doesn't connote "car train". (Disclaimer: 1 year of college German)
- detaro 8y agoPretty much. See in English railway (Eisenbahn in German) or runway (Startbahn/Landebahn) for the equivalent patterns. Especially since in the beginning railway and Eisenbahn meant primarily the way with rails only, not the entire enterprise. Autobahn might actually be derived from Eisenbahn in that Wikipedia says some group choose it because of the similarity, but it only works because Bahn is the more general concept.
- oldgradstudent 8y agoYou're underestimating the difficulty. Self-driving cars will always be 5 years away.
- kiliantics 8y agoWe should anyway just remove cars from cities altogether