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In 2013 Google said it would have autonomous cars by 2018 In 2017 Google said the cars would be available in months according to the article. Last year Elon M

by kp98 7y ago

In 2013 Google said it would have autonomous cars by 2018 In 2017 Google said the cars would be available in months according to the article. Last year Elon Musk said there would be 1mm robo taxis by the end of 2020. These corporations leverage the public's lack of understanding to spin a tale to investors and the market. Then, this tale got co-opted by politicians like Andrew Yang who say 4 million truckers will be out of work in 5-10 years, so we need to vote for him + UBI to protect us from the threat of AI in the future. The view I take is that planes have pilots for a variety of reasons, many of which are not related directly to controlling a plane's path. We have 30 years of data on flight and flights have fewer inputs to analyze, yet we still keep pilots around because of the added sense of security and the utility pilots serve on edge cases. I think self driving cars will be very similar and the future where no one drives probably will not exist for a long time. Another thing I find interesting, the retort most bring to driverless cars is that they will prevent needless deaths, but say for example America has 40,000 deaths due to car crashes per year, and 20,000 are preventable, but autonomous vehicles malfunctioning causes 10,000 deaths. So a net result of 30,000 deaths with autonomous cars. In terms of death the result is positive, but now you are relinquishing control over your experience. Someone with excellent driving skills, who never drinks and drives, and who follows the speed limit, faces a way lower risk of death driving. However, self driving cars introduce new risks to that individual, and for that reason I do not I believe the optimal combination for drivers will be the same as for pilots: machinery + individual control.

ehsankia 7y ago
To be fair, Google did have autonomous cars by 2018, including fully driveless ones, and available to select public users. So in that sense, they didn't lie, but the scale of the roll out has been much smaller and slower than what most people expected. I don't think Google specifically made comments about the scale. Elon on the otherhand did mention big numbers, which is a different story.
- kp98 7y ago
  Thats a good point, you're right Google does have at least some version of autonomous
LAMike 7y ago
Are you comparing a plane, filled with people, with a combined net worth in the millions, with a truck filled with cardboard boxes? Which worse case takes out a minivan with 6 people in it? (Unlikely) Why would we need truck drivers in a world of self driving cars?
- kp98 7y ago
  Yeah so my point had nothing to do with the value of the cargo and everything to do with the utility of the pilot. He serves other roles like checking system functionality, managing autonomous capabilities, taking control of the flight, communicating with ground control, and interacting with guests. Trucker drivers don't do these things and the payloads are not equivalent. However, truck drivers will still need to oversee the successful docking and unloading of goods, the refilling of gas, mechanical checks, special goods like diary product or gas, and the recipient of the goods. My point was not simply that pilots are there as added security, but also that they serve secondary functions that provide utility from start to finish. In this sense, yes they are similar. Faceless lives can be easy to judge, after all six people is less than 200, and given a median gdp per capita, 350k is less than 12mm. However, the moral hazard I am talking about is that you remove the responsibility from the individual to a faceless corporation. Btw you're not comparing apples to apples anyways, sure a truck may only kill 6 people, but if 100 trucks per day are doing that then that would be worse.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
Fully autonomous cars seem a decent bit away still. But I think you could hail a (mostly) conventional car (like a Tesla, but with Waymo's sensors) to most locations reliably. Even if you had to be behind the wheel to take control in some situations, but you could still rent the car by the minute/mile and take it wherever, that would still be 10-1000x better than renting a car conventionally, and it'd be 2-10x cheaper than Ubering. I think the majority of people would pick driving themselves over Uber for most fo their trips if it meant half to 1/10th the cost. They could easily make a 20% profit on $0.55 a mile + $3.00 to start. Your average trip in NYC and SF is now ~$5 instead of ~$15. I'm not sure why no one is pursuing this option. I know Google REALLY wanted fully autonomous cars. But this seems like it could just be another option in Uber/Lyft. I would go as far as saying that we should be exploring this on the Municipal level. I wouldn't be surprised if 30%+ of car owners in major cities would get rid of their car if a reliable service at this price point existed.
poiuyt098 7y ago
> 1mm robo taxis What is that, a robotaxi for ants?

by kp98 7y ago

ehsankia 7y ago

To be fair, Google did have autonomous cars by 2018, including fully driveless ones, and available to select public users. So in that sense, they didn't lie, but the scale of the roll out has been much smaller and slower than what most people expected. I don't think Google specifically made comments about the scale. Elon on the otherhand did mention big numbers, which is a different story.

kp98 7y ago
Thats a good point, you're right Google does have at least some version of autonomous

LAMike 7y ago

Are you comparing a plane, filled with people, with a combined net worth in the millions, with a truck filled with cardboard boxes? Which worse case takes out a minivan with 6 people in it? (Unlikely) Why would we need truck drivers in a world of self driving cars?

kp98 7y ago
Yeah so my point had nothing to do with the value of the cargo and everything to do with the utility of the pilot. He serves other roles like checking system functionality, managing autonomous capabilities, taking control of the flight, communicating with ground control, and interacting with guests. Trucker drivers don't do these things and the payloads are not equivalent. However, truck drivers will still need to oversee the successful docking and unloading of goods, the refilling of gas, mechanical checks, special goods like diary product or gas, and the recipient of the goods. My point was not simply that pilots are there as added security, but also that they serve secondary functions that provide utility from start to finish. In this sense, yes they are similar. Faceless lives can be easy to judge, after all six people is less than 200, and given a median gdp per capita, 350k is less than 12mm. However, the moral hazard I am talking about is that you remove the responsibility from the individual to a faceless corporation. Btw you're not comparing apples to apples anyways, sure a truck may only kill 6 people, but if 100 trucks per day are doing that then that would be worse.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

Fully autonomous cars seem a decent bit away still. But I think you could hail a (mostly) conventional car (like a Tesla, but with Waymo's sensors) to most locations reliably. Even if you had to be behind the wheel to take control in some situations, but you could still rent the car by the minute/mile and take it wherever, that would still be 10-1000x better than renting a car conventionally, and it'd be 2-10x cheaper than Ubering. I think the majority of people would pick driving themselves over Uber for most fo their trips if it meant half to 1/10th the cost. They could easily make a 20% profit on $0.55 a mile + $3.00 to start. Your average trip in NYC and SF is now ~$5 instead of ~$15. I'm not sure why no one is pursuing this option. I know Google REALLY wanted fully autonomous cars. But this seems like it could just be another option in Uber/Lyft. I would go as far as saying that we should be exploring this on the Municipal level. I wouldn't be surprised if 30%+ of car owners in major cities would get rid of their car if a reliable service at this price point existed.

poiuyt098 7y ago

> 1mm robo taxis What is that, a robotaxi for ants?