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George makes the economic points but like most hackers/devs fails to see the humanist point (something I am learning to appreciate). Forget about the big money

George makes the economic points but like most hackers/devs fails to see the humanist point (something I am learning to appreciate). Forget about the big money, Elon Musks and the "world-changing" tech. Behind it all is a dangerous precedent to automate away our daily lifes, byte by byte. 10 years ago I had instant messenger, basic satnav, email, holiday bookings, price comparisons and online shopping. Nowadays I have dating algorithms, live satnav, home automation, voice assistants, smart motorways, groceries and weekly sundries handled by amazon prime, cars collecting telemetry on my driving habits. These things are influencing or completely removing our brains need to make decisions. Through this, comes an easier, safer or happier life, however you have to think, at what cost? Do we become dependant on machines and evolve towards this "singularity" that we hear mentioned around here often. Or do we become willing hostages to our technology?

kick 7y ago
I agree with Hotz, but self-driving cars are an unambiguous win. Way more people die from car crashes than most ways to die; there's a moral imperative to take away control from humans in that regard. Dating apps are easy: don't use them. Bars still exist. Voice assistants are pretty easy to not use. Cars are not, because cars aren't consensual. Kids don't get a choice as to whether or not they get to ride in cars. You take a bike, regulators have made it intentionally dangerous for people on bicycles so cars could continue to rule the world. Go for a walk and most sidewalks are in terrible condition outside of a few areas in the United States. Public transit has been systematically defunded, partially because of cars. In America, most people have no choice. Automate away, there's plenty to think about.
- mothsonasloth 7y ago
  >Way more people die from car crashes than most ways to die; there's a moral imperative to take away control from humans in that regard. How many self driving cars are on the road vs. non autonomous cars on the road? As a software developer, we are taught to look at the root cause. In your case you are saying the human is the root cause but that is too shallow. The root cause, is why a human was in that situation in the first place - stress, crazy work hours, car maintenance etc.
  - kick 7y ago
    The root cause, is why a human was in that situation in the first place - stress, crazy work hours, car maintenance etc. All three of these are solved with self-driving cars. The human is the least-manageable part of the equation. Take out the human, stress doesn't matter. Them drinking doesn't matter. Them having crazy work hours or whatever excuse they'll use doesn't matter. With proper self-driving cars, them being conscious eventually doesn't matter. This is one of the few problems that can actually be solved with a mostly-technical (including law as tech, because law is programming) solution: take away control of vehicles from humans. The root cause is that humans are not good at handling motor vehicles going at high speeds repetitively on average. There are too many factors to cover. It's 40,000 people dead and millions injured in the United States every year over something that can be mitigated.
    - mothsonasloth 7y ago
      Ok my guy, lets see how this rolls (excuse the pun) in 20 years from now when my Bezos Mk2 hydrocell vehicle running Microsoft Car SP3 has a glitch in its LIDAR driver...
      - kick 7y ago
        Congratulations, you picked proprietary software and bet on LIDAR, then died because of those choices. The death count is still significantly lower than it was in 2020, and life is considered better for most. For a serious answer: even if the life-threatening crash-caused-by-glitch rate is 1/10,000, which is unlikely on its own, that's still giving you better results than human drivers, where the rate of death (keep in mind, deaths, not injuries) is around 12/100,000 drivers.
  - ribs 7y ago
    So, just solve stress and crazy working hours. Ha
mattlutze 7y ago
Cars driving themselves means less people die on the roads. The self-driving features that are in existing fleets of cars are demonstrating this. That's the humanist point that is being missed, and running "this is all a scam" videos when Hotz isn't even saying that seems disingenuous. As the self-driving tech industry gets better at checking off the edge cases, I truly hope people stay open to evolving how we see transportation and the benefits it'll bring.
- janoc 7y ago
  Sorry, but nobody has ever shown this safety aspect to be anywhere close to true. But everyone is taking it as a gospel. Musk said it, so it has to be true, right? Never mind that there are no independent data to support it available, except what came from Tesla (who has an obvious vested interest to show that their systems are safe). It also ignores that there are pretty much no self-driving cars on the market with the exception of some buses running slowly on pre-set lines. Cars like Tesla are not self-driving, their systems are level 2, maybe 3 at best (i.e. human always in the loop, ready to take over immediately). Then there is Waymo who is attempting for level 4, but those are still research prototypes and not commercially sold vehicles. Same with Uber. And both still have tons of issues. So based on what are we concluding that this is going to be safer, exactly? Given how poorly regulated the automotive electronics industry is, how opaque all those boxes are and how fierce resistance are the manufacturers putting up to even attempts to have these things opened up for inspection and certification (similar to airline industry), this is a completely ridiculous stance to take. Especially in the light of recent scandals like Toyota acceleration problems, Tesla's autopilot crashes, Dieselgate, cars that can be hacked and disabled through their infotainment systems (Jeep ...) etc. - all of these were essentially software and electronics issues, often in much simpler systems than safety critical ones. Companies are unable to get even something like a car radio right and you want to trust them that their car won't kill you because of a memory overflow somewhere or camera misreading a stop sign? Only because a manufacturer makes such claim, with little to no verifiable evidence? Is this the manufacturing culture that is supposed to solve the safety problems on the road? Good luck with that. That is wishful thinking while ignoring both the evidence and past industrial experience. Even that airline industry which is much more heavily regulated, inspected and supervised than anything automotive has large problems - just look at the 737 MAX debacle.

kick 7y ago

I agree with Hotz, but self-driving cars are an unambiguous win. Way more people die from car crashes than most ways to die; there's a moral imperative to take away control from humans in that regard. Dating apps are easy: don't use them. Bars still exist. Voice assistants are pretty easy to not use. Cars are not, because cars aren't consensual. Kids don't get a choice as to whether or not they get to ride in cars. You take a bike, regulators have made it intentionally dangerous for people on bicycles so cars could continue to rule the world. Go for a walk and most sidewalks are in terrible condition outside of a few areas in the United States. Public transit has been systematically defunded, partially because of cars. In America, most people have no choice. Automate away, there's plenty to think about.

mothsonasloth 7y ago
>Way more people die from car crashes than most ways to die; there's a moral imperative to take away control from humans in that regard. How many self driving cars are on the road vs. non autonomous cars on the road? As a software developer, we are taught to look at the root cause. In your case you are saying the human is the root cause but that is too shallow. The root cause, is why a human was in that situation in the first place - stress, crazy work hours, car maintenance etc.
- kick 7y ago
  The root cause, is why a human was in that situation in the first place - stress, crazy work hours, car maintenance etc. All three of these are solved with self-driving cars. The human is the least-manageable part of the equation. Take out the human, stress doesn't matter. Them drinking doesn't matter. Them having crazy work hours or whatever excuse they'll use doesn't matter. With proper self-driving cars, them being conscious eventually doesn't matter. This is one of the few problems that can actually be solved with a mostly-technical (including law as tech, because law is programming) solution: take away control of vehicles from humans. The root cause is that humans are not good at handling motor vehicles going at high speeds repetitively on average. There are too many factors to cover. It's 40,000 people dead and millions injured in the United States every year over something that can be mitigated.
  - mothsonasloth 7y ago
    Ok my guy, lets see how this rolls (excuse the pun) in 20 years from now when my Bezos Mk2 hydrocell vehicle running Microsoft Car SP3 has a glitch in its LIDAR driver...
    - kick 7y ago
      Congratulations, you picked proprietary software and bet on LIDAR, then died because of those choices. The death count is still significantly lower than it was in 2020, and life is considered better for most. For a serious answer: even if the life-threatening crash-caused-by-glitch rate is 1/10,000, which is unlikely on its own, that's still giving you better results than human drivers, where the rate of death (keep in mind, deaths, not injuries) is around 12/100,000 drivers.
- ribs 7y ago
  So, just solve stress and crazy working hours. Ha

mattlutze 7y ago

Cars driving themselves means less people die on the roads. The self-driving features that are in existing fleets of cars are demonstrating this. That's the humanist point that is being missed, and running "this is all a scam" videos when Hotz isn't even saying that seems disingenuous. As the self-driving tech industry gets better at checking off the edge cases, I truly hope people stay open to evolving how we see transportation and the benefits it'll bring.

janoc 7y ago
Sorry, but nobody has ever shown this safety aspect to be anywhere close to true. But everyone is taking it as a gospel. Musk said it, so it has to be true, right? Never mind that there are no independent data to support it available, except what came from Tesla (who has an obvious vested interest to show that their systems are safe). It also ignores that there are pretty much no self-driving cars on the market with the exception of some buses running slowly on pre-set lines. Cars like Tesla are not self-driving, their systems are level 2, maybe 3 at best (i.e. human always in the loop, ready to take over immediately). Then there is Waymo who is attempting for level 4, but those are still research prototypes and not commercially sold vehicles. Same with Uber. And both still have tons of issues. So based on what are we concluding that this is going to be safer, exactly? Given how poorly regulated the automotive electronics industry is, how opaque all those boxes are and how fierce resistance are the manufacturers putting up to even attempts to have these things opened up for inspection and certification (similar to airline industry), this is a completely ridiculous stance to take. Especially in the light of recent scandals like Toyota acceleration problems, Tesla's autopilot crashes, Dieselgate, cars that can be hacked and disabled through their infotainment systems (Jeep ...) etc. - all of these were essentially software and electronics issues, often in much simpler systems than safety critical ones. Companies are unable to get even something like a car radio right and you want to trust them that their car won't kill you because of a memory overflow somewhere or camera misreading a stop sign? Only because a manufacturer makes such claim, with little to no verifiable evidence? Is this the manufacturing culture that is supposed to solve the safety problems on the road? Good luck with that. That is wishful thinking while ignoring both the evidence and past industrial experience. Even that airline industry which is much more heavily regulated, inspected and supervised than anything automotive has large problems - just look at the 737 MAX debacle.