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We expect people to be frightened of robotic cars for the same reason they are scared of dying in a plane crash: Some deep-seated fear of dying in a manner that
by alanh 15y ago
We expect people to be frightened of robotic cars for the same reason they are scared of dying in a plane crash: Some deep-seated fear of dying in a manner that isn’t our own fault. Thoughts:
1) Marketing/PR for autonomous vehicles needs to really drive home their safety, so when you hear “robot car,” you think “… saves lives.”
2) Is it hard to imagine the opposite fear in children born 10 years from now? Having seen mostly robotic cars in real life, and human-driven cars getting in accidents on TV and in movies, might the child of the future react with terror when the robotic chauffeur intones, “human driver detected, approaching from rear”?
- arkitaip 15y agoUnfortunately Google is incredibly bad at sales and marketing so don't expect them to understand that their main challenge will be the public perception of driverless cars.
- Simucal 15y agoI think they understand this. What I'm not sure of is if they will have the sales ability to do anything about it.
- joelthelion 15y agoYeah, that's why no one uses their products.
- TuxPirate 15y agoYou mean web search, gmail, android and other crap they produce?
- jeffreyg 15y agoI think they were going for sarcasm.
- mortenjorck 15y agoGoogle is good at entering a market just as it's catching on with a meaningfully-differentiated product, and the product markets itself. See Search, Gmail, and Maps. When Google doesn't do this, they have to rely on marketing. See Wave or Buzz.
- varjag 15y agoEvery big company has its string of failed products. I'm not convinced that Google is really worse in this regard than Apple, Microsoft or Yahoo.
- esrauch 15y agoHas Apple had any failed products in the last 10 years?
- mortenjorck 15y agoiPod Hi-Fi, buttonless iPod Shuffle. But that's a pretty good track record.
- varjag 15y agoNone of them has any failed products if you set convenient enough window.
- esrauch 15y agoGoogle has only existed for 12 years, so it doesn't seem like it would be fair to talk about Apple failures from 1988 in this context.
- varjag 15y agoThere were enough failures with Apple (constant string of failures in fact) until late 1990s. Also, if we take Yahoo!, a successful business by any measure, it is hard to assign any two years where they didn't fail at something. Mind you, Yahoo! is a prefect example of marketing-driven company, much more so than Apple (who actually prides itself more at solid design and technology).
- IsaacL 15y agoGoogle is very good at PR. Their image as being "naive and bad at marketing" might be part of their PR. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/20/coloring-the-whole-egg-fixing-integrated-marketing/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/20/coloring-the-whole-egg-...
- melling 15y agoI think you've got the reason people are afraid of flying wrong. People aren't afraid of dying in a bus crash, or on a train, even an automated one, like they are of flying.
- bh42222 15y agoYep. I hate flying, but would pay a lot of money for a driverless car, and sleep like a baby while I commute to work.
- esoteriq 15y agoIt may be the fact that the airplane is in the air that makes the difference. Being 20,000 feet in the air is quite different than cruising along on the highway in a bus. That being said, I wonder what the driverless cars would do for the blind/visually-impaired. It could be quite liberating for them. They wouldn't have to live near public transit/take jobs with public transit access. Neat.
- sliverstorm 15y agoIndeed. It is perhaps due to the 700mph, 6,000 feet in the air part that makes them especially jittery. True or not, I think most people feel safer in a car & probably feel like they are more likely to survive, due to 60mph 12 inches off the ground. (While flying is safer in many ways like deaths per mile or per passenger, I would bet you are a lot safer in a car than a plane in the event of a crash. Car crashes are dangerous, but plane crashes are nearly guaranteed fatalities)
- russell 15y agoNo. It's hundreds of people dying at a time with nothing that any of them can do to mitigate their fate. People are really poor at assessing risk, but marvelous at concocting horror stories. (I can see that you are not from California. At 60mph, you are in serious danger of being rear-ended.)
- seabee 15y agoGiven the nature of public transport I think we can discount the "out of my control" factor. We can even remove the human element; driverless trains are found in quite a few places and nobody is screaming in terror on them. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_trains http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_trains So what is it about flying? Probably the whole "trapped in a metal tube travelling at 500mph a mile above the ocean" thing.
- anti 15y ago3) Loss of jobs. When we're heading to a future of robotic anything that will replace an entire profession, drivers in this case. What will be the economic effect of it?
- Skalman 15y agoWell, we've already seen entire professions and daily tasks disappearing thanks to technology improvements. (e.g. blacksmiths, or washing clothes by hand) I think the sustainable future is one where we all work significantly less than today, and where more people do things where humans are much better than machines, such as arts/music and care (for the elderly, children, sick etc.)
- jokermatt999 15y agoParkinson's Law says this is unlikely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law It would be nice, but I can't see it happening, unfortunately. Too much of our society would need restructuring, and there are those that would fight tooth and nail against that.
- Skalman 15y agoI sure hope that there will be a jump at some point allowing life quality to increase, and not bureaucracies, as Parkinson's Law seems to suggest (life quality hasn't improved during the last 30 years in the developed world, referring to general happiness and well-being). I am optimistic that brave politicians will make the necessary changes at some point - the world is too rapidly-transforming for huge changes in our lives not to happen.
- stcredzero 15y agoThere is no fundamental law prohibiting this rapid change from being accompanied by widespread death and destruction.
- stcredzero 15y ago
- cachemoney 15y agoPeople are afraid of planes because if the power goes out, you die. On the ground, if the power goes out on your driverless car, you cruise to a stop.
- sbierwagen 15y agoAnd if you cruise to a stop in the middle of a train crossing? Or if the steering shuts down while on a long curve next to a cliff?
- yardie 15y agoTrains travel slower through populated areas. If you're stuck on a crossing jump out. Chances are the train will stop if the driver sees you in time and has the distance to stop (about 1mi/1.6km). Steering doesn't shut down, it just goes from easy to hard. If the car is in motion it requires very little energy to turn.
- HoyaSaxa 15y agoI think it is more about getting the media and not the public at large behind the safety and potential of autonomous vehicles. The reason people are so afraid of flying is because plane crashes are so hyped by the media outlets. If the media is behind it, then the people will follow. Also, it is about control. If Google allows a fallback feature where the driver can take control in the event of a malfunction like cruise control currently works, people will perceive autonomous cars to be safer because they CAN be in control.
- haroldp 15y agoPerhaps we could better aquatint people with what a meat grinder American roads are. About 40,000 people die every year in America in traffic accidents caused by humans. More than 10,000 of those deaths are caused by drunk drivers, and it seems like most those deaths would simply go away if they could auto-pilot their way home.
- ebaysucks 15y agoVolvo's City Safety is marketed in the same way you describe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5MR2S2K5iM&feature=relmfu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5MR2S2K5iM&feature=relmf...