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I'm more or less of the same opinion and honestly. The fact that human drivers are unsafe adding new "automated" drivers in the road would automatically make th

by zzzpaz 5y ago

I'm more or less of the same opinion and honestly. The fact that human drivers are unsafe adding new "automated" drivers in the road would automatically make the human one safer? I don't think so. Before you can reach a point where all the cars are fully autonomous you'd need decades if not century and we're here discussing that having them on the road would be better. Well, we'd see what data once this cars are around brings to us, but human machine mixture in a road sounds like a mess that we'd want to be saved from. Reason why self driving cars are rather hard to be mainstream: - they're freaking expensive, currently, even the "normal cars" are not always accessible to everyone in this planet, yet we assume that the entire world population has enough money to buy Teslas and sleep while going to work like is an extension of California. - despite having common traffic rules, people drive how they want to. If you've drove long enough and in different places of the world you'd notice that: traffic rules are an opinion, driving style changes from city to city within the same country, if not district to district. "Exception" are the norm: people park where they're not supposed to, people go where they're not supposed to, people stop where they're not supposed to like all the time. - self driving cars make economical sense only under certain conditions, and even then the time spent automating that is yet to be proven effective. Of course you can argue that we've something working, but at this stage is rather a prototype that handle base cases. If we want to have self driving car, just have them only. Not mix them with human to create a perfect condition to have new accidents were the insurance would have challenging time on defining who's fault. I'd rather invest money on mass transportation systems (eg. Metro, train, buses)

mikejb 5y ago
Auotmated drivers don't make the human driver safer - they (should) make traffic safer by reducing the number of human drivers that would cause accidents. I don't think we're there yet, but I also don't think this is centuries away, based on the progress made in recent years. I also don't think this will be instantly world-wide: Distribution of automated vehicles will be just like the distribution of any other commodity. In some parts of this world it's infeasible to have a car for a significant portion of the population - it'd be ridiculous to assume those parts of the world will have self-driving cars by the time they're available in the Bay Area. It's also inevitable that human and automated drivers will share infrastructure. That's where the development is going, it's what will happen. There won't be a switch like "from tomorrow on, only automated vehicles can drive in San Francisco". I agree with the mass transportation system investment, particularly in the US. But if you argue against financial feasibility of self-driving cars in regions, you have to apply the same scrutiny to public transport investments.
- zzzpaz 5y ago
  My argument if that a mix of human plus self driving cars as yet to be tried at massive scale (eg. 50% self driving / 50% human or whatever that percentage is). With this mixture I don't think we will be able to actually "reduce" accident just because there are less human. You've to see the distribution of whom create accident, example if 80% is caused by distraction then maybe you could reduce the number of accident by having self driving cars. But most of the current modern cars have many automatic detector that get triggered when a danger is detected. We can say that these cars are expensive and as such people who buy old cars without this systems are more likely to cause accident. The same people won't buy self driving cars due to the cost. So I'd argue that maybe we won't see much improvement unless a large percentage of people actually buy self driving cars The technology is century away for mass distribution, same as cars nowadays are still not available in evey household around the world and there are plenty of countries driving super polluting cars taken from "first world" country
  - mikejb 5y ago
    Ok, I think we're having 2 separate conversations: a) What's the impact of self-driving cars at what point of distribution and b) What's the distribution of self-driving cars going to be. Regarding the impact: modern vehicles are getting better at minimizing the impact of accidents, and are starting to avoid accidents, mostly in the form of avoiding rear-ending another vehicle. But Self-driving cars are on another level there: They can recognize someone possibly running a red light, and act accordingly (not entering the intersection, evacuating the intersection quickly, etc.). They have sensors to continuously monitor their surroundings with a focus a human can't have, and modern vehicles don't bring the sensors for it because of the actions a human-driven vehicle can take are highly limited (Maybe a warning-beep, tightening seatbelts and prepping to fire airbags - but nothing in terms of avoidance. And you need a fairly fancy new vehicle for that). Additionally, also drivers of expensive / new vehicles crash. They have phones like anyone else, drink like anyone else, get tired or distracted like anyone else. Regarding the distribution of self-driving cars: As I said, it's not feasible to assume that by the time you can buy or rent a self-driving car in the bay area, you'll also be able to buy or rent a self-driving car in Mogadishu. Additionally, ownership is one aspect of automated vehicles. Companies also aim for a service-type of business, where you basically take a cab - just without a driver (who again can get distracted, tired, etc.) Now, if you say "we're a century away from having 50% self-driving cars in Somalia" - I wouldn't disagree. But the comment that started this discussion (and to which you said you have more or less the same opinion) questioned their present and future existence: > Self-driving cars do not (and will not, if you ask me) exist Maybe we're disagreeing on a misunderstanding?

by zzzpaz 5y ago

mikejb 5y ago

Auotmated drivers don't make the human driver safer - they (should) make traffic safer by reducing the number of human drivers that would cause accidents. I don't think we're there yet, but I also don't think this is centuries away, based on the progress made in recent years. I also don't think this will be instantly world-wide: Distribution of automated vehicles will be just like the distribution of any other commodity. In some parts of this world it's infeasible to have a car for a significant portion of the population - it'd be ridiculous to assume those parts of the world will have self-driving cars by the time they're available in the Bay Area. It's also inevitable that human and automated drivers will share infrastructure. That's where the development is going, it's what will happen. There won't be a switch like "from tomorrow on, only automated vehicles can drive in San Francisco". I agree with the mass transportation system investment, particularly in the US. But if you argue against financial feasibility of self-driving cars in regions, you have to apply the same scrutiny to public transport investments.

zzzpaz 5y ago
My argument if that a mix of human plus self driving cars as yet to be tried at massive scale (eg. 50% self driving / 50% human or whatever that percentage is). With this mixture I don't think we will be able to actually "reduce" accident just because there are less human. You've to see the distribution of whom create accident, example if 80% is caused by distraction then maybe you could reduce the number of accident by having self driving cars. But most of the current modern cars have many automatic detector that get triggered when a danger is detected. We can say that these cars are expensive and as such people who buy old cars without this systems are more likely to cause accident. The same people won't buy self driving cars due to the cost. So I'd argue that maybe we won't see much improvement unless a large percentage of people actually buy self driving cars The technology is century away for mass distribution, same as cars nowadays are still not available in evey household around the world and there are plenty of countries driving super polluting cars taken from "first world" country
- mikejb 5y ago
  Ok, I think we're having 2 separate conversations: a) What's the impact of self-driving cars at what point of distribution and b) What's the distribution of self-driving cars going to be. Regarding the impact: modern vehicles are getting better at minimizing the impact of accidents, and are starting to avoid accidents, mostly in the form of avoiding rear-ending another vehicle. But Self-driving cars are on another level there: They can recognize someone possibly running a red light, and act accordingly (not entering the intersection, evacuating the intersection quickly, etc.). They have sensors to continuously monitor their surroundings with a focus a human can't have, and modern vehicles don't bring the sensors for it because of the actions a human-driven vehicle can take are highly limited (Maybe a warning-beep, tightening seatbelts and prepping to fire airbags - but nothing in terms of avoidance. And you need a fairly fancy new vehicle for that). Additionally, also drivers of expensive / new vehicles crash. They have phones like anyone else, drink like anyone else, get tired or distracted like anyone else. Regarding the distribution of self-driving cars: As I said, it's not feasible to assume that by the time you can buy or rent a self-driving car in the bay area, you'll also be able to buy or rent a self-driving car in Mogadishu. Additionally, ownership is one aspect of automated vehicles. Companies also aim for a service-type of business, where you basically take a cab - just without a driver (who again can get distracted, tired, etc.) Now, if you say "we're a century away from having 50% self-driving cars in Somalia" - I wouldn't disagree. But the comment that started this discussion (and to which you said you have more or less the same opinion) questioned their present and future existence: > Self-driving cars do not (and will not, if you ask me) exist Maybe we're disagreeing on a misunderstanding?