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I like driving. I see more value in an idle car autonomously driven to my doorstep for me to drive, than for an autonomous car to drive me. What's the risk pr

I like driving. I see more value in an idle car autonomously driven to my doorstep for me to drive, than for an autonomous car to drive me. What's the risk profile of an empty autonomous car driving 20 mph on local roads to my doorstep, vs a fully autonomous vehicle?

yomama99 5y ago
Nuro has a similar mentality, but applied to unmanned deliveries.
speedgoose 5y ago
Slow moving traffic on highway is not very fun though. I prefer my car to manage that for me.
themodelplumber 5y ago
I wonder if your insurance company will feel the same about your enjoyment, once the technology threshold is crossed well enough and they realize that automated driving is the new rail. Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? I think this will eventually be a question that fails over into economics while people are arguing about it. Insurers will be in a good place to influence the future of automated driving. Humans as a group can't even not drive drunk, still. Individuals are not predictable either. Our taste for control will have to be worked around. (Hopefully in ways that allow us more time to...for example drive in VR, on a better course, with an even more stimulating feeling of presence, while we are driven around...)
- postingawayonhn 5y ago
  > Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? Most people are willing to pay for things they enjoy. It's also possible that a human driven car could use its autonomous driving system as a safety system to intervene if it anticipates a crash.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  I'd pay. But I highly doubt that any autonomous vehicles will prove to be as efficient and as safe anytime soon. I'd wager they could be xor but not both in the next 20 years.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Large part of the blame imo is the ridiculous fact that no governing body nor any car manufacturer came up with things like: DUI test else engine does not start. Speed limit as per road and weather conditions no car needs to do 70mph in the city or 150 mph anywhere. Alertness check and monitoring , if not alert, car stops and that's it.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
When I lived in Beijing, I took a taxi to and from work daily (from northeast to northwest Beijing on the 4th ring). It is really nice being driven around, you just chill and use your phone (would have taken the subway but being stuffed in with no available seating wasn’t very relaxing). Driving isn’t fun for a lot of people. In cities where taxis are more ubiquitous, why isn’t level 5 simply replaces the taxi drivers with computers no? Then it’s not really a new paradigm, just that (a) traffic might flow better and (b) places where taxis aren’t cheap and plentiful (most of the USA, much of Western Europe) get to have an experience similar to a middle class lifestyle in a developing country.
- solatic 5y ago
  There's a difference between driving in traffic jams to get to work and driving on twisty empty back roads. The former is a regrettable experience that is a necessary evil so that you can make a living. The latter is a hobby that lets you control the direction of the roller coaster.
  - trgn 5y ago
    Public roads are not a racetrack, and it's regrettable many people treat it as such. That society for some reason tolerates "spirited" driving, people using the road as their personal rollercoaster, is one of the worst lapses in our collective judgements. It probably grew out of cars starting out as toys for the rich, and the aspirational branding created around it. Allowing high speed cars anywhere (even on the twisty "empty" roads) is the main reason the public realm is now objectively dangerous. Driving should have been integrated in the culture as a solemn activity, only reserved to those with impeccable integrity and high moral standing, a true privilege in which the driver assumes responsibility for the lives of others, and accepts accountability commensurate with this duty. Ending somebodies life, injuring others, causing damage, those are the inevitable by-products of careless driving, of driving for sport. I'm exaggerating for emphasis. But driving as a hobby should be reserved to the racetrack. Just like shooting guns as a hobby is reserved to the gun range.
    - 5y ago
Nitramp 5y ago
The kinetic energy of a car at 9 m/s (20 mph) is about 15 Wh, depending on its weight. The kinetic energy of a bullet is about 0.2 Wh. This obviously doesn't quite translate, but the amount of damage you can do with a car is massive, even at that speed. Also consider the weight, eg when rolling over a pedestrian.
- stadium 5y ago
  The reaction time of a human should prevail before they look both ways to cross the street.
  - Nitramp 5y ago
    What if the car gets the right of way wrong? What if there's a distracted kid, or the car misses a pedestrian crossing? I don't think you can set something loose in traffic that relies on everyone else correcting for its mistakes.
    - stadium 5y ago
      I think I agree with you. My point is, if I see a car coming, I'm not going to cross the street and let it hit me. That's the reason parents teach their kids to look both ways before crossing the street. Some idiot driver, human or otherwise, may not be controlling their vehicle in a predictable manner. At 20mph, as a pedestrian I can make a good decision about crossing the street. I feel much safer about an empty driverless car at 20mph on local roads than one full of passengers at highway speeds. (20 mph is entirely made up, it could be higher or lower in relationship to actual human reaction times)
    - xbmcuser 5y ago
      human drivers do that all the time from getting distracted with your handphone, falling asleep in the driving seat, driving while drunk or otherwise impaired. So it is not much different. But AI cars are likely to be better drivers 2-3 years from now than what they are today humans will either be the same or worse.
stadium 5y ago
Replying to self to be more direct. Cars sit idle 80-90% of their useful life. As an auto manufacturer I don't need to achieve L{n} autonomous to make money, I just need wheels moving not parked. Wheels moving at 20mph on local roads, in-between paid trips with human drivers, is a huge market and with a lower risk profile than L4 or L5 autonomous. The fat margins here are in making idle capital more productive.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Not sure why you think this, empty cars really do require L4 if not L5, and if you've got actual L4 driving, taxis and freight are much bigger markets than renting cars in cities.
  - stadium 5y ago
    At what speed? Is there a distinction between these L4 and L5 levels and speed? Is a L3 at idle speed equivalent to an L5 at highway speed?
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      If all it took to take an L2 AI and make it L5 were reducing top speed, you'd see a lot more L5 AIs around. The biggest problem with most self-driving cars is that they are easily fooled by various images, since they have extremely simplistic image classifiers to work with, rather than hugely specialized mamallian visual cortexes. Speed of processing is one aspect, but not nearly the only one. The Tesla that ran over that cyclist crossing that street at night wasn't missing reaction time, it simply didn't recognize the cyclist as an obstacle for whatever reason. Now as far as I understand, lidar mostly fixes these false negatives (in good weather conditions), but at the cost of more false positives - and here speed could be a bigger help. Even so, L4 and L5 would require planning skills and understanding of other traffic participants and road conditions that are still beyond us, at any speed. Note that the CEO of Waymo has plainly stated that L5 is not achievable with current sensor technologies. Perhaps at some extreme low speeds (probably closer to human walking speed than 20mph) L2 could work as L3, but I think that's about it.

yomama99 5y ago

Nuro has a similar mentality, but applied to unmanned deliveries.

speedgoose 5y ago

Slow moving traffic on highway is not very fun though. I prefer my car to manage that for me.

themodelplumber 5y ago

I wonder if your insurance company will feel the same about your enjoyment, once the technology threshold is crossed well enough and they realize that automated driving is the new rail. Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? I think this will eventually be a question that fails over into economics while people are arguing about it. Insurers will be in a good place to influence the future of automated driving. Humans as a group can't even not drive drunk, still. Individuals are not predictable either. Our taste for control will have to be worked around. (Hopefully in ways that allow us more time to...for example drive in VR, on a better course, with an even more stimulating feeling of presence, while we are driven around...)

postingawayonhn 5y ago
> Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? Most people are willing to pay for things they enjoy. It's also possible that a human driven car could use its autonomous driving system as a safety system to intervene if it anticipates a crash.
eptcyka 5y ago
I'd pay. But I highly doubt that any autonomous vehicles will prove to be as efficient and as safe anytime soon. I'd wager they could be xor but not both in the next 20 years.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Large part of the blame imo is the ridiculous fact that no governing body nor any car manufacturer came up with things like: DUI test else engine does not start. Speed limit as per road and weather conditions no car needs to do 70mph in the city or 150 mph anywhere. Alertness check and monitoring , if not alert, car stops and that's it.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

When I lived in Beijing, I took a taxi to and from work daily (from northeast to northwest Beijing on the 4th ring). It is really nice being driven around, you just chill and use your phone (would have taken the subway but being stuffed in with no available seating wasn’t very relaxing). Driving isn’t fun for a lot of people. In cities where taxis are more ubiquitous, why isn’t level 5 simply replaces the taxi drivers with computers no? Then it’s not really a new paradigm, just that (a) traffic might flow better and (b) places where taxis aren’t cheap and plentiful (most of the USA, much of Western Europe) get to have an experience similar to a middle class lifestyle in a developing country.

solatic 5y ago
There's a difference between driving in traffic jams to get to work and driving on twisty empty back roads. The former is a regrettable experience that is a necessary evil so that you can make a living. The latter is a hobby that lets you control the direction of the roller coaster.
- trgn 5y ago
  Public roads are not a racetrack, and it's regrettable many people treat it as such. That society for some reason tolerates "spirited" driving, people using the road as their personal rollercoaster, is one of the worst lapses in our collective judgements. It probably grew out of cars starting out as toys for the rich, and the aspirational branding created around it. Allowing high speed cars anywhere (even on the twisty "empty" roads) is the main reason the public realm is now objectively dangerous. Driving should have been integrated in the culture as a solemn activity, only reserved to those with impeccable integrity and high moral standing, a true privilege in which the driver assumes responsibility for the lives of others, and accepts accountability commensurate with this duty. Ending somebodies life, injuring others, causing damage, those are the inevitable by-products of careless driving, of driving for sport. I'm exaggerating for emphasis. But driving as a hobby should be reserved to the racetrack. Just like shooting guns as a hobby is reserved to the gun range.
  - 5y ago

Nitramp 5y ago

The kinetic energy of a car at 9 m/s (20 mph) is about 15 Wh, depending on its weight. The kinetic energy of a bullet is about 0.2 Wh. This obviously doesn't quite translate, but the amount of damage you can do with a car is massive, even at that speed. Also consider the weight, eg when rolling over a pedestrian.

stadium 5y ago
The reaction time of a human should prevail before they look both ways to cross the street.
- Nitramp 5y ago
  What if the car gets the right of way wrong? What if there's a distracted kid, or the car misses a pedestrian crossing? I don't think you can set something loose in traffic that relies on everyone else correcting for its mistakes.
  - stadium 5y ago
    I think I agree with you. My point is, if I see a car coming, I'm not going to cross the street and let it hit me. That's the reason parents teach their kids to look both ways before crossing the street. Some idiot driver, human or otherwise, may not be controlling their vehicle in a predictable manner. At 20mph, as a pedestrian I can make a good decision about crossing the street. I feel much safer about an empty driverless car at 20mph on local roads than one full of passengers at highway speeds. (20 mph is entirely made up, it could be higher or lower in relationship to actual human reaction times)
  - xbmcuser 5y ago
    human drivers do that all the time from getting distracted with your handphone, falling asleep in the driving seat, driving while drunk or otherwise impaired. So it is not much different. But AI cars are likely to be better drivers 2-3 years from now than what they are today humans will either be the same or worse.

stadium 5y ago

Replying to self to be more direct. Cars sit idle 80-90% of their useful life. As an auto manufacturer I don't need to achieve L{n} autonomous to make money, I just need wheels moving not parked. Wheels moving at 20mph on local roads, in-between paid trips with human drivers, is a huge market and with a lower risk profile than L4 or L5 autonomous. The fat margins here are in making idle capital more productive.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Not sure why you think this, empty cars really do require L4 if not L5, and if you've got actual L4 driving, taxis and freight are much bigger markets than renting cars in cities.
- stadium 5y ago
  At what speed? Is there a distinction between these L4 and L5 levels and speed? Is a L3 at idle speed equivalent to an L5 at highway speed?
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    If all it took to take an L2 AI and make it L5 were reducing top speed, you'd see a lot more L5 AIs around. The biggest problem with most self-driving cars is that they are easily fooled by various images, since they have extremely simplistic image classifiers to work with, rather than hugely specialized mamallian visual cortexes. Speed of processing is one aspect, but not nearly the only one. The Tesla that ran over that cyclist crossing that street at night wasn't missing reaction time, it simply didn't recognize the cyclist as an obstacle for whatever reason. Now as far as I understand, lidar mostly fixes these false negatives (in good weather conditions), but at the cost of more false positives - and here speed could be a bigger help. Even so, L4 and L5 would require planning skills and understanding of other traffic participants and road conditions that are still beyond us, at any speed. Note that the CEO of Waymo has plainly stated that L5 is not achievable with current sensor technologies. Perhaps at some extreme low speeds (probably closer to human walking speed than 20mph) L2 could work as L3, but I think that's about it.