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> There was a survey a few years ago of how much more people would be willing to pay for cars that could drive themself, and the median answer was $0. This is b

> There was a survey a few years ago of how much more people would be willing to pay for cars that could drive themself, and the median answer was $0. This is because quite a few people gave a negative number, that is, they would pay extra for a car that could not drive itself. I think there's an inherent distrust (which I share) of giving technology the power to end our lives with one bug. Trust in technology, in general, is pretty low right now, so that reflects back on perceived future technology where one bad steer or missed brake ruins your life. Although I happen to share this pessimism with the human aspect of driving as well, I've almost died before because I wasn't focused while driving (IRL nerd sniping basically), and I know it could happen again in the future no matter how much I want to be a safe driver. The truth is, if full self driving cars actually happened, with safety statistics better than humans and with a low barrier to entry, you can bet that people would change their opinion real fast. Much like Americans who have a revelation after experiencing European or Asian public transit, the realization that they could have an extra hour per day that was previously spent staring at a road, would be a big motivator to change opinions on technology. Add in that three of your friends already use it daily and they're not dead yet, and you rode with them and it seemed like a safe driver.

phpisthebest 4y ago
>>with safety statistics better than humans The problem is that will not be the expectation. It will need to be perfect or near perfect. full self driving cars can drive a million of miles with no accident, but if on 1,000,001 miles there is a accident with a death it is all over the news, and people proclaiming the technology is terrible, unsafe and not ready. In that same 1,000,001 miles humans have caused far more damange and death but that is just "normal" so....
- helen___keller 4y ago
  from a distance that's how people feel now. because self-driving isn't something anyone has access to, it's something that a few tesla buyers and a few tech companies (waymo, etc) have access to. So, from an average person's perspective, of course I don't want those rich/greedy assholes killing kids. The algorithms need to be perfect before they're allowed on the road If every single car were upgraded to have full self driving tomorrow, with algorithms to perform lets just say 1% better than humans perform, I guarantee that acceptance would build overnight.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Veserv 4y ago
  Well obviously. If a self driving car caused a fatal accident after just 1,000,001 miles it would be like 80x more dangerous than the average American human driver. The reason we see summary dismissals of current autonomous vehicle technology is because even the best systems by Waymo and Cruise are literally orders of magnitude away from human-level. No discussion or societal cost-benefit is necessary when they are years away from reaching the bare minimum level worthy of analysis.
lesuorac 4y ago
> The truth is, if full self driving cars actually happened, with safety statistics better than humans and with a low barrier to entry, you can bet that people would change their opinion real fast. I think this is the wrong counter-argument against self-driving cars being viable. If the median answer is $0 and there were a lot of negative answers then that means there's a lot of positive answers. Just sell the cars to those people! Not everybody wants a self-driving car just like not everybody wants a big mac. Hell you probably need to pay some people to eat a big mac. But theres enough people that want a big mac that despite that fact it's a huge business.
- helen___keller 4y ago
  Nonetheless, I would claim it's a lot more than half of people who would want self driving cars. How many daily commuters exist? I surmise atleast 90% of them would want self driving cars if it were a proven, familiar technology with a reasonable barrier to entry. Of course, I'm just projecting a hypothetical technology that is both fairly cheap and extremely safe/effective. We can expect that future is far, far away
- dionidium 4y ago
  > Not everybody wants a self-driving car just like not everybody wants a big mac. I don't think this will work, because self-driving cars will reveal drivers for what they are: impatient, reckless, anti-social maniacs. People want to speed, to swerve into the bike or parking lane to overtake a left-hand turner, to inch out into traffic to force themselves into a lane, to tailgate, etc, etc. You can't really have a system where x% of the cars are calmly and mechanically following the rules and manually-operated vehicles are taking advantage of that.
cmh89 4y ago
>The truth is, if full self driving cars actually happened, with safety statistics better than humans and with a low barrier to entry, you can bet that people would change their opinion real fast. A lot of danger of motor vehicles is when motorist choose to be dangerous though. If self-driving cars force motorists to follow speed limits and other traffic control devices, that will limit their uptake by quite a bit I think
jasondigitized 4y ago
The average American will never be persuaded by statistics. Ross Perot tried that already.
- helen___keller 4y ago
  It’s not statistics that will convince people it’s convenience. I just mentioned statistics because if the tech were convenient but actually killed people at 10X the rate of human driving, it could end up banned or something
- fallingknife 4y ago
  It will be more like statistics convince some people, and then "my friend has one and he loves it, and I've ridden in it, so now I'm comfortable with it" will over time convince the rest.
- bluGill 4y ago
  It isn't the average American that needs to be convinced, it is the government car safety agencies (every government around the world with a such an agency, not just US). They have people who know how to read statistics. Once the statistics show significant improvements they will make anything else illegal. Of course significant is something that will be debated, and there will be a phase in time. In the end though, this isn't about the average person it is about the people with power.

phpisthebest 4y ago

>>with safety statistics better than humans The problem is that will not be the expectation. It will need to be perfect or near perfect. full self driving cars can drive a million of miles with no accident, but if on 1,000,001 miles there is a accident with a death it is all over the news, and people proclaiming the technology is terrible, unsafe and not ready. In that same 1,000,001 miles humans have caused far more damange and death but that is just "normal" so....

helen___keller 4y ago
from a distance that's how people feel now. because self-driving isn't something anyone has access to, it's something that a few tesla buyers and a few tech companies (waymo, etc) have access to. So, from an average person's perspective, of course I don't want those rich/greedy assholes killing kids. The algorithms need to be perfect before they're allowed on the road If every single car were upgraded to have full self driving tomorrow, with algorithms to perform lets just say 1% better than humans perform, I guarantee that acceptance would build overnight.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Veserv 4y ago
Well obviously. If a self driving car caused a fatal accident after just 1,000,001 miles it would be like 80x more dangerous than the average American human driver. The reason we see summary dismissals of current autonomous vehicle technology is because even the best systems by Waymo and Cruise are literally orders of magnitude away from human-level. No discussion or societal cost-benefit is necessary when they are years away from reaching the bare minimum level worthy of analysis.

lesuorac 4y ago

> The truth is, if full self driving cars actually happened, with safety statistics better than humans and with a low barrier to entry, you can bet that people would change their opinion real fast. I think this is the wrong counter-argument against self-driving cars being viable. If the median answer is $0 and there were a lot of negative answers then that means there's a lot of positive answers. Just sell the cars to those people! Not everybody wants a self-driving car just like not everybody wants a big mac. Hell you probably need to pay some people to eat a big mac. But theres enough people that want a big mac that despite that fact it's a huge business.

helen___keller 4y ago
Nonetheless, I would claim it's a lot more than half of people who would want self driving cars. How many daily commuters exist? I surmise atleast 90% of them would want self driving cars if it were a proven, familiar technology with a reasonable barrier to entry. Of course, I'm just projecting a hypothetical technology that is both fairly cheap and extremely safe/effective. We can expect that future is far, far away
dionidium 4y ago
> Not everybody wants a self-driving car just like not everybody wants a big mac. I don't think this will work, because self-driving cars will reveal drivers for what they are: impatient, reckless, anti-social maniacs. People want to speed, to swerve into the bike or parking lane to overtake a left-hand turner, to inch out into traffic to force themselves into a lane, to tailgate, etc, etc. You can't really have a system where x% of the cars are calmly and mechanically following the rules and manually-operated vehicles are taking advantage of that.

cmh89 4y ago

>The truth is, if full self driving cars actually happened, with safety statistics better than humans and with a low barrier to entry, you can bet that people would change their opinion real fast. A lot of danger of motor vehicles is when motorist choose to be dangerous though. If self-driving cars force motorists to follow speed limits and other traffic control devices, that will limit their uptake by quite a bit I think

jasondigitized 4y ago

The average American will never be persuaded by statistics. Ross Perot tried that already.

helen___keller 4y ago
It’s not statistics that will convince people it’s convenience. I just mentioned statistics because if the tech were convenient but actually killed people at 10X the rate of human driving, it could end up banned or something
fallingknife 4y ago
It will be more like statistics convince some people, and then "my friend has one and he loves it, and I've ridden in it, so now I'm comfortable with it" will over time convince the rest.
bluGill 4y ago
It isn't the average American that needs to be convinced, it is the government car safety agencies (every government around the world with a such an agency, not just US). They have people who know how to read statistics. Once the statistics show significant improvements they will make anything else illegal. Of course significant is something that will be debated, and there will be a phase in time. In the end though, this isn't about the average person it is about the people with power.