4 ms·

A few days ago, i saw this article in SF Chronicle; a joint opinion piece from MIT professor Carlo Ratti: "Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robota

A few days ago, i saw this article in SF Chronicle; a joint opinion piece from MIT professor Carlo Ratti: "Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse" https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robotaxi-car-technology-traffic-18362647.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robota... The basic gist was, convenience of ride-sharing / seduced us into over using cars. It was supposed to have the opposite effect "...ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. ... With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses" but ... they did not take into account changes in human behavior. People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... "On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced." I think this is what will happen with these drone delivery services. As it becomes easier to order a box of bandaids and have it delivered in 4 minutes, people will change their behavior, we will be ordering more frequently one-off things from Walmart several times a week, and the sky will be filled with drones... and it will be hell.

ricardobeat 3y ago
But ride-sharing was never really a thing, was it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use it.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Before the pandemic, Uber Pool and Lyft Line were quite popular as a cheaper point-to-point transportation option in my city.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I’ve had people tell me they used it. Don’t know the overall mix pre-pandemic and no idea if it has returned at all.
KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
> A few days ago, i saw this article in SF Chronicle; a joint opinion piece from MIT professor Carlo Ratti: "Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse" https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robota https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robota... The basic gist was, convenience of ride-sharing / seduced us into over using cars. It was supposed to have the opposite effect "...ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. ... With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses" but ... they did not take into account changes in human behavior. People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... "On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced." I think this is what will happen with these drone delivery services. As it becomes easier to order a box of bandaids and have it delivered in 4 minutes, people will change their behavior, we will be ordering more frequently one-off things from Walmart several times a week, and the sky will be filled with drones... and it will be hell. People have a right to convenience and a better quality of life. Urban planners have a similarly flawed argument — tearing down highways will reduce traffic because everyone will take public transport. It merely forces the lower class and poor to suffer through public transit. The upper middle class, and similarly the tenured academics and policy wonks who came up with this sort of nonsensical arguments, never have to suffer the consequences of their own policies. It is a great thing in America that everyone can easily buy a car and enjoy the freedom. If cities want better traffic, then spend more money renovating or widening roads, not forcing poor people into crowded and uncomfortable public transport.
- gotimo 3y ago
  this is a better argument for improving public transport than it is for widening roads.
  - latency-guy2 3y ago
    Sure, if you deliberately are obtuse and think what others are saying are "widen the roads". I don't wish to share my space/commute with drug addicts and literal human feces, I don't see why anyone in this world would prefer to do that, can you explain why since you prefer that?
nindalf 3y ago
This isn’t a new idea. In 1865 the economist William Stanley Jevons pointed out that increasing the efficiency of machines that burned coal would lead to more coal being burned, not less. Making something more efficient makes it cheaper, unlocking new use cases and consumption by people who couldn’t afford it earlier. That’s what we call Jevons’ Paradox. Jevons was worried that the UK would run out of coal entirely. This question, asked in 1865, is similar to the 20th century worry of Peak Oil. > Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it? Jevons, William Stanley. The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal Mines. Macmillan and Co., 1865.
- vxNsr 3y ago
  Even that wasn’t the first time introducing efficiency had the opposite intended effect: the cotton gin was invented to reduce the reliance on slavery, it of course famously had the opposite effect, increasing demand for slavery as cotton became even more profitable.
  - nindalf 3y ago
    It wasn’t the first time it happened or noticed, but it’s the first time we know of that someone wrote a paper about it. The Gutenberg press in the 14th century could have saved a lot of time spent copying books by hand. It did, but also triggered a Cambrian explosion of book publishing.
    - vxNsr 3y ago
      But more books was the intended effect of the Gutenberg press, we were discussing unintended consequences.
      - relativ575 3y ago
        Was it? Or did they only intend to save the time it needed to make more books?
- 3y ago
crooked-v 3y ago
> People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... Most big US cities are designed to be incredibly hostile to anything but cars. The only reason that people weren't already taking taxis all the time is that the legacy taxi system is also incredibly unfriendly to users.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
My take is that autonomous cars will help parking and perhaps reduce the need for taxis, though that won't help traffic, indeed. For instance, if my car can drive itself then I no longer need to park it near where I'm going and I no longer need a taxi to drive me to airport/station. Regarding drone deliveries, the locations where it can be done safely is limited and there may be further legal restrictions if they cause a nuisance. We also need to see the cost, I doubt it will be worthwhile to order one-off small things often. Emissions are getting irrelevant as EVs take over and electricity is generated by renewables.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ChatGTP 3y ago
Read “The Machine Stops” if you haven’t, it’s awesome. Wait till people are accused of “crime” and are cut off from the airship delivery service.
- happytiger 3y ago
  https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/...
inetknght 3y ago
> the sky will be filled with drones... > and it will be hell. Imagine that the drones would need to follow quite stringent routes for safety and noise avoidance. Also imagine that (currently) a <50-pound drone flying at 300 feet overhead has a lower sound volume than a passing delivery truck. Actually, don't imagine; it's quite true. Why do you think it will be hell?
- bongobingo1 3y ago
  > Imagine that the drones would need to follow quite stringent routes for safety and noise avoidance Does that matter if I can IPO the "future of delivery" for billions? Corporations consistently show us they are willing to eat fines as "the cost of doing business", especially if its a means to eating all competition. I like the idea of quiet, localised drone delivery over trucks, but I also lament a future that has me looking into the sky to see no birds, only Ama-line™ drones dragging TikTok banners behind them. The future probably has no birds anyway - nor can I halt the drone delivery progress, so I guess it's not worth thinking about.
  - inetknght 3y ago
    > Does that matter if I can IPO the "future of delivery" for billions? Unless there's a downside, not really. The downsides are often hidden from the IPO. But, let's go on. > Corporations consistently show us they are willing to eat fines as "the cost of doing business", especially if its a means to eating all competition. I concur with you. Being willing to eat fines, for just about any reason, is unethical in my opinion. Being willing to destroy all competition is the opposite of my understanding of capitalism insomuch as I understand capitalism wants to encourage competition. And it's unfortunately very prevalent in societies that claim to love capitalism. > I also lament a future that has me looking into the sky to see no birds, only Ama-line™ drones dragging TikTok banners behind them. This is a valid complaint. I suggest that if you care about birds, with respect to drones, then you should become active in drone communities to determine the effects that drones have on birds. How do drone activities affect birds flying patterns or nesting habits? How do drones affect birds' food chains? Some birds have been known to have some level of intelligence and can mimic human behavior -- will birds mimic drone behavior? > The future probably has no birds anyway - nor can I halt the drone delivery progress, so I guess it's not worth thinking about. While I agree that, due to climate change, the future probably has far far fewer birds (perhaps even no birds), I think drone delivery is young enough that you can affect progress. There are government agencies that drone companies are beholden to; the FAA is certainly one of them, and the FAA (for things that fly) often works with the EPA (for things that affect the environment). There's plenty of avenues to affect the progress of drone delivery.
jjallen 3y ago
Why would this be hell? We aren't in the sky, are we? It's mostly empty there. We are on the ground. Fewer cars will be needed to deliver things. I think this is a massive improvement and will finally use an underutilized resource we have.
- b112 3y ago
  Yes, with noisy drones flying over houses, each with a single package. And due to tech issues, drones falling out of the sky, smashing into houses, and dropping objects from height.. a small mass at high speed, hitting the head, can kill, blind, maim. It's one thing to have planes, with maintenance schedules, flying. And those same planes are expensive, thus there is great incentive to not destroy them by accident. Not to mention, the build and quality control is generally high. Now imagine endless "cheap is best" drones from China. A lost drone? Meh. This is a disaster.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    The drones are winged, so they don't produce nearly as much noise as their VTOL counterparts. Safety will have to be engineered into these things(if it's not already) because it's enough for one high-profile accident to make the public lose trust and vote for banning them. The story is very much like with fully autonomous vehicles.
- mahogany 3y ago
  > Why would this be hell? We aren't in the sky, are we? It's mostly empty there. This attitude is why the planet is polluted and ecosystems are regularly destroyed. I wonder, is something else in the sky? Does the sky have a purpose beyond being a place where humans happen to not be?
mschuster91 3y ago
> but ... they did not take into account changes in human behavior. People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... That's known as "induced demand", and it's been known to exist in traffic since almost a century [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
Karrot_Kream 3y ago
I'm curious, did you read the actual press release or the approval letters? From the press release: > The FAA authorized Zipline International, Inc., to deliver commercial packages around Salt Lake City and Bentonville, Arkansas, using drones that fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight. emphasis mine and From the approval letters: > Flight operations must minimize ground risk and not overfly the following, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator: Power plants, Open-air assemblies of people, Schools during times of operation (e.g., elementary, middle, high, preschool and daycare facilities), Moving vehicles, except transitory flight operations, Roadways or highways, except transitory flight operations, and Any other area deemed high risk by the operator during the flight route design process. > For all current operations areas, and prior to conducting operations in a new area, the operator must complete a ground risk assessment and submit it to the FAA for acceptance. > The operator must maintain a conflict management capability to ensure that the PIC is able to keep the UA clear of any manned aircraft and other UA. > The operator may only conduct operations at a UA-to-PIC ratio of 1:1 unless otherwise authorized by the FAA. > Flights under special visual flight rules (SVFR) or instrument flight rules (IFR) are not authorized. There's lots and lots of stipulations here. So what's your concrete complaint?
- runeb 3y ago
  Their complaint is that they feel the sky will be filled with drones. And those stipulations do not address their concern in my view.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Tade0 3y ago
> People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... Of course they did - it's inconvenient. > On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced. Some points from the study that came up with that figure: (Bottom line up front: electrified ride-sharing can lower emissions by 70% compared to driving a combustion car and is a good solution) > A pooled ride-hailing trip shared between two passengers is similar in emissions to a private vehicle trip, and about 33 percent lower polluting than a non-pooled ride-hailing trip. Electrifying ride-hailing vehicles would dramatically improve the climate emissions of ride-hailing trips. An electric ride-hailing trip would cut emissions by about 50 percent compared to a private vehicle trip; a pooled, electric ride-hailing trip would lower emissions by nearly 70 percent compared to a private vehicle trip (or about 79 percent compared with a non-pooled ride-hailing trip). > On average, bus and rail travel have lower carbon emissions than car travel in either a private vehicle or in a pooled or non-pooled ride-hailing vehicle. However, using ride-hailing to connect to transit can be a good low-carbon choice. For example, a pooled ride-hailing trip connecting to the train, where the ride-hailing trip is a quarter of the total trip length, can be more than 50 percent less polluting than a private vehicle trip.

ricardobeat 3y ago

But ride-sharing was never really a thing, was it? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use it.

fragmede 3y ago
Before the pandemic, Uber Pool and Lyft Line were quite popular as a cheaper point-to-point transportation option in my city.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I’ve had people tell me they used it. Don’t know the overall mix pre-pandemic and no idea if it has returned at all.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago

> A few days ago, i saw this article in SF Chronicle; a joint opinion piece from MIT professor Carlo Ratti: "Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse" https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robota https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/robota... The basic gist was, convenience of ride-sharing / seduced us into over using cars. It was supposed to have the opposite effect "...ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. ... With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses" but ... they did not take into account changes in human behavior. People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... "On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced." I think this is what will happen with these drone delivery services. As it becomes easier to order a box of bandaids and have it delivered in 4 minutes, people will change their behavior, we will be ordering more frequently one-off things from Walmart several times a week, and the sky will be filled with drones... and it will be hell. People have a right to convenience and a better quality of life. Urban planners have a similarly flawed argument — tearing down highways will reduce traffic because everyone will take public transport. It merely forces the lower class and poor to suffer through public transit. The upper middle class, and similarly the tenured academics and policy wonks who came up with this sort of nonsensical arguments, never have to suffer the consequences of their own policies. It is a great thing in America that everyone can easily buy a car and enjoy the freedom. If cities want better traffic, then spend more money renovating or widening roads, not forcing poor people into crowded and uncomfortable public transport.

gotimo 3y ago
this is a better argument for improving public transport than it is for widening roads.
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  Sure, if you deliberately are obtuse and think what others are saying are "widen the roads". I don't wish to share my space/commute with drug addicts and literal human feces, I don't see why anyone in this world would prefer to do that, can you explain why since you prefer that?

nindalf 3y ago

This isn’t a new idea. In 1865 the economist William Stanley Jevons pointed out that increasing the efficiency of machines that burned coal would lead to more coal being burned, not less. Making something more efficient makes it cheaper, unlocking new use cases and consumption by people who couldn’t afford it earlier. That’s what we call Jevons’ Paradox. Jevons was worried that the UK would run out of coal entirely. This question, asked in 1865, is similar to the 20th century worry of Peak Oil. > Are we wise in allowing the commerce of this country to rise beyond the point at which we can long maintain it? Jevons, William Stanley. The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal Mines. Macmillan and Co., 1865.

vxNsr 3y ago
Even that wasn’t the first time introducing efficiency had the opposite intended effect: the cotton gin was invented to reduce the reliance on slavery, it of course famously had the opposite effect, increasing demand for slavery as cotton became even more profitable.
- nindalf 3y ago
  It wasn’t the first time it happened or noticed, but it’s the first time we know of that someone wrote a paper about it. The Gutenberg press in the 14th century could have saved a lot of time spent copying books by hand. It did, but also triggered a Cambrian explosion of book publishing.
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    But more books was the intended effect of the Gutenberg press, we were discussing unintended consequences.
    - relativ575 3y ago
      Was it? Or did they only intend to save the time it needed to make more books?
3y ago

crooked-v 3y ago

> People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... Most big US cities are designed to be incredibly hostile to anything but cars. The only reason that people weren't already taking taxis all the time is that the legacy taxi system is also incredibly unfriendly to users.

mytailorisrich 3y ago

My take is that autonomous cars will help parking and perhaps reduce the need for taxis, though that won't help traffic, indeed. For instance, if my car can drive itself then I no longer need to park it near where I'm going and I no longer need a taxi to drive me to airport/station. Regarding drone deliveries, the locations where it can be done safely is limited and there may be further legal restrictions if they cause a nuisance. We also need to see the cost, I doubt it will be worthwhile to order one-off small things often. Emissions are getting irrelevant as EVs take over and electricity is generated by renewables.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ChatGTP 3y ago

Read “The Machine Stops” if you haven’t, it’s awesome. Wait till people are accused of “crime” and are cut off from the airship delivery service.

happytiger 3y ago
https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/...

inetknght 3y ago

> the sky will be filled with drones... > and it will be hell. Imagine that the drones would need to follow quite stringent routes for safety and noise avoidance. Also imagine that (currently) a <50-pound drone flying at 300 feet overhead has a lower sound volume than a passing delivery truck. Actually, don't imagine; it's quite true. Why do you think it will be hell?

bongobingo1 3y ago
> Imagine that the drones would need to follow quite stringent routes for safety and noise avoidance Does that matter if I can IPO the "future of delivery" for billions? Corporations consistently show us they are willing to eat fines as "the cost of doing business", especially if its a means to eating all competition. I like the idea of quiet, localised drone delivery over trucks, but I also lament a future that has me looking into the sky to see no birds, only Ama-line™ drones dragging TikTok banners behind them. The future probably has no birds anyway - nor can I halt the drone delivery progress, so I guess it's not worth thinking about.
- inetknght 3y ago
  > Does that matter if I can IPO the "future of delivery" for billions? Unless there's a downside, not really. The downsides are often hidden from the IPO. But, let's go on. > Corporations consistently show us they are willing to eat fines as "the cost of doing business", especially if its a means to eating all competition. I concur with you. Being willing to eat fines, for just about any reason, is unethical in my opinion. Being willing to destroy all competition is the opposite of my understanding of capitalism insomuch as I understand capitalism wants to encourage competition. And it's unfortunately very prevalent in societies that claim to love capitalism. > I also lament a future that has me looking into the sky to see no birds, only Ama-line™ drones dragging TikTok banners behind them. This is a valid complaint. I suggest that if you care about birds, with respect to drones, then you should become active in drone communities to determine the effects that drones have on birds. How do drone activities affect birds flying patterns or nesting habits? How do drones affect birds' food chains? Some birds have been known to have some level of intelligence and can mimic human behavior -- will birds mimic drone behavior? > The future probably has no birds anyway - nor can I halt the drone delivery progress, so I guess it's not worth thinking about. While I agree that, due to climate change, the future probably has far far fewer birds (perhaps even no birds), I think drone delivery is young enough that you can affect progress. There are government agencies that drone companies are beholden to; the FAA is certainly one of them, and the FAA (for things that fly) often works with the EPA (for things that affect the environment). There's plenty of avenues to affect the progress of drone delivery.

jjallen 3y ago

Why would this be hell? We aren't in the sky, are we? It's mostly empty there. We are on the ground. Fewer cars will be needed to deliver things. I think this is a massive improvement and will finally use an underutilized resource we have.

b112 3y ago
Yes, with noisy drones flying over houses, each with a single package. And due to tech issues, drones falling out of the sky, smashing into houses, and dropping objects from height.. a small mass at high speed, hitting the head, can kill, blind, maim. It's one thing to have planes, with maintenance schedules, flying. And those same planes are expensive, thus there is great incentive to not destroy them by accident. Not to mention, the build and quality control is generally high. Now imagine endless "cheap is best" drones from China. A lost drone? Meh. This is a disaster.
- Tade0 3y ago
  The drones are winged, so they don't produce nearly as much noise as their VTOL counterparts. Safety will have to be engineered into these things(if it's not already) because it's enough for one high-profile accident to make the public lose trust and vote for banning them. The story is very much like with fully autonomous vehicles.
mahogany 3y ago
> Why would this be hell? We aren't in the sky, are we? It's mostly empty there. This attitude is why the planet is polluted and ecosystems are regularly destroyed. I wonder, is something else in the sky? Does the sky have a purpose beyond being a place where humans happen to not be?

mschuster91 3y ago

> but ... they did not take into account changes in human behavior. People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... That's known as "induced demand", and it's been known to exist in traffic since almost a century [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

I'm curious, did you read the actual press release or the approval letters? From the press release: > The FAA authorized Zipline International, Inc., to deliver commercial packages around Salt Lake City and Bentonville, Arkansas, using drones that fly beyond the operator’s visual line of sight. emphasis mine and From the approval letters: > Flight operations must minimize ground risk and not overfly the following, unless otherwise approved by the Administrator: Power plants, Open-air assemblies of people, Schools during times of operation (e.g., elementary, middle, high, preschool and daycare facilities), Moving vehicles, except transitory flight operations, Roadways or highways, except transitory flight operations, and Any other area deemed high risk by the operator during the flight route design process. > For all current operations areas, and prior to conducting operations in a new area, the operator must complete a ground risk assessment and submit it to the FAA for acceptance. > The operator must maintain a conflict management capability to ensure that the PIC is able to keep the UA clear of any manned aircraft and other UA. > The operator may only conduct operations at a UA-to-PIC ratio of 1:1 unless otherwise authorized by the FAA. > Flights under special visual flight rules (SVFR) or instrument flight rules (IFR) are not authorized. There's lots and lots of stipulations here. So what's your concrete complaint?

runeb 3y ago
Their complaint is that they feel the sky will be filled with drones. And those stipulations do not address their concern in my view.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Tade0 3y ago

> People stopped walking, using bicycles, etc... Of course they did - it's inconvenient. > On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced. Some points from the study that came up with that figure: (Bottom line up front: electrified ride-sharing can lower emissions by 70% compared to driving a combustion car and is a good solution) > A pooled ride-hailing trip shared between two passengers is similar in emissions to a private vehicle trip, and about 33 percent lower polluting than a non-pooled ride-hailing trip. Electrifying ride-hailing vehicles would dramatically improve the climate emissions of ride-hailing trips. An electric ride-hailing trip would cut emissions by about 50 percent compared to a private vehicle trip; a pooled, electric ride-hailing trip would lower emissions by nearly 70 percent compared to a private vehicle trip (or about 79 percent compared with a non-pooled ride-hailing trip). > On average, bus and rail travel have lower carbon emissions than car travel in either a private vehicle or in a pooled or non-pooled ride-hailing vehicle. However, using ride-hailing to connect to transit can be a good low-carbon choice. For example, a pooled ride-hailing trip connecting to the train, where the ride-hailing trip is a quarter of the total trip length, can be more than 50 percent less polluting than a private vehicle trip.