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For completion. You actually have real driverless public transport systems functioning for many years now with autonomous metro and rail systems across the worl

For completion. You actually have real driverless public transport systems functioning for many years now with autonomous metro and rail systems across the world. It is obviously a much easier problem to solve due to its constraints. What is interesting to me is that we have completely altered our transport networks to fit the new paradigm of cars +100 years ago, widening roads, asphalting roads, building motorways, parking lots, etc. But somehow anything that comes after must be backwards compatible with this 1950's US Detroit vision of the car centric world.

dathinab 3y ago
> to fit the new paradigm of cars 1. because they brought major improvements to most peoples everyday live, much more then self driving will 2. it fit's the wide landscape of the us perfectly 2. it was pushed (lobbied) by much much more money then any of the self driving car or public transportation movements today (not just Oil and Car industry but also e.g. military for Tanks) 3. it fit the American dream perfectly, everyone can go everywhere, by themself, everyone gets their own house (which in turn is often noticeable far away from city centers so a car is needed) etc. 4. it aligned with a society which moved more from compacter communities to wide spread individualism 5. the US was growing a lot, this meant a lot of potential for changes 7. it aligned with (also in EU) very wide views about what a good future would be and how to get there, e.g. EU cities which grew a ton around 1950 often have (or had) similar problems 8. people where not dependent on walking, switching to cars was viable 9. it was a powerful tool to shape society in many ways, including for suppressing successful minorities by intentionally routing highways right through the middle of them Today the US isn't growing like that anymore nor can people at all in anyway agree anymore in which direction it should be heading wrt. urban planing. A lot of the grate ideas and shows of wealth and prosperity of the 50th have turned into liabilities. People are so dependent on being able to use cars that it has become a liability for the US where they need to make sure the huge majority of their population can at least somehow somewhat afford a car and gasoline for it, not doing so it not an option. But this leads to a chicken egg problem where for solving some problem you need to change how cars a treated but for changing that you need to first fix the problem. So the only option is to slowly do many small changes but at the same time this makes it much easier for Oil and Car lobbies to hinder the most essential changes.
spookie 3y ago
The constraints on autonomous public transport systems make them viable. You create a safer system that way. Additionally, you prevent unnecessary work getting multiple vehicles to the same location roughly at the same timeframe. I understand people want a faster solution! But mixing autonomous vehicles with human drivers isn't the way. Moreover, these companies commit statistical fallacies discussing safety. Human drivers have driven more, as the article suggests, and in a myriad of environments. Many variables are at play, and it's disingenuous to compare this way.
barrysteve 3y ago
Are you implying that the 1950s Detroit vision of a car centric world, was acutally a plan to lay a framework for driverless cars in the future? The Catholics used to build churches that took 300yrs to construct, long after the death of the original designer. It is not difficult to imagine 1950s roads turning into the cyberpunk cities, full of autonomous vehicles.

dathinab 3y ago

> to fit the new paradigm of cars 1. because they brought major improvements to most peoples everyday live, much more then self driving will 2. it fit's the wide landscape of the us perfectly 2. it was pushed (lobbied) by much much more money then any of the self driving car or public transportation movements today (not just Oil and Car industry but also e.g. military for Tanks) 3. it fit the American dream perfectly, everyone can go everywhere, by themself, everyone gets their own house (which in turn is often noticeable far away from city centers so a car is needed) etc. 4. it aligned with a society which moved more from compacter communities to wide spread individualism 5. the US was growing a lot, this meant a lot of potential for changes 7. it aligned with (also in EU) very wide views about what a good future would be and how to get there, e.g. EU cities which grew a ton around 1950 often have (or had) similar problems 8. people where not dependent on walking, switching to cars was viable 9. it was a powerful tool to shape society in many ways, including for suppressing successful minorities by intentionally routing highways right through the middle of them Today the US isn't growing like that anymore nor can people at all in anyway agree anymore in which direction it should be heading wrt. urban planing. A lot of the grate ideas and shows of wealth and prosperity of the 50th have turned into liabilities. People are so dependent on being able to use cars that it has become a liability for the US where they need to make sure the huge majority of their population can at least somehow somewhat afford a car and gasoline for it, not doing so it not an option. But this leads to a chicken egg problem where for solving some problem you need to change how cars a treated but for changing that you need to first fix the problem. So the only option is to slowly do many small changes but at the same time this makes it much easier for Oil and Car lobbies to hinder the most essential changes.

spookie 3y ago

The constraints on autonomous public transport systems make them viable. You create a safer system that way. Additionally, you prevent unnecessary work getting multiple vehicles to the same location roughly at the same timeframe. I understand people want a faster solution! But mixing autonomous vehicles with human drivers isn't the way. Moreover, these companies commit statistical fallacies discussing safety. Human drivers have driven more, as the article suggests, and in a myriad of environments. Many variables are at play, and it's disingenuous to compare this way.

barrysteve 3y ago

Are you implying that the 1950s Detroit vision of a car centric world, was acutally a plan to lay a framework for driverless cars in the future? The Catholics used to build churches that took 300yrs to construct, long after the death of the original designer. It is not difficult to imagine 1950s roads turning into the cyberpunk cities, full of autonomous vehicles.