18 ms·

About ten years ago I made a prediction: Self-driving technology will overtake average human ability with regard to safety within a decade, but the biggest hur

by ttfkam 3y ago

About ten years ago I made a prediction: Self-driving technology will overtake average human ability with regard to safety within a decade, but the biggest hurdle will be public acceptance. The AI will not make the same kind of mistakes humans make. So while the aggregate number of accidents will be (likely much) lower without a human at the wheel, the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make, and this will terrify the public. A intuitively predictable crash will always be scarier than one that makes no sense to our minds. The only way self-driving tech will ever succeed is if the AI can be limited to the same kinds of mistakes humans make, just fewer, and that's a VERY hard technical nut to crack that I do not believe will be solved anytime soon. That said, I still believe that the ubiquity of cars is inherently a problem, human operator or no. If we put more effort into self-driving busses and autonomous trains—which have regular schedules, routes, and predictable speeds—I think we would see much greater dividends on our investment and far fewer "unintuitive" errors. Our collective fixation on cars blinds us as a society to this option unfortunately. More cars just clog up the road even more, demand more parking, and otherwise monopolize land use that could be more productive otherwise. More idling/circling driverless cars adds to the blight rather than relieving it. We need to transport more people between points in higher density, not lower, and cars are the lowest density transportation options available.

hasty_pudding 3y ago
We need private rich people to buy up large tracts of land and build techno test bed cities for this stuff.
- vikramkr 3y ago
  If you're building a new city just do public transit instead of all this inefficient nonsense. Either way it's not a naturally growing city so if you're going to plan one plan one that makes sense
dcow 3y ago
We could legislate around this very irrational/human fear. Personally I’d feel much safer if the roads were primarily filled with drivers that don’t get emotional and are objectively safer. Even if a few accidents confuse me and seem avoidable. I think what your analysis is missing is that most human accidents are also 100% avoidable. Why aren’t we looking at the incredibly dumb things humans do and asking the same hard questions? Why doesn’t it spook us when a human doesn't see a red light and t-bones cross traffic? Or when a multi-car pileup happens because a large pickup truck with a big car complex is tailgating someone at 85 mph and a sudden stop is required?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  It does spook some people, but sufficiently large portions of the population also like to engage in the very things that cause those collisions, such as using their phone or being distracted, driving inebriated, driving fast, tailgating, etc, such that most people feel okay with others being risky, since they are being risky too. Of course, when a collision does happen and damages have to be paid, the injured party will of course start advocating for full liability even if they previously had no issues engaging in the risky driving themselves. Which is why this is not reflected at the polls when voting for a politician who would promise cracking down hard on moving violations, with things like cameras and increased police stops.
  - ttfkam 3y ago
    And all because of our over reliance on cars in urban and suburban environments. Mass transit basically eliminates the need for moving violations, traffic citations, parking problems, cameras, and police stops. No more need for stroads, toll booths, etc. Our cities might actually be livable again. Walking and biking wouldn't feel like putting our lives at risk. Fewer parking lots means more stores and other amenities closer to where we live. It's the cars. Autonomous or not, cars are the problem. But just like health care, we keep choosing and voting for the absolute worst option because it's what we're used to and fear-mongers selling us a story about how any change will inevitably lead to a socialist hellscape. Fear: it's a hell of an addictive drug even as we witness our own obvious decline.
    - frumper 3y ago
      America is huge and its people are very spread out. Its cities are sprawling and low density. For what it's worth, I don't actually shop at the supermarket closest to my house that is within walking distance because they don't offer good prices.
      - ttfkam 3y ago
        Yes, there is much work to be done. And it will have to be done to move forward. We've eroded sidewalks and put driveways along major stroads. Parking lots often match or exceed the size of the businesses they serve. We've reached maximum density with car-centric city planning. There are some software decisions that worked well up to a certain point, but simply won't scale reliably to the current level let alone what you need for the foreseeable future. At some point you have to bite the bullet and refactor. Refactoring takes skill, and you need the right folks for the job, but it will get harder and more expensive the longer you wait. It typically doesn't have to be done all at once. Just fix as you go and stop following the older patterns. Have a plan and work toward the goal one step and a time. One commit at a time. One stroad at a time. Folks may believe in the whole "personal freedom" with a car, but how personal or free are you sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? Cars = Liberty is a pernicious lie.
thedaly 3y ago
I agree that the fixation on cars in urban/population dense areas is a problem and the overall use of cars in these areas should be offset by public transportation. I feel like the one in five Americans that live in rural areas is left out of the conversation though. You can't eliminate cars for those 60 million or so people.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And, really, that understates it. I'm technically urban per the Census--ex-urban per ESRI. But the idea that anyone near me could reasonably get by with just public transit is laughable. And I actually live quite close to a commuter rail station and there is a small regional bus system.
  - ttfkam 3y ago
    Sounds like you and your fellow community members should vote for folks who will prioritize public transit rather than widening stroads. Poor transit options are a policy choice, not an inevitability. The best time to start advocating for livable cities was a decade ago. Second best time is now, so that ten years from now, you and yours will have more options than they have today. Folks need to be transported at higher and higher densities as a city's population grows. Cars are the lowest density carrier available. Think of how many cars fit on a four-lane road on a mile stretch. How many people are in those cars? How many trains or busses would be needed to move that many people? Now visualize the space taken up by those cars versus the space taken up by busses. That's how you solve traffic problems with a growing population, even for the folks who still need their cars because their destinations are sufficiently irregular. Mass transit helps those who need their cars too! As a byproduct, you don't need so many and so large parking lots. Think of all the parking lots around you, which I'm sure there are many. Imagine 80% of them were replaced with housing, retail, office space, parks, meeting places, etc. Then convert the remaining 20% to multi-story parking. Urban sprawl is a choice. Choose different.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I am 50 miles outside the nearest major city. I'm on a busy but 2-lane total country road where my two nearest neighbors are on 10s of acres. There are no nearby businesses (much less stroads) until you get to a nearby small (20K) person city. I don't know how you solve that with mass transit. And it's considered urban as the US Census defines it. You may not approve that such places exist but they do. And folks like to live in them.
Dolototo 3y ago
The most critical point though: the race stared and will not just stop. It's a question when not if as it's clear that we haven't found fundamental issues. The opposite happens: more people use it already than I thought and companies are stepping up with insurance to cover you. Yes the Tesla car driving into a truck, horrible but there was no genuine global outcry.
jstarfish 3y ago
> the biggest hurdle will be public acceptance. The AI will not make the same kind of mistakes humans make. So while the aggregate number of accidents will be (likely much) lower without a human at the wheel, the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make, and this will terrify the public. I'd argue safety is not a concern. There are a lot of "safe" things we could do, but don't. A significant percentage of the country doesn't even vaccinate its children. Self-driving cars aren't suddenly going to make us aware of our own mortality in ways that life itself hasn't already. The real fear is lack of accountability. If a drunk plows into a crowd of pedestrians, he will be dragged out of it and (metaphorically) lynched. Justice makes us feel better about circumstances beyond our control. If North Korea test-launched an ICBM that erroneously hit Japan, we'd declare war over their typo. But when a self-driving car erroneously mows down pedestrians, we're told to just accept it, nothing we could do, mumble-mumble-training-data, and tragedies like this happen so we can be safer. Nothing is going to condition us to resent the idea of Safety more than having our personal agency and sense of justice taken away from us in its name.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  Personal agency and justice are not provided by cars. To that point, how much agency do you feel you have in standstill bumper to bumper traffic. How much justice do you feel sitting in traffic, focused on the bumper stickers in front of you versus other actually productive activities while the bus or train are in motion. Cars != Liberty They never were. They have always been rapidly depreciating assets that are useful for one-off destinations and horrible externalities with regard to city planning.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  What do you think about a separate set of laws that determines pay outs from AV companies to people injured in AV accidents? It seems reasonable to me. For over 50 years, (life) insurance companies have offered specific pay outs for injuries. In some sense, a framework already exists. Also, if you want to make the system "bullet proof", require AV companies to put a certain amount of money on deposit with the state (or buy insurance from a separate company). (In a sense, this already exists for insurance companies through strict balance sheet regulations.) Then, you cannot have terrible AV company with many accidents that goes bankrupt from fines and cannot pay. To be clear: I do think, in my lifetime, AV will become normal in many places. Some horrific accidents will happen that result in massive fines to the companies. As a result, some of them will go bankrupt.
beambot 3y ago
> the same kinds of mistakes humans make We're hosed until we can instruct our vehicles to act drunk.
basch 3y ago
The whole industry feels like the cart leading the horse to me. Not having a track to follow on/in the road (magnets, sensors etc.) Not mandating all cars talk to each other, working together like a mesh/hive/colony. I understand that has its own set of self starter issues, but it can be built in WHILE also doing what is currently happening. The fact that roads are being replaced TODAY and still nothing is going in them to help cars drive themselves, baffles me.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  I am convinced that this will come later. If anything, "hive mind" AV cars will allow them to drive much faster on high speed roads. Imagine if one lane is protected (walled) and reserved for AV cars on an expressway. They could drive crazy fast as a team (150km/h+). Expand that over the years. In 50 years, all expressways might be AV-only and cars driving very, very fast.
  - basch 3y ago
    you still have weather, unsecured loads, animals. cars and drives arent the only dangerous thing on the road.
rdsubhas 3y ago
> If we put more effort into self-driving busses and autonomous trains ... we would see much greater dividends on our investment and far fewer "unintuitive" errors. Everything you said made sense, except focusing on mass transit for FSD, for two reasons: The intent of focusing on bus/train automation comes from an illusion of control (we can control the lane/track, thereby) – hence we tend to rudimentarily attribute easy outcomes to it (low risk, high value). If we ignore the control part and properly think about it – mass transit actually higher risk for lower value. 1. Lower value: For something that involves 100+ people on dense economic centers, it's already running at an economy of scale where a human driver just makes sense. I live in Germany where the metro trains & trams are already crazy automated. There is a human driver there just in case, more as a supervisor for the people riding (controlling hooliganism, jammed doors, helping challenged people, dealing with emergencies, etc). I see German trains as already running on FSD4. FSD5 full automation is a waste of time here. Using buses for last mile coverage for few passengers, aka treating buses as "big taxis" is probably worse environmentally than actual taxis. 2. Higher risk: By the same logic you said for cars – "far fewer unintuitive errors" – at a much higher capacity of mass transit – is far more catastrophic. Imagine a self-driving train had just 1 accident in 10 years, but it affected 1000 people. It's sheer terror. Who is liable for it? Government. The problem with going down this mass-transit-first route is, one error means legislating away the entire sector. Cars are actually lower risk (individual choice, individual liability, accidents don't deter others from adopting) and higher value (last mile, moving away from the dense urban city plans that come with high rents and chokepoints which are crippling even to my beloved, beautiful German cities where even with all the urban sprawl, last mile is still a problem outside A zones).
- bluGill 3y ago
  German trains are not known for being automated. I'm sure you have some, but not as many as you think. No tram in the world runs crazy automation, they all currently have a human on board. Only grade separated trains run fully automated. There might be some automation on your trains, but it isn't fully automated. Your second point is completely wrong: we have trains, and have been running them for more than 100 years. We have real statistics to show in the real world they are much safer than cars. Sure you can imagine anything you want, but when real science has real data why would anyone look at your imagined data.
somethoughts 3y ago
The two scenarios that concern me long term are: - What happens when all of the infrastructure gets built up around self driving cars and peoples first hand knowledge of how to drive diminishes. Once a near monopoly/duopoly is attained by a select few SDC vendors, it will become a utility. Then what fallback does society have if the likely enshittification happens. Do we just have to live with it? - Its all fine when the companies able to do this are part of the most elite, technology first companies - but what happens when companies known to take short cuts (like the ones who can barely get bluetooth working for their audio infotainment system) start try to enter the market by focusing on lobbying the SDC oversight board.
- cantaloupe 3y ago
  Regarding your first point… 15 year olds learn the basics of driving in a day. Generally speaking, it’s not that difficult. A scenario where humans forget entirely how to drive and are unable to learn again is incredibly far fetched.
trgn 3y ago
> the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make you'd be surprised what kind of mistakes humans make. Anyway, snarky comment aside. The biggest reason for optimism is that a world full of AI cars will remove the reptile-brained jostling for position that's 90% the cause of all crashes today, and that it will overall _slow down_ traffic. Slower, calm, tepid moving traffic, a bunch of electric golfcarts puttering around the city. That's a future of AI-only traffic worth signing up for.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Plus it will be MUCH safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  This is a genius reply. I 100% agree intellectually as well as from personal experience. I have a British co-worker. When he goes home for the holidays, he is always terrified of how fast people drive on two lane countryside roads with sharp turns and limited visibility. Another Swiss co-worker said the same about snowy local roads in the mountains. Locals drive very fast. As soon as AV is trained on those roads, it will drive much slower, and probably safer.
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    Why would you think people would drive slower with AV? They will drive even faster thinking their AI will protect them. I know this because Tesla has “ludicrous mode” and all other EV manufacturers are bragging about their insane 0-60 and 0-100 mph times, and owners love to show off.
    - LeafItAlone 3y ago
      > Why would you think people would drive slower with AV? Because the autonomous vehicle will be autonomous.
      - demondemidi 3y ago
lvl102 3y ago
There’s no evidence to suggest that a system of self-driving vehicles are safer. The solution won’t come from the US because there are way too many red tapes. It’s coming from a smaller country perhaps Japan/Korea.
JaceLightning 3y ago
No lol we won't have fully self driving cars in our lifetime. We would need cars to fully understand human speech and understanding and be able to react with 100% accuracy 100x faster than humans. Possible? Yes, but not for decades to come.
throwaway2037 3y ago
autonomous trains These already exist in Hongkong, Singapore, and Paris, but they are crazy expensive. And, AV bus sounds harder than AV car due to boarding and fare payment issues. I disagree with your ideas for early AV applications.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  I think you're assuming a city bus needs a fare. It doesn't. Santa Cruz County, CA has just passed a resolution where all busses in the county will be free to ride. It already is for folks working downtown, anyone under 18, anyone at the university, and for a small per-semester fee at the local community college. This not only makes it more convenient to get around without worrying about buying transit tickets ahead of time, it means the busses can load from the front AND the back, making the time spent at each stop shorter and schedules easier to keep. Much easier problem for autonomous setups when you remove fares and just have to monitor if anyone's in danger. Public mass transit never breaks even from fares. What it does very well however is free up the money folks would have spent on gas, parking, car maintenance, etc., so they can move around and spend it more freely in the community. You see this spectrum in various cities. Some cities make you pay depending on how far the light rail travels, so you naturally condition riders not to ride any more or further than they absolutely need to go. Places like New York City on the other hand just sell you a pass; taking an extra trip to the Met or to Central Park doesn't cost extra, so folks do it, socializing and stimulating the economy along the way. New York's biggest transit mistake in my opinion is keeping the fares. They'll spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars on NYPD overtime to catch turnstile jumpers when they could spend less just letting people ride for free. https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-overtime-pay-in-the-subway-went-from-4-million-to-155-million-this-year https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-overtime-pay-in-the-subway-w... It's like when Florida drug tested everyone trying to get public assistance and ended up spending far more for administering and processing the test to catch a relative small handful. https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/just-we-suspected-florida-saved-nothing-drug-testing-welfare https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/just-we-suspected-fl...
  - anticensor 3y ago
    Fares have another purpose as well: crowd control.
demondemidi 3y ago
I’ve been saying this since the 90s. Fewer cars, more mass transit in urban regions. But people are stupid: they would rather sit in traffic for 2-3 hours a day than give up a “freedom” that actively restricts them. The paradox is the size of a galaxy.

by ttfkam 3y ago

hasty_pudding 3y ago

We need private rich people to buy up large tracts of land and build techno test bed cities for this stuff.

vikramkr 3y ago
If you're building a new city just do public transit instead of all this inefficient nonsense. Either way it's not a naturally growing city so if you're going to plan one plan one that makes sense

dcow 3y ago

We could legislate around this very irrational/human fear. Personally I’d feel much safer if the roads were primarily filled with drivers that don’t get emotional and are objectively safer. Even if a few accidents confuse me and seem avoidable. I think what your analysis is missing is that most human accidents are also 100% avoidable. Why aren’t we looking at the incredibly dumb things humans do and asking the same hard questions? Why doesn’t it spook us when a human doesn't see a red light and t-bones cross traffic? Or when a multi-car pileup happens because a large pickup truck with a big car complex is tailgating someone at 85 mph and a sudden stop is required?

lotsofpulp 3y ago
It does spook some people, but sufficiently large portions of the population also like to engage in the very things that cause those collisions, such as using their phone or being distracted, driving inebriated, driving fast, tailgating, etc, such that most people feel okay with others being risky, since they are being risky too. Of course, when a collision does happen and damages have to be paid, the injured party will of course start advocating for full liability even if they previously had no issues engaging in the risky driving themselves. Which is why this is not reflected at the polls when voting for a politician who would promise cracking down hard on moving violations, with things like cameras and increased police stops.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  And all because of our over reliance on cars in urban and suburban environments. Mass transit basically eliminates the need for moving violations, traffic citations, parking problems, cameras, and police stops. No more need for stroads, toll booths, etc. Our cities might actually be livable again. Walking and biking wouldn't feel like putting our lives at risk. Fewer parking lots means more stores and other amenities closer to where we live. It's the cars. Autonomous or not, cars are the problem. But just like health care, we keep choosing and voting for the absolute worst option because it's what we're used to and fear-mongers selling us a story about how any change will inevitably lead to a socialist hellscape. Fear: it's a hell of an addictive drug even as we witness our own obvious decline.
  - frumper 3y ago
    America is huge and its people are very spread out. Its cities are sprawling and low density. For what it's worth, I don't actually shop at the supermarket closest to my house that is within walking distance because they don't offer good prices.
    - ttfkam 3y ago
      Yes, there is much work to be done. And it will have to be done to move forward. We've eroded sidewalks and put driveways along major stroads. Parking lots often match or exceed the size of the businesses they serve. We've reached maximum density with car-centric city planning. There are some software decisions that worked well up to a certain point, but simply won't scale reliably to the current level let alone what you need for the foreseeable future. At some point you have to bite the bullet and refactor. Refactoring takes skill, and you need the right folks for the job, but it will get harder and more expensive the longer you wait. It typically doesn't have to be done all at once. Just fix as you go and stop following the older patterns. Have a plan and work toward the goal one step and a time. One commit at a time. One stroad at a time. Folks may believe in the whole "personal freedom" with a car, but how personal or free are you sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? Cars = Liberty is a pernicious lie.

thedaly 3y ago

I agree that the fixation on cars in urban/population dense areas is a problem and the overall use of cars in these areas should be offset by public transportation. I feel like the one in five Americans that live in rural areas is left out of the conversation though. You can't eliminate cars for those 60 million or so people.

ghaff 3y ago
And, really, that understates it. I'm technically urban per the Census--ex-urban per ESRI. But the idea that anyone near me could reasonably get by with just public transit is laughable. And I actually live quite close to a commuter rail station and there is a small regional bus system.
- ttfkam 3y ago
  Sounds like you and your fellow community members should vote for folks who will prioritize public transit rather than widening stroads. Poor transit options are a policy choice, not an inevitability. The best time to start advocating for livable cities was a decade ago. Second best time is now, so that ten years from now, you and yours will have more options than they have today. Folks need to be transported at higher and higher densities as a city's population grows. Cars are the lowest density carrier available. Think of how many cars fit on a four-lane road on a mile stretch. How many people are in those cars? How many trains or busses would be needed to move that many people? Now visualize the space taken up by those cars versus the space taken up by busses. That's how you solve traffic problems with a growing population, even for the folks who still need their cars because their destinations are sufficiently irregular. Mass transit helps those who need their cars too! As a byproduct, you don't need so many and so large parking lots. Think of all the parking lots around you, which I'm sure there are many. Imagine 80% of them were replaced with housing, retail, office space, parks, meeting places, etc. Then convert the remaining 20% to multi-story parking. Urban sprawl is a choice. Choose different.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I am 50 miles outside the nearest major city. I'm on a busy but 2-lane total country road where my two nearest neighbors are on 10s of acres. There are no nearby businesses (much less stroads) until you get to a nearby small (20K) person city. I don't know how you solve that with mass transit. And it's considered urban as the US Census defines it. You may not approve that such places exist but they do. And folks like to live in them.

Dolototo 3y ago

The most critical point though: the race stared and will not just stop. It's a question when not if as it's clear that we haven't found fundamental issues. The opposite happens: more people use it already than I thought and companies are stepping up with insurance to cover you. Yes the Tesla car driving into a truck, horrible but there was no genuine global outcry.

jstarfish 3y ago

> the biggest hurdle will be public acceptance. The AI will not make the same kind of mistakes humans make. So while the aggregate number of accidents will be (likely much) lower without a human at the wheel, the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make, and this will terrify the public. I'd argue safety is not a concern. There are a lot of "safe" things we could do, but don't. A significant percentage of the country doesn't even vaccinate its children. Self-driving cars aren't suddenly going to make us aware of our own mortality in ways that life itself hasn't already. The real fear is lack of accountability. If a drunk plows into a crowd of pedestrians, he will be dragged out of it and (metaphorically) lynched. Justice makes us feel better about circumstances beyond our control. If North Korea test-launched an ICBM that erroneously hit Japan, we'd declare war over their typo. But when a self-driving car erroneously mows down pedestrians, we're told to just accept it, nothing we could do, mumble-mumble-training-data, and tragedies like this happen so we can be safer. Nothing is going to condition us to resent the idea of Safety more than having our personal agency and sense of justice taken away from us in its name.

ttfkam 3y ago
Personal agency and justice are not provided by cars. To that point, how much agency do you feel you have in standstill bumper to bumper traffic. How much justice do you feel sitting in traffic, focused on the bumper stickers in front of you versus other actually productive activities while the bus or train are in motion. Cars != Liberty They never were. They have always been rapidly depreciating assets that are useful for one-off destinations and horrible externalities with regard to city planning.
throwaway2037 3y ago
What do you think about a separate set of laws that determines pay outs from AV companies to people injured in AV accidents? It seems reasonable to me. For over 50 years, (life) insurance companies have offered specific pay outs for injuries. In some sense, a framework already exists. Also, if you want to make the system "bullet proof", require AV companies to put a certain amount of money on deposit with the state (or buy insurance from a separate company). (In a sense, this already exists for insurance companies through strict balance sheet regulations.) Then, you cannot have terrible AV company with many accidents that goes bankrupt from fines and cannot pay. To be clear: I do think, in my lifetime, AV will become normal in many places. Some horrific accidents will happen that result in massive fines to the companies. As a result, some of them will go bankrupt.

beambot 3y ago

> the same kinds of mistakes humans make We're hosed until we can instruct our vehicles to act drunk.

basch 3y ago

The whole industry feels like the cart leading the horse to me. Not having a track to follow on/in the road (magnets, sensors etc.) Not mandating all cars talk to each other, working together like a mesh/hive/colony. I understand that has its own set of self starter issues, but it can be built in WHILE also doing what is currently happening. The fact that roads are being replaced TODAY and still nothing is going in them to help cars drive themselves, baffles me.

throwaway2037 3y ago
I am convinced that this will come later. If anything, "hive mind" AV cars will allow them to drive much faster on high speed roads. Imagine if one lane is protected (walled) and reserved for AV cars on an expressway. They could drive crazy fast as a team (150km/h+). Expand that over the years. In 50 years, all expressways might be AV-only and cars driving very, very fast.
- basch 3y ago
  you still have weather, unsecured loads, animals. cars and drives arent the only dangerous thing on the road.

rdsubhas 3y ago

> If we put more effort into self-driving busses and autonomous trains ... we would see much greater dividends on our investment and far fewer "unintuitive" errors. Everything you said made sense, except focusing on mass transit for FSD, for two reasons: The intent of focusing on bus/train automation comes from an illusion of control (we can control the lane/track, thereby) – hence we tend to rudimentarily attribute easy outcomes to it (low risk, high value). If we ignore the control part and properly think about it – mass transit actually higher risk for lower value. 1. Lower value: For something that involves 100+ people on dense economic centers, it's already running at an economy of scale where a human driver just makes sense. I live in Germany where the metro trains & trams are already crazy automated. There is a human driver there just in case, more as a supervisor for the people riding (controlling hooliganism, jammed doors, helping challenged people, dealing with emergencies, etc). I see German trains as already running on FSD4. FSD5 full automation is a waste of time here. Using buses for last mile coverage for few passengers, aka treating buses as "big taxis" is probably worse environmentally than actual taxis. 2. Higher risk: By the same logic you said for cars – "far fewer unintuitive errors" – at a much higher capacity of mass transit – is far more catastrophic. Imagine a self-driving train had just 1 accident in 10 years, but it affected 1000 people. It's sheer terror. Who is liable for it? Government. The problem with going down this mass-transit-first route is, one error means legislating away the entire sector. Cars are actually lower risk (individual choice, individual liability, accidents don't deter others from adopting) and higher value (last mile, moving away from the dense urban city plans that come with high rents and chokepoints which are crippling even to my beloved, beautiful German cities where even with all the urban sprawl, last mile is still a problem outside A zones).

bluGill 3y ago
German trains are not known for being automated. I'm sure you have some, but not as many as you think. No tram in the world runs crazy automation, they all currently have a human on board. Only grade separated trains run fully automated. There might be some automation on your trains, but it isn't fully automated. Your second point is completely wrong: we have trains, and have been running them for more than 100 years. We have real statistics to show in the real world they are much safer than cars. Sure you can imagine anything you want, but when real science has real data why would anyone look at your imagined data.

somethoughts 3y ago

The two scenarios that concern me long term are: - What happens when all of the infrastructure gets built up around self driving cars and peoples first hand knowledge of how to drive diminishes. Once a near monopoly/duopoly is attained by a select few SDC vendors, it will become a utility. Then what fallback does society have if the likely enshittification happens. Do we just have to live with it? - Its all fine when the companies able to do this are part of the most elite, technology first companies - but what happens when companies known to take short cuts (like the ones who can barely get bluetooth working for their audio infotainment system) start try to enter the market by focusing on lobbying the SDC oversight board.

cantaloupe 3y ago
Regarding your first point… 15 year olds learn the basics of driving in a day. Generally speaking, it’s not that difficult. A scenario where humans forget entirely how to drive and are unable to learn again is incredibly far fetched.

trgn 3y ago

> the AI will make deadly mistakes that no human would make you'd be surprised what kind of mistakes humans make. Anyway, snarky comment aside. The biggest reason for optimism is that a world full of AI cars will remove the reptile-brained jostling for position that's 90% the cause of all crashes today, and that it will overall _slow down_ traffic. Slower, calm, tepid moving traffic, a bunch of electric golfcarts puttering around the city. That's a future of AI-only traffic worth signing up for.

konschubert 3y ago
Plus it will be MUCH safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
throwaway2037 3y ago
This is a genius reply. I 100% agree intellectually as well as from personal experience. I have a British co-worker. When he goes home for the holidays, he is always terrified of how fast people drive on two lane countryside roads with sharp turns and limited visibility. Another Swiss co-worker said the same about snowy local roads in the mountains. Locals drive very fast. As soon as AV is trained on those roads, it will drive much slower, and probably safer.
- demondemidi 3y ago
  Why would you think people would drive slower with AV? They will drive even faster thinking their AI will protect them. I know this because Tesla has “ludicrous mode” and all other EV manufacturers are bragging about their insane 0-60 and 0-100 mph times, and owners love to show off.
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    > Why would you think people would drive slower with AV? Because the autonomous vehicle will be autonomous.
    - demondemidi 3y ago

lvl102 3y ago

There’s no evidence to suggest that a system of self-driving vehicles are safer. The solution won’t come from the US because there are way too many red tapes. It’s coming from a smaller country perhaps Japan/Korea.

JaceLightning 3y ago

No lol we won't have fully self driving cars in our lifetime. We would need cars to fully understand human speech and understanding and be able to react with 100% accuracy 100x faster than humans. Possible? Yes, but not for decades to come.

throwaway2037 3y ago

autonomous trains These already exist in Hongkong, Singapore, and Paris, but they are crazy expensive. And, AV bus sounds harder than AV car due to boarding and fare payment issues. I disagree with your ideas for early AV applications.

ttfkam 3y ago
I think you're assuming a city bus needs a fare. It doesn't. Santa Cruz County, CA has just passed a resolution where all busses in the county will be free to ride. It already is for folks working downtown, anyone under 18, anyone at the university, and for a small per-semester fee at the local community college. This not only makes it more convenient to get around without worrying about buying transit tickets ahead of time, it means the busses can load from the front AND the back, making the time spent at each stop shorter and schedules easier to keep. Much easier problem for autonomous setups when you remove fares and just have to monitor if anyone's in danger. Public mass transit never breaks even from fares. What it does very well however is free up the money folks would have spent on gas, parking, car maintenance, etc., so they can move around and spend it more freely in the community. You see this spectrum in various cities. Some cities make you pay depending on how far the light rail travels, so you naturally condition riders not to ride any more or further than they absolutely need to go. Places like New York City on the other hand just sell you a pass; taking an extra trip to the Met or to Central Park doesn't cost extra, so folks do it, socializing and stimulating the economy along the way. New York's biggest transit mistake in my opinion is keeping the fares. They'll spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars on NYPD overtime to catch turnstile jumpers when they could spend less just letting people ride for free. https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-overtime-pay-in-the-subway-went-from-4-million-to-155-million-this-year https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-overtime-pay-in-the-subway-w... It's like when Florida drug tested everyone trying to get public assistance and ended up spending far more for administering and processing the test to catch a relative small handful. https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/just-we-suspected-florida-saved-nothing-drug-testing-welfare https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/just-we-suspected-fl...
- anticensor 3y ago
  Fares have another purpose as well: crowd control.

demondemidi 3y ago

I’ve been saying this since the 90s. Fewer cars, more mass transit in urban regions. But people are stupid: they would rather sit in traffic for 2-3 hours a day than give up a “freedom” that actively restricts them. The paradox is the size of a galaxy.