3 ms·

Yes and we will have flying cars. Except we won't. Because flying cars is called "aviation" and aviation brings new dimensions of "hard" in addition to a thir

by bborud 14y ago

Yes and we will have flying cars. Except we won't. Because flying cars is called "aviation" and aviation brings new dimensions of "hard" in addition to a third spatial dimension. And truly self driving cars that require no dynamic input from humans at any time is something we'll get asymptotically closer to, but will never quite achieve except in relatively specialized cases. This is what I believe. I can't prove it, but it is what my gut feeling tells me. And why would you want to? Of course, for typical highways it is obvious that it would probably be both faster and safer to have some sort of mandatory cooperative autonomous mode, but even that will be hard to achieve. I've met some of the people who work on developing and standardizing certain inter-car protocols to solve these types of problems. Most of the people I've met are neither brilliant nor capable. For the most part they illustrate to me a) how hard the problem is at scale (ie. get all manufacturers onboard) b) there will be a lot of idiots involved in this which means it'll take an awful lot of time to even come up with even baseline systems for proper crash-avoidance -- nevermind the real-time dynamic systems for controlling masses of fast-moving vehicles.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
I've come to realize that autonomous cars are a pre-req for flying cars. Obvious now that I see it, of course. Humans as a whole can't possibly handle flying machines when they have so much trouble with cars. I'm skeptical about totally autonomous cars, but I think freeway driving will be increasingly automated. Thrun has said that he's let his car drive him from the bay area to Reno several times. I assume he's exaggerating a bit, but probably not by much. It's a solvable problem for good road conditions.
- SlipperySlope 14y ago
  Right on! There is no way a mass market for personal air vehicles can happen if we need traditional pilot's licences. Following the eventual success of driverless cars, one can imagine that all-weather PAVs will not require a license because we will just be passengers. See: http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2004/july/ts_sf14.html http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2004/july/ts_sf...
SlipperySlope 14y ago
Your argument allows for certain driverless cars in which a human is present to provide dynamic input for situations that require it. This is currently the legal requirement in Nevada. Admitting that driverless cars cannot be truely perfected, does not preclude mass adoption - because they merely need to be safer and cheaper to operate than the current human-only traffic situation. I think we are less than a decade away from that tipping point. Does anyone else agree?
- bborud 14y ago
  I would be careful to conclude without data. For instance insurance companies have data that suggests that systems for warning the driver of lane drift make cars significantly more likely to have accidents. I can't remember if they had figured out why, but this is the sort of counter-intuitive results you have to expect when you are dealing with a field that isn't adequately understood. And large populations of autonomous cars in obviously something we have zero experience with so we can't really know if there will be unexpected dominant factors.
skyhook_mockups 14y ago
Yes and we will have flying cars. The flying cars argument is silly. Yes it was a fanciful 1950s dream that never made it to reality... however autonomous flight is real.. a good portion of commercial air flight is done under autopilot (including landings). We never even got close to flying car tech... but saying that truly self driving cars that require no dynamic input from humans at any time is something we'll get asymptotically closer to, but will never quite achieve is silly, we're already very close to this reality. I'd be very surprised if in 10 years we don't have a completely computer controlled car.
- bborud 14y ago
  Why is it silly? Consider this: we've had autopilots for many, may years. But even very limited gadgetry such as automatic parking is a very recent development in cars. And that is an almost trivial scenario. (The reason the flying car won't be a reality is that all of those (auto-piloted) air planes do in fact have a crew of 1-3 highly qualified professionals -- and the flying cars would be piloted by the sort of people who can't figure out roundabouts. Also, the density of planes is extremely low compared to what would be the situation if flying cars were commonplace). Also, planes have maintainance regimes that are vastly different from your car. I bet that you did not go through a checklist when you got into your car this morning, nor when you parked it. You probably do not have the faintest idea how the fluids are doing. You probably don't even know if all the external lights work. It is highly unlikely that you even performed the most rudimentary tests of all before getting into your car: walking around it and kicking the tyres. There was no qualified and certified mechanic (for your specific model) to go over your car prior to setting off.
  - skyhook_mockups 14y ago
    All of this is true.. however you categorically stated that we "will never quite achieve" totally autonomous cars. To me that sounds like a silly statement especially when compared to flying cars (a totally different class of problem). The fact is that we're very quickly edging towards fully computer controlled cars. You have to have a truly limited imagination to think we will never get there. The argument about airplane maintenance also doesn't hold water. Result of a malfunctioning plane: plunge 30,000ft and hundreds dead. Result of a malfunctioning car: coast to a gentle stop. See any difference?
repsilat 14y ago
Some benefits of self-driving cars only come in when they hit certain market-shares. For highway driving there are big gains when you have enough for a dedicated lane, and when cars can "draft" one another, but the biggest gain will be in cities when (if) we get to 100%. At that point we can do away with all traffic lights except for pedestrian crossings. Not only will stop signs be unnecessary, cars could approach intersections at speed, knowing that there was a gap in the cross-traffic for them to fit through. If you let a single human-driven car onto those streets you couldn't implement anything like that, though.

by bborud 14y ago

waterlesscloud 14y ago

I've come to realize that autonomous cars are a pre-req for flying cars. Obvious now that I see it, of course. Humans as a whole can't possibly handle flying machines when they have so much trouble with cars. I'm skeptical about totally autonomous cars, but I think freeway driving will be increasingly automated. Thrun has said that he's let his car drive him from the bay area to Reno several times. I assume he's exaggerating a bit, but probably not by much. It's a solvable problem for good road conditions.

SlipperySlope 14y ago
Right on! There is no way a mass market for personal air vehicles can happen if we need traditional pilot's licences. Following the eventual success of driverless cars, one can imagine that all-weather PAVs will not require a license because we will just be passengers. See: http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2004/july/ts_sf14.html http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2004/july/ts_sf...

SlipperySlope 14y ago

Your argument allows for certain driverless cars in which a human is present to provide dynamic input for situations that require it. This is currently the legal requirement in Nevada. Admitting that driverless cars cannot be truely perfected, does not preclude mass adoption - because they merely need to be safer and cheaper to operate than the current human-only traffic situation. I think we are less than a decade away from that tipping point. Does anyone else agree?

bborud 14y ago
I would be careful to conclude without data. For instance insurance companies have data that suggests that systems for warning the driver of lane drift make cars significantly more likely to have accidents. I can't remember if they had figured out why, but this is the sort of counter-intuitive results you have to expect when you are dealing with a field that isn't adequately understood. And large populations of autonomous cars in obviously something we have zero experience with so we can't really know if there will be unexpected dominant factors.

skyhook_mockups 14y ago

Yes and we will have flying cars. The flying cars argument is silly. Yes it was a fanciful 1950s dream that never made it to reality... however autonomous flight is real.. a good portion of commercial air flight is done under autopilot (including landings). We never even got close to flying car tech... but saying that truly self driving cars that require no dynamic input from humans at any time is something we'll get asymptotically closer to, but will never quite achieve is silly, we're already very close to this reality. I'd be very surprised if in 10 years we don't have a completely computer controlled car.

bborud 14y ago
Why is it silly? Consider this: we've had autopilots for many, may years. But even very limited gadgetry such as automatic parking is a very recent development in cars. And that is an almost trivial scenario. (The reason the flying car won't be a reality is that all of those (auto-piloted) air planes do in fact have a crew of 1-3 highly qualified professionals -- and the flying cars would be piloted by the sort of people who can't figure out roundabouts. Also, the density of planes is extremely low compared to what would be the situation if flying cars were commonplace). Also, planes have maintainance regimes that are vastly different from your car. I bet that you did not go through a checklist when you got into your car this morning, nor when you parked it. You probably do not have the faintest idea how the fluids are doing. You probably don't even know if all the external lights work. It is highly unlikely that you even performed the most rudimentary tests of all before getting into your car: walking around it and kicking the tyres. There was no qualified and certified mechanic (for your specific model) to go over your car prior to setting off.
- skyhook_mockups 14y ago
  All of this is true.. however you categorically stated that we "will never quite achieve" totally autonomous cars. To me that sounds like a silly statement especially when compared to flying cars (a totally different class of problem). The fact is that we're very quickly edging towards fully computer controlled cars. You have to have a truly limited imagination to think we will never get there. The argument about airplane maintenance also doesn't hold water. Result of a malfunctioning plane: plunge 30,000ft and hundreds dead. Result of a malfunctioning car: coast to a gentle stop. See any difference?

repsilat 14y ago

Some benefits of self-driving cars only come in when they hit certain market-shares. For highway driving there are big gains when you have enough for a dedicated lane, and when cars can "draft" one another, but the biggest gain will be in cities when (if) we get to 100%. At that point we can do away with all traffic lights except for pedestrian crossings. Not only will stop signs be unnecessary, cars could approach intersections at speed, knowing that there was a gap in the cross-traffic for them to fit through. If you let a single human-driven car onto those streets you couldn't implement anything like that, though.