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> The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world. Just want to

> The moment the first human casualty occurs do to some software/hardware failure, there will be serious ramifications for the self-driving world. Just want to add to the discussion a reminder that this is said about literally every new piece of technology that has ever happened- the first human casuality from riding a horse, first human casualty from driving a car, etc. It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Also out of curiosity– re: longevity, why would a driverless car have to be on the road for 15 years? Why not just update/retrofit/repair/replace every year or so? Spacecraft and military equipment are used in really extreme settings! Also can't driverless cars update themselves, go for repairs themselves, etc? Also I'm guessing it wouldn't make a lot of sense for regular folks to own their own driverless car. They'll just use one at the touch of a button whenever they need to. When renting becomes THAT cheap, ownership makes less sense (for most people, at least). My $0.02

krisgee 12y ago
>It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Exactly, call me when they're killing 1.2 million people a year[1]. The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane and the only reason we're cool with it is it mostly doesn't happen to someone a large number of people care about and if it does we can hum, haw and then lay blame on someone (who is probably dead). 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...
- Alupis 12y ago
  > The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I say that word relatively) 32,000 people died in any sort of automobile related accident last year (including siting in their driveway idling and somehow died). To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable, preventable, and treatable illness) killed more than 52,000 people in the US last year alone. In reality, automobiles in the US are the safest they have ever been since 1949, and automobile related deaths have dropped more than 26% since 2005 alone. According to the CDC, automobile related deaths are not even in the top 10 leading causes of death in the US. Last year, heart disease was responsible for 596,577 US deaths last year alone. Stroke claimed 128,932 US lives. Diabetes took 73,831 american lives. Suicide robbed 39,518 people their life last year -- in excess of 7,000 more than died by automobile related accidents. In 2009, approximately a grand total of 2,436,652 died in the US of all causes (including natural causes). Of that number, automobile related deaths only accounts for 1%. Of the entire US population, we're talking about 0.0096%... According to the CDC, in 2012, 10,322 people (or 31%) of all automobile related deaths were alcohol-related deaths. Another 18% of automobile related deaths are attributed to drugs other than alcohol in the same year. That accounts for just about 50% of all vehicle related deaths, leaving the true automobile related deaths due to accident at a shockingly low number (relatively) of about 15,000 people per year. All of this is to say, relatively speaking, automobile related deaths are not a significant concern anymore. It does not make logical nor financial sense to do anything significant in this sector while ignoring or not increasing efforts in these other much more significant areas. So, to counter your original assertion -- no, it's not "completely fucking insane"... the amount of people dying from the common Flu is. Sources: [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-tr... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-states-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-st... [5] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... [6] http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...
- visakanv 12y ago
  I'm reminded of this single story on Twitter where a woman unknowingly livetweeted her husband's death in a road accident- and then later found out it was him. I went to find her Twitter account, and saw that she basically spent everyday comforting other people who lost loved ones to road accidents... and it seemed like this was happening every day. Crazy, terrible shit.
- visakanv 12y ago
  I'm reminded of this single story on Twitter where a woman unknowingly livetweeted her husband's death in a road accident- and then later found out it was him. I went to find her Twitter account, and saw that she basically spent everyday comforting other people who lost loved ones to road accidents... and it seemed like this was happening every day. Crazy, terrible shit.
notahacker 12y ago
Sure, but the reality is, the serious ramifications happen for these new pieces of technology. Ridiculous as it seems now, the launch of the automobile was accompanied by "red flag laws" mandating that cars were lead by a flag-waving pedestrian, and even today there are product recalls involving millions of cars for alleged "unintended acceleration" induced by a basic mechanical lever. Throw in the fact that Uber, whose relationship with lawmakers is best described as "it's complicated", is about the last company you'd want to be leading lobbying efforts to allow unmanned self-driving cars on city streets, and it's a fair bet they're not expecting their self-driving cars to be anything more than valuable IP at the time they exit.
Alupis 12y ago
> Also out of curiosity– re: longevity, why would a driverless car have to be on the road for 15 years? There would become a significant cost burden to the owner if this was what was necessary. Most people can't afford to do multiple thousand dollar repairs to their vehicles every few years. Currently replacing the ECU in most modern vehicles will run you close to $1,000 after parts and labor, and these are the very "dumb" kind of car computers (comparatively). > When renting becomes THAT cheap, ownership makes less sense (for most people, at least). This may make sense to someone living in a big city, but when you shift to the suburbs or a more rural area, renting would become a significant inconvenience. In my experience, people living in big cities are the ones who often do not own vehicles and/or rent and/or use things like Uber/Lyft and/or Zip cars. Suburbians (which is where majority of our population lives in the US) would not be able to take advantage of this type of service for a number of logistical reasons.

krisgee 12y ago

>It's interesting to note that we're expected to lose our minds over the first human death with New Technology Y, when Old Technology X is typically killing humans all the time. Exactly, call me when they're killing 1.2 million people a year[1]. The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane and the only reason we're cool with it is it mostly doesn't happen to someone a large number of people care about and if it does we can hum, haw and then lay blame on someone (who is probably dead). 1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-re...

Alupis 12y ago
> The number of people killed by automobiles is completely fucking insane We're largely talking about only the US market here -- in which only (and I say that word relatively) 32,000 people died in any sort of automobile related accident last year (including siting in their driveway idling and somehow died). To put this in perspective, the common Flu (a totally vaccinatable, preventable, and treatable illness) killed more than 52,000 people in the US last year alone. In reality, automobiles in the US are the safest they have ever been since 1949, and automobile related deaths have dropped more than 26% since 2005 alone. According to the CDC, automobile related deaths are not even in the top 10 leading causes of death in the US. Last year, heart disease was responsible for 596,577 US deaths last year alone. Stroke claimed 128,932 US lives. Diabetes took 73,831 american lives. Suicide robbed 39,518 people their life last year -- in excess of 7,000 more than died by automobile related accidents. In 2009, approximately a grand total of 2,436,652 died in the US of all causes (including natural causes). Of that number, automobile related deaths only accounts for 1%. Of the entire US population, we're talking about 0.0096%... According to the CDC, in 2012, 10,322 people (or 31%) of all automobile related deaths were alcohol-related deaths. Another 18% of automobile related deaths are attributed to drugs other than alcohol in the same year. That accounts for just about 50% of all vehicle related deaths, leaving the true automobile related deaths due to accident at a shockingly low number (relatively) of about 15,000 people per year. All of this is to say, relatively speaking, automobile related deaths are not a significant concern anymore. It does not make logical nor financial sense to do anything significant in this sector while ignoring or not increasing efforts in these other much more significant areas. So, to counter your original assertion -- no, it's not "completely fucking insane"... the amount of people dying from the common Flu is. Sources: [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [2] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-tr... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in... [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-states-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/top-causes-of-death-united-st... [5] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalit... [6] http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...
visakanv 12y ago
I'm reminded of this single story on Twitter where a woman unknowingly livetweeted her husband's death in a road accident- and then later found out it was him. I went to find her Twitter account, and saw that she basically spent everyday comforting other people who lost loved ones to road accidents... and it seemed like this was happening every day. Crazy, terrible shit.
visakanv 12y ago
I'm reminded of this single story on Twitter where a woman unknowingly livetweeted her husband's death in a road accident- and then later found out it was him. I went to find her Twitter account, and saw that she basically spent everyday comforting other people who lost loved ones to road accidents... and it seemed like this was happening every day. Crazy, terrible shit.

notahacker 12y ago

Sure, but the reality is, the serious ramifications happen for these new pieces of technology. Ridiculous as it seems now, the launch of the automobile was accompanied by "red flag laws" mandating that cars were lead by a flag-waving pedestrian, and even today there are product recalls involving millions of cars for alleged "unintended acceleration" induced by a basic mechanical lever. Throw in the fact that Uber, whose relationship with lawmakers is best described as "it's complicated", is about the last company you'd want to be leading lobbying efforts to allow unmanned self-driving cars on city streets, and it's a fair bet they're not expecting their self-driving cars to be anything more than valuable IP at the time they exit.

Alupis 12y ago

> Also out of curiosity– re: longevity, why would a driverless car have to be on the road for 15 years? There would become a significant cost burden to the owner if this was what was necessary. Most people can't afford to do multiple thousand dollar repairs to their vehicles every few years. Currently replacing the ECU in most modern vehicles will run you close to $1,000 after parts and labor, and these are the very "dumb" kind of car computers (comparatively). > When renting becomes THAT cheap, ownership makes less sense (for most people, at least). This may make sense to someone living in a big city, but when you shift to the suburbs or a more rural area, renting would become a significant inconvenience. In my experience, people living in big cities are the ones who often do not own vehicles and/or rent and/or use things like Uber/Lyft and/or Zip cars. Suburbians (which is where majority of our population lives in the US) would not be able to take advantage of this type of service for a number of logistical reasons.