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The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

theatlantic.com

61–70 of 156 posts

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#61
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to live in a society where every car becomes a tool of law enforcement.

I want to live in a world where law enforcement isn't so pre-occupied dealing with traffic violations.

That is equivalent to wanting to live in a world wherein local government is adequately funded through ordinary taxation, such that it doesn't resort to highway shakedowns of the people for its operating revenue.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#62
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it will be more expensive than the automated car. But why would it be more expensive than today? Why would automated cars on the road make manually operated cars more risky than they are today?

At the moment, there is no other option other than human driving cars. Once automated cars are a realistic option, insurance companies can properly price insurance for human drivers much higher (comparatively speaking). A self-driving car should have almost 0 risk, meaning the vast majority of cars (if self driving) would carry no risk to the insurer.

> Once automated cars are a realistic option, insurance companies can properly price insurance for human drivers much higher (comparatively speaking).

What's "proper" about raising the prices for no reason? If they start pricing human drivers higher than they currently do, some other insurer will just undercut them.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#63
post #8

One thing I haven't heard much about is how humans and AI drivers will interact. If we all assume that AI cars are going to be very conservative and very competent drivers, will people take advantage of that? Will human drivers become even bigger assholes that cut off AI drivers at every possibility, knowing that an AI will not hit them? Why wait in a big line for an exit, when you know an AI car will always let you…

For me the bigger question is WRT the ongoing quest to marginalize human beings. Once we automate everything, then what?

> then what?

Whatever we want.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#64
post #53
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that those that choose to drive would provide more risk than they do today, however, they would provide (my gut and no more) substantially more risk than driverless cars. What incentive would an insurance provider have to insure a human driver? Much higher premiums I suggest.

The same incentive they have today: profit based on taking in more in then they have to pay out based on risk. If insurance companies arbitrarily bump up insurance for manually driven cars, then that opens up a market for someone to jump in and accurately charge based on risk.

You presuppose that American insurance companies are not a very effective cartel, primarily functioning in the regulatory capture industry, with a side business in insurance.

It would be cool if what you describe actually happened, but in the real world, premiums only ever move long-term in one direction: up.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obvious to me why older cars are more likely to be in fatal accidents. Even though my '66 Mustang is wildly less safe in many ways, it also gets driven with much more care than what I see around me.

There's probably a bathtub-shapes curve of driver care. I'm sure that drivers of classic American sports cars, at this distance from their dates of manufacture, are taking due caution. People with new cars all have ABS, stability control, and the other bells and whistles. But people who are driving the 1994 Dodge Colt were probably forced into it by financial circumstances. They don't have an investment to protect, t…

> But people who are driving the 1994 Dodge Colt were probably forced into it by financial circumstances.

I would suspect that these people have a very costly (to them) investment to protect. However, they are probably more fatigued and cognitively-taxed.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#66

Sorry for typos, eating fried chicken... I cant wait to see what happens once the modders and criminals get a hold of self driving cars. My awesome car would pretend to be an emergency vehicle. Pretend to be a truck and that it can't stop easily, pretend emergencies so people move, claim that it's chaging lanes to mess with people. Without a centralized authority it's just negotiation. With a CA then humans and remot…

It's going to be a great stay in prison. Enjoy.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#67
The comments on here are funny. People lose their mind when it comes to autonomous anything. ZOMG everyone's going to shoot down autonomous delivery drones! People will walk out into traffic! People will hack their cars and do crimes!

Come on. All this is illegal now. It will still be illegal, and easily enforceable. Which is what keeps crimes from happening. That and human decency which most people have.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#68
post #22
post #2

I just bought a 2016 Volkswagen that has laser cruise control and lane assist. I ordered the fully loaded package because the incremental cost was not large, and I figured I might as well have all the toys if I was going to the expense of buying a brand-new car. I consider myself an enthusiast; I have a fair bit of time on the racetrack in lapping days and amateur races, sometimes I volunteer at car control clinics a…

> it's always able to track the car in front of me perfectly I've always wondered how this would really work. What happens when the car ahead changes lanes or exits the freeway? Have you run into any issues with weather (rain, snow) interfering with the sensor?

I'm not sure if I've used it in the rain yet, but my understanding is that, yes, the sensor needs to be kept clean. It follows the SPEED of the car in front of me; I still steer. I assume it uses steering wheel sensors to detect that it should be following the car slightly to the left of me when, say, I'm going around a left-hand curve.

The lane keeping system uses a camera to detect lane markings. I'm not sure how it decides whether or not to follow exits, but I know from the Tesla autopilot descriptions that it's not perfect.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#69
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a bathtub-shapes curve of driver care. I'm sure that drivers of classic American sports cars, at this distance from their dates of manufacture, are taking due caution. People with new cars all have ABS, stability control, and the other bells and whistles. But people who are driving the 1994 Dodge Colt were probably forced into it by financial circumstances. They don't have an investment to protect, t…

Do you mean they push wrecked cars down the length of the bridge to get them off? Or are they literally in such a rush that they just chuck it off the side of the bridge? Because that would be awesome.

If it can roll and brake, a CALTRANS vehicle with a strong push bumper will push it somewhere out of the way. If not, they have to tow.

Re: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers

#70
For a sense of how this is going, you can read the California DMV's collection of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] 9 from Google, one from Delphi. Almost all the Google ones are a Google vehicle being rear-ended by another car at slow speed. Typical situation: Google AV turning right on red after a full stop. AV advances enough to get a good sensor view of cross traffic, detects cross traffic, and stops. Following vehicle rear-ends Google AV. Not AV's fault.

If manually driven cars had radar-controlled braking (now a common option, and one which may become as standard as ABS in a few years), that's enough to stop most rear-end collisions. That may be all that's necessary for AVs and human-driven cars to play well together.

[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auton...

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