Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
31–39 of 39 posts
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the reality: people don't want self-driving cars. People want safer cars. Therefore, companies that want to sell self-driving cars are pitching them as safer. The fact of the matter, though, is that it remains to be seen whether self-driving cars are in fact safer. While a self-driving car will not suffer from some of the shortcomings of a human, like getting drunk or sleepy, it will suffer from other shortcom…
For the record, I want a self-driving car and 9 out of 10 captchas confirm I am a human.
Would you still want one if the data showed it was more dangerous than driving yourself around? We don't yet know if it will be, is my point.
I realize that what I wrote above makes it look like I'm saying that no person wants a self-driving car at all. As you point out, that's not true.
What I was trying to say is that, for most people, safety is a bigger consideration than self-driving capability. If a company said "our car drives itself but you're more likely to die in it," I doubt they would sell many.
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#33Human drivers can feel safe around other cars because of mutually assured destruction. You are both afraid of dying if you make a significant mistake. Self-driving cars will never have this fear holding them back from making mistakes. You could argue there is actually an incentive to let them crash once in awhile, because the valuable real world data will be phoned home and used to improve the product for the small p…
> Human drivers can feel safe around other cars because of mutually assured destruction.
That's patently false. If that is true, nobody will walk around in Manhattan (several feet from speeding taxis), nobody will ride a motorcycle in highway, and the sight of an oncoming 18-wheeler in a rural two-lane road will send every sedan driver to the gutter.
Human drivers feel safe around other cars, even though driving is one of the most dangerous activity practiced by most people, because they've been doing it so long that they're desensitized to the danger.
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but only in situations they are specifically designed or trained for Where are you getting this from? An obstacle in the LIDAR is an obstacle, there's no common-sense or training needed for the car to know that. > the numerous ways self-driven machines failed recently I can only think of the Tesla crash, Tesla cars being notorious for trying to work around the need of LIDAR or similar (being deemed too expensive).…
>An obstacle in the LIDAR is an obstacle, there's no common-sense or training needed for the car to know that. >Worst-case scenario for a well-designed car in a situation it can't understand is to park itself and refuse to go on unassisted. All these are false positives. What I object to are the costs of false negatives; A situation where the car mis-recognizes an abnormal situation as normal, and then proceeds to ac…
So your numerous examples are the one example of a car crash for not using a LIDAR?
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#35Surely you are joking
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone almost killed this evening while driving home from the Thanksgiving holiday weekend by a driver texting and not paying attention behind me at highway speeds (with my wife and newborn daughter in the car), I welcome the cold, calculating embrace of self driving cars with open arms. Edit: The driver ended up impacting a semi trailer that had been in front of us, with me leaving the lane for the safety of the…
Firstly, I'm glad you and your family were not harmed. I do not in any way mean for this to be offensive or disrespectful, but would you still welcome self-driving cars had this incident been caused by a malfunctioning self-driving car as apposed to a reckless driver? My point is that self-driving cars lack the common sense that humans have. A human would immediately halt if they hear a child scream near their car, a…
> would you still welcome self-driving cars had this incident been caused by a malfunctioning self-driving car as apposed to a reckless driver
Absolutely yes. Because if a malfunctioning self-driving car will cause an accident, this will be treated as a bug and fixed. Updates will be rolled out to every self-driving car, making it very unlikely the same accident will ever happen again.
Issues with human drivers, on the other hand, cannot be easily fixed with an update. Human drivers repeat the same "malfunctions" again and again (like driving too fast, driving while being drunk, not paying enough attention to the situation, ...).
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the record, I want a self-driving car and 9 out of 10 captchas confirm I am a human.
Would you still want one if the data showed it was more dangerous than driving yourself around? We don't yet know if it will be, is my point. I realize that what I wrote above makes it look like I'm saying that no person wants a self-driving car at all. As you point out, that's not true. What I was trying to say is that, for most people, safety is a bigger consideration than self-driving capability. If a company said…
> Would you still want one if the data showed it was more dangerous than driving yourself around? We don't yet know if it will be
While we might not know yet whether self-driving cars are /already/ safer than human drivers, it is virtually impossible that they won't become much safer very quick. Simply because bugs in software can (and will) be fixed, each car gets an update, and the accident in question won't happen again, ever. Humans, on the other hand, cannot be updated easily, if at all.
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#38This writer sure does have a high opinion of human cognition and hiw it applues to driving. In Los Angeles, I've seen people drive worse than trained monkeys.
The problem with human drivers is that a lot of them maje idiotic mistakes a self-driving car wouldn't. Two weeks ago I saw a guy driving the wrong way down a one way street and he continued past me without realizing it.
Re: Why self-driving cars are not going to happen
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you still want one if the data showed it was more dangerous than driving yourself around? We don't yet know if it will be, is my point. I realize that what I wrote above makes it look like I'm saying that no person wants a self-driving car at all. As you point out, that's not true. What I was trying to say is that, for most people, safety is a bigger consideration than self-driving capability. If a company said…
> Would you still want one if the data showed it was more dangerous than driving yourself around? We don't yet know if it will be While we might not know yet whether self-driving cars are /already/ safer than human drivers, it is virtually impossible that they won't become much safer very quick. Simply because bugs in software can (and will) be fixed, each car gets an update, and the accident in question won't happen…
This is pure supposition, and not supported by any evidence. We've been fixing bugs in software for decades but we are still finding serious bugs all the time.