141–150 of 214 posts
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Unfortunately Google is incredibly bad at sales and marketing so don't expect them to understand that their main challenge will be the public perception of driverless cars.
Yeah, that's why no one uses their products.
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3) Loss of jobs. When we're heading to a future of robotic anything that will replace an entire profession, drivers in this case. What will be the economic effect of it?
Marshall Brain wrote the very interesting (IMHO) "Robotic Nation" in the exploration of your question: http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm And, to save time, here are the standard HN responses: 1. Marshall Brain commits the Lump of Labor Fallacy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy ): The lump of labor fallacy holds that the total amount of work is fixed. This is considered fallacious bec…
When that happens competition for the qualified labor goes up, and salaries rise in response. While the structurally unemployed[1] remain so and remain poor. This leads to a building disparity between rich and poor and that the problems such a disparity creates are quite well known.
[1] 'structurally unemployed' refers to a person who is unemployed and unqualified for all of the employment opportunities in their area. It comes from a similar concept 'structurally fired' where a company removes the positions that are held by current employees without creating other opportunities.
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I think you've got the reason people are afraid of flying wrong. People aren't afraid of dying in a bus crash, or on a train, even an automated one, like they are of flying.
Indeed. It is perhaps due to the 700mph, 6,000 feet in the air part that makes them especially jittery. True or not, I think most people feel safer in a car & probably feel like they are more likely to survive, due to 60mph 12 inches off the ground. (While flying is safer in many ways like deaths per mile or per passenger, I would bet you are a lot safer in a car than a plane in the event of a crash . Car crashes are…
(I can see that you are not from California. At 60mph, you are in serious danger of being rear-ended.)
As an individual who is legally blind and cannot drive, I very much welcome the day when this technology becomes wide-spread and affordable. It is extremely annoying to be in your mid 30's and have to rely on/inconvenience someone else to drive you around. So whether it were getting my own vehicle or seeing vast improvements made to less-than ideal public transportation systems, either would be great.
I was thinking that driverless cars would be a boon for people who cannot drive (for whatever reason -- visual or otherwise). I do wonder, however, if laws will require driverless cars to have a person who is able to drive. (For legal or liability reasons in case of an equipment failure.) I do hope that doesn't happen, but it's possible.
[Survey question] What are Google's options for monetizing driverless cars?
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Marshall Brain wrote the very interesting (IMHO) "Robotic Nation" in the exploration of your question: http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm And, to save time, here are the standard HN responses: 1. Marshall Brain commits the Lump of Labor Fallacy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy ): The lump of labor fallacy holds that the total amount of work is fixed. This is considered fallacious bec…
I've argued that the Lump of Labor fallacy fails because it considers workers to be more fungible than they are. It is possible to create jobs for which no one in the existing unemployement pool is qualified to fill. That is a structural unemployment of 0%. When that happens competition for the qualified labor goes up, and salaries rise in response. While the structurally unemployed[1] remain so and remain poor. This…
This is very strong evidence that the kind of disparities you mentioned are not truly structural. The "structural argument" is just a decoy used to prevent the disadvantaged from asking inconvenient political questions.
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I was thinking that driverless cars would be a boon for people who cannot drive (for whatever reason -- visual or otherwise). I do wonder, however, if laws will require driverless cars to have a person who is able to drive. (For legal or liability reasons in case of an equipment failure.) I do hope that doesn't happen, but it's possible.
Actually once it's been proven that robots drive much better than humans (which is not very difficult), people will want to probably outlaw human driving.
We expect people to be frightened of robotic cars for the same reason they are scared of dying in a plane crash: Some deep-seated fear of dying in a manner that isn’t our own fault. Thoughts: 1) Marketing/PR for autonomous vehicles needs to really drive home their safety, so when you hear “robot car,” you think “… saves lives.” 2) Is it hard to imagine the opposite fear in children born 10 years from now? Having seen…
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Every person I know who has talked about public transport says the other people (especially bums napping and skeevy people) are the big thing that limits the amount of traveling they do on rails and buses. Reach and timing take up the next two slots.
I can definitely feel 'trapped' when people invade my personal space, especially if they smell or have a cough. Those experiences are horrible for the extended amounts of time required for a commute. I still ride, but driving really isn't an option. Sometimes I wonder why public transport doesn't raise the prices during rush hour to create an equilibrium where the trains don't become sardine cans. I guess economicall…
Lots of cities have problems with their transportation capacities, but simply shuffling people around isn't going to fix that.