181–190 of 269 posts
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You could also hire a limo. I suppose in the future you'll be able to rent a google car for a day, but you don't have to wait for self-driving cars. They're here today, the self just happens to be a human.
That's not really reasonably cost effective for most people.
Too bad it doesn't mention if this is better than a human or not. So, I decided to figure it out... 2.9 trillion miles driven in 2009 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/09dectvt/09dectvt.pdf 10.8 million traffic accidents in 2009 http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.p... If my math is correct the average american can expect to get in an accident every ~250,000 miles driven, (NYC to LA 90 times) s…
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Could it handle Lombard Street? How would it react to a roadway that's covered in several feet of water due to flooding (and poor road design)? Or sinkholes? One-way streets? Freeways which change directions at different times of day? Dirt roads? (Can we make it autonomously offroad?) How will it react during an earthquake or tornado? How will it react to a bicyclist running a red stoplight and into the car's path, w…
Yes, a Google autonomous car drove down Lombard Street: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at....
https://www.ai-class.com/course/video/videolecture/48
https://www.ai-class.com/course/video/videolecture/209
https://www.ai-class.com/course/video/videolecture/210 (Lombard Street at about 4:40)
One thing that strikes me is how much more these robots can potentially see than a human driver. Imagine how much better you could drive if you could see in all directions at once with multiple range-finding sensors and cameras, track dozens of moving objects simultaneously, never get sleepy or look away from the road at the wrong time, react to events in milliseconds, and learn from hundreds of thousands of miles of training data as your driving "experience".
Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. When economists think about technology, they look at it as a productivity booster. From that angle, robot cars will have a huge impact - so many commute hours will be transformed to work, or even leisure, which also boosts productivity. So many smart people are about to be given a 10% or better…
> Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Si…
You're wrong. Japan is also planning on introducing self-driving cars shortly.
The most amazing part is that autonomous cars have completed 300,000 miles at all. Congratulations to the engineering team! Around fifteen years ago, I read as a child with fascination an account in Scientific American about an automated highway project where sensors were to be placed every few feet on the road, and cars would follow them, until a driver retook control at the end. I imagined a future network of roads…
> This is such a cooler solution, one that doesn't depend on a parallel development of infrastructure, one that would presumably take lots of bureaucratic steps that are naturally associated with usage decisions on publicly owned land (which makes sense). And taxes. Google isn't being funded by our dollars, except through a series of indirections.
Seems possible, and certain kinds of tax credit may as well be subsidies. All speculation on my part, though. I wonder if anyone knows?
Long-haul tractor trailers. We need long stretches of highway where autonomous tractor trailers can carry goods. It'll provide a good business case and limit liability.
It would be nice, but I can see the reaction from truckers who become out of work already...
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Cars will become more appealing than public transportation over time. As the downsides of cars fall away, their packet switched functionality will ultimately win out, particularly for wealthier people.
I would think the reverse. Why own a car if you can get a taxi at your door in the size/shape/color of your choice whenever you need one without having to pay for the taxi driver?
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> Autonomous cars are the next big tech that changes the world - I put them up there with computer, Internet, and smart phone. I wouldn't be so sure. Yeah, it might prove to be a very good thing for the United States, but for the rest of world there's first Europe's public transport networks (I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you), and short of us reaching the Si…
> I'm 31, don't have a driver's license, I live in Europe, I'm doing perfectly fine, thank you I have a license but don't have a car (actually owning a car was too much of a hassle) and you're only telling half the story. Yes, day to day not having a car is fine, but every once in a while you want to buy something larger that is not delivered, or move some stuff, or go for a short vacation, or even just drive out of…
We have those, they're called cabs/taxis ;) Well, I suppose they're not exactly cheap, but personally I use them so rarely that it doesn't really matter, even though I'm on a tight budget.
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What type of accidents though? Do people get in a number of fender benders over their lives? or head on at 65mph? What sort of accidents will GoogleCar be prone to? Fender benders, or a head on at 65mph every 500K? I'm very hopeful about this. Most people don't want to drive most of the time. As long as I can still drive my V12 Aston martin manually when I want to, this is awesome.
I imagine, once automated cars are safe and popular enough, they will mandate that all new cars must have it and set a date after which only automated cars are allowed on the road. It will become an offence to take over and drive manually unless the circumstance demands it. You'll be fine driving your Aston Martin, but your kids, or their kids might not be.
They way that would work is that when you car is in semi-manual mode, it tells the others cars that a human is controlling steering and speed. The other cars will then give the human extra room (e.g., no drafting or close formation driving on the freeway, no crossing at right angles in an intersection at full speed just inches apart, or that kind of stuff that the cars will do when computers are driving all of the cars in an area).
The automated system will still be monitoring the human and can take over if the human does something bad, so the other drivers don't have to worry that a human driven car will suddenly cross the line into their lane and kill them.
This could even be turned into a game, where the automated system can score the human driver based on how well the human drove and how often the system had to intervene to keep the human from crashing.
Note that racing could also be allowed in such a system. Want to take that Aston Martin out for a race against your neighbor's Ferrari? Let the system know, and it can give you a course through the city, clear a bubble around you two, and let you go at it.
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The "just stop" approach is also problematic on a busy highway.
Not if all of the cars can do it just as easily.
If their functionality included stopping on a dime at a duck on the road, and human reaction speed isn't equivalent, it isn't safe to human drivers. But cost and manufacturing has to factor in before we can just replace every car on the road. People still drive 20 year old cars.