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What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

theatlantic.com

21–30 of 91 posts

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the first one already happen with Michael Hastings? Although to be fair, it's just suspicions and not any officially accepted story. Nonetheless, they're fairly strong suspicions, same as with the Karl Koch case.

Regardless of whether or not that is true (and full disclosure, I doubt that it is from what I've read) it is surprising to me how something with tenuous evidence can be presumptively believed to be true in certain circles. His own wife says it was a "tragic accident", and his brother says he believed Hastings to be in a "manic episode" at the time. Why is it that random people on the internet have so much more suspi…

Because the motive and the modus operandi make a good fit for the scenario.

The family is not interested in the emotional baggage of foul play, or the hassle of an arduous investigation, which would, hypothetically, probably be fruitless, even if suspicions were accurate. It's much, much easier for loved ones to swallow an official story of a tragic accident.

For total strangers, not burdened by emotions, the scenario is objectively disturbing.

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#22
post #17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But speaking of paying, self driving cars also won't speed, turn right on red without a full stop, etc. Which means traffic tickets would be a thing of the past, along with the revenue they bring in.

Driving while black, failure to provide proof of ..., tail light out. If a cop declares "your" car's driving was reckless or too fast for conditions, how exactly do you fight that in court?

With dashcam?

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#23
post #10

Back when in dashboard GPS was a thing, wasn't access to the device cut off while the vehicle was in gear? I wonder how that will interact with an autonomous vehicle. There are some interesting financial issues where driving me, slowly, past every McDonalds would waste a lot of time and gas. How much gasoline will I have to buy because a retailer purchased X number of drivebys? For a variety of interesting and irrele…

The modern cars I've driven with LCD dashboards (modern as in like MY2013) have all allowed screwing with everything while driving, even GPS. I remember when it wasn't allowed, but at some point they relaxed those rules?

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#24
post #15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But speaking of paying, self driving cars also won't speed, turn right on red without a full stop, etc. Which means traffic tickets would be a thing of the past, along with the revenue they bring in.

Who is responsible for paying the fine if the self-driving car breaks the law?

Currently, the driver.

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#27
I had speculated about something like this with friends when it was announced that Google was getting into autonomous driving cars. The combination of G+, Maps, Zagats and a Google car that drives itself would give possible scenarios like the car doing things like asking you:

"You haven't had lunch yet today. There's a highly-rated Italian place just two minutes from here, would you me to take you there?" then afterwards, "what did you think of your meal, on a scale of one to five? I'll share it with your G+ circles."

The only thing that bothers me about this (besides the obvious data privacy issue) is how much power it gives one entity Google, to subtly manipulate nearly anything.

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#28
> What if...?

Why not present the user with the option before their trip begins so that you're not wasting a lot of fuel and so on? I can't see people being too happy with you if you start routing their lives around your convenience. Advertising currently costs the end user very little - but there's certainly a transaction cost involved. If you start doing this to people, there'll be a significant incentive for them to disable the system in some way, or opt for a different one.

"Our cars only take you where you want to go." Would be a pretty good advertising message. "Average 10% faster journey times from A to B. You're in control. Take back your life." Etc.

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#29
post #2

Just one of a bazillion questions that comes up when your car is autonomous. What happens when the sekrit tech elite want to kill you and so they make your car drive off a cliff? Interesting questions to be sure and already being examined on such shows as "CSI" in the US. Basically one of the reasons new technology rolls out slowly is that there are lots of people asking these sorts of questions and trying to have an…

Nearly exactly this happens in Stross's Halting State

Re: What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

#30

Better yet, would you trade ads and impulse buys for free rides? So you never have to own a car, but every time you go anywhere your car is actively trying to get you to spend time and money doing things you normally wouldn't do -- play online games, visit donut shops, and so on. Would that be worth never having to own a car?

That actually sounds like a brilliant angle for selling an automated car service.

"Our cars will take you wherever for a dime! To make up the difference we will be playing ads and/or having you partake in surveys during the ride."

Sounds cool if you live in a city particularly.

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