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San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

washingtonpost.com

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Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#51

Post by sdenton4 »

skepticATX wrote: post #23
jseliger wrote: post #5

I think this is just complacency and a bias towards how things are; imagine a world in which biking is safe, pedestrians are safe, and huge amounts of the city don't have to be devoted to parking. That's what 24/7 driverless cars can enable.

Why will self driving cars enable this though? It seems to me that an equally plausible outcome is that we move even further towards cities built solely around the car.

I have never owned a car. As a result, I look at each trip and think about the best way to accomplish it. Usually the optimum in terms of cost is by bicycle, or by bringing my bike with me on a transit connection.

If I'm short on time, going to the airport, or my eyes are dilated from going to the optometrist or something, I'll use Lyft or Uber. This is like a once a month or less occurrence, (as you might guess since dilated eyes are one of my main reasons for using a car... I don't go to the optometrist that often.)

So I'm a world where few people own care, you might expect something like this. The car costs are up front per trip, not sunk as they are when you own the car, so you should see people thinking more rationally about their trip planning.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#52

Post by nfw2 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #16
jseliger wrote: post #5

I think this is just complacency and a bias towards how things are; imagine a world in which biking is safe, pedestrians are safe, and huge amounts of the city don't have to be devoted to parking. That's what 24/7 driverless cars can enable.

Unless you take all human driven cars off the road, you’re not going to get nearly the efficiency and safety you describe. I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber. Big Tech has way, way too much power already. Please don’t give them any more of it.

If you rely on human-operated cars for transport, your ability to go anywhere is already controlled by large institutions.

- You require a car manufacturer like Ford or Toyota to manufacture and sell you a vehicle.

- You require an insurance company to cover your liability.

- The government must issue you a license, which it may take away at any time for not abiding by its traffic laws.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#53

Post by standardUser »

alex7734 wrote: post #41
standardUser wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what government regulations are for. No one freaks about about Amtrak suddenly deciding who can and can't ride their trains.

MasterCard can and does decide who can or cannot take payments and nobody gives a damn either

Lots of people give a damn, laws surrounding that exacts issue have changed in the past and obviously they can be changed again in the future.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#54

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

mlyle wrote: post #42
supermatt wrote: post #26

They should simply be held to the same standard as any other road user. Whoever is ultimately responsible for these cars should also be responsible for the traffic offenses. Prosecute them. Revoke their drivers license. Impound the vehicles. Im not against driverless cars, but I am against unbalanced treatment of road users, legal persons and natural alike.

> Revoke their drivers license. Impound the vehicles. > Im not against driverless cars, but I am against unbalanced treatment of road users, legal persons and natural alike. OK, well, ... surely we need to have some kind of not-exactly-equal treatment. If I commit 4 traffic offenses in a year, I'll get a suspended license. If Google commits 4 traffic offenses in a year across, say, 5,000 cars and 50,000 vehicle hours…

Why not? It's the same code across all the cars... it's as if you had a clone factory making clones of driver you.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#55

Post by sottol »

fairity wrote: post #31
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you take all human driven cars off the road, you’re not going to get nearly the efficiency and safety you describe. I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber. Big Tech has way, way too much power already. Please don’t give them any more of it.

> I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber. Seems like a red herring. I think it’s safe to assume that you will be able to own your own SDC, and the faster Google gets this tech scaled, the sooner you can affordably purchase one.

Selling self-driving cars at cost is not the profit-maximizing strategy here.

With Google (and big tech) squeezing more and more for profits, some here even proclaiming it the new IBM, I don't see this ending with consumers winning.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#56

Post by jonas21 »

mlyle wrote: post #47
LeafItAlone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make stupid mistakes that inconvenience emergency services a lot more Maybe. But human drivers already do this way more than I would expect. I’ve seen emergency vehicles stopped and blocked by human drivers who are either paralyzed with uncertainty of what to do or selfishness (no way of knowing what’s going through their minds).

They're both guesses based on incomplete data. But it sure looks like self-driving cars are still a fair bit worse on the second. The whole "fail safe" thing is great for overall safety but bad for doing something reasonable in these edge situations.

> But it sure looks like self-driving cars are still a fair bit worse on the second.

How so? We hear about the self-driving car incidents because they're required to write up reports whenever something happens (and it also makes for a good news story). That's not the case with human drivers.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#57

Post by fairity »

ChatGTP wrote: post #49
fairity wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber. Seems like a red herring. I think it’s safe to assume that you will be able to own your own SDC, and the faster Google gets this tech scaled, the sooner you can affordably purchase one.

Would I be purchasing it from Google ? Android Car (tm)?

Google or someone they partner with will likely be an option. Another will be Cruise or whoever they partner with. Or, Tesla.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#58

Post by mlyle »

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #40
mlyle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transitioning to bike-centric urban transit takes decades. The best cities in the world have roughly equal bike and car traffic (and a big chunk of transit), but it's taken decades to get there. Cars moving over the next 15 years to be much safer for pedestrians/cyclists could be a big shortcut on this path.

Seemingly Paris has done a great job over the past 2-3 years.

Paris has done great in climbing up to a bit more than 15% of daily trips by bike.

My point is: even the bicycle capitals of the world (Amsterdam, etc) have equal car and bike trips per day, and it's taken a long time to get there.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#59

Post by mlyle »

jonas21 wrote: post #56
mlyle wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're both guesses based on incomplete data. But it sure looks like self-driving cars are still a fair bit worse on the second. The whole "fail safe" thing is great for overall safety but bad for doing something reasonable in these edge situations.

> But it sure looks like self-driving cars are still a fair bit worse on the second. How so? We hear about the self-driving car incidents because they're required to write up reports whenever something happens (and it also makes for a good news story). That's not the case with human drivers.

We're generating a whole lot more videos and fire department complaints about Cruise vehicles doing bad things at emergency scenes than you'd expect for such a small number of vehicles.

It's also the least structured portion with the least clear rules than any other part of the driving task, so it stands to reason it would be worse.

Re: San Francisco may soon get 24/7 driverless cabs. City leaders are fuming

#60

Post by fairity »

sottol wrote: post #55
fairity wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, for one, don’t want to live in a world where my ability to go anywhere is decided by Google and Uber. Seems like a red herring. I think it’s safe to assume that you will be able to own your own SDC, and the faster Google gets this tech scaled, the sooner you can affordably purchase one.

Selling self-driving cars at cost is not the profit-maximizing strategy here. With Google (and big tech) squeezing more and more for profits, some here even proclaiming it the new IBM, I don't see this ending with consumers winning.

I think you’re assuming (incorrectly) that Google will have a monopoly on SDC technology. There are already many big players in the space, so the profit maximizing strategy is probably much closer to what the consumer actually wants.

It doesn’t seem to me like there’s a big competitive moat other than $xxb in R&D costs, so if there is unmet consumer demand for self-owned SDC, it’s probably safe to assume someone will cough up the R&D costs.

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