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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

#3

Post by malermeister »

Individual motorized transport is a dead end, especially in cities, no matter if it has a driver or not.

It's just inherently energy- and space efficient to haul around a two ton piece of junk per 80kg person. Cities don't have the space, the planet doesn't have the energy to support it. We need to ban cars from cities in the longer term, both human- and AI-driven. For now, we need to take steps to get there. Reduce car lanes, increase bike lanes. Build out public transit.

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

#4

Post by z0mghii »

jmclnx wrote: post #2

With these driverless cabs, will a person still be behind the wheel ? Or is no one there. If not, what happens if an accident occurs and the cab keeps on driving due to a software bug ?

There's already driverless cabs with no one behind the wheel running. Just not 24/7.

If some accident or bug occurs, they currently just stop completely until a person comes out

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

#5

Post by jseliger »

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.

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

#6

Post by medellin »

jmclnx wrote: post #2

With these driverless cabs, will a person still be behind the wheel ? Or is no one there. If not, what happens if an accident occurs and the cab keeps on driving due to a software bug ?

Hopefully they had the foresight to test this.

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

#8

Post by kfarr »

jmclnx wrote: post #2

With these driverless cabs, will a person still be behind the wheel ? Or is no one there. If not, what happens if an accident occurs and the cab keeps on driving due to a software bug ?

No one is behind the wheel. Right now there is no mechanism for a third party such as law enforcement to reliably stop or redirect the vehicle.* Yes, it is possible that an issue could occur and the vehicle will keep driving.*

* you could say the same thing about human motor vehicle operators

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

#9

Post by cmgbhm »

jmclnx wrote: post #2

With these driverless cabs, will a person still be behind the wheel ? Or is no one there. If not, what happens if an accident occurs and the cab keeps on driving due to a software bug ?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/12/san-franc...

While this one is unique afaik, there are plenty of other odd ball ones.

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

#10

Post by chpatrick »

malermeister wrote: post #3

Individual motorized transport is a dead end, especially in cities, no matter if it has a driver or not. It's just inherently energy- and space efficient to haul around a two ton piece of junk per 80kg person. Cities don't have the space, the planet doesn't have the energy to support it. We need to ban cars from cities in the longer term, both human- and AI-driven. For now, we need to take steps to get there. Reduce…

I think that ship sailed in many parts of the US when cities were built around cars.
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