
Here’s what it would take for self-driving cars to catch on - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/23/heres-what-it-would-take-for-self-driving-cars-to-catch-on/
======
loup-vaillant
So:

Bad press. Being killed by a machine is _soo_ much worse than being killed by
a fellow human. This won't be a problem. Yes, it will make the news, but if
self driving cars turn out to be more reliable than human drivers, the numbers
will show, and the insurance companies will follow. (Funny how talks about not
controlling your car will die out in the face of monetary savings.)

Liability. Self driving cars are not the only thing that kills people when it
goes wrong. Think airliner software. I think we'll get over it. Also, current
cars already face similar challenges. I recall a sticky pedal problem that
caused some Japanese cars to speed up until death ensues. As far as I know,
unlike some unlucky drivers, the company is still alive.

Law. Not a big problem, as long as self driving cars are legal _somewhere_.
Once they have demonstrated their worth, other states and countries will
follow very quickly.

Privacy. It kinda sucks, but it won't matter one bit. If people _really_ cared
about not giving away their trip data to some for-profit corporation, they
wouldn't be using Facebook in the first place. Or Gmail.

Price. It will inevitably go way down. Self driving is a software problem. A
human driver could manage with only a couple web cams. So will programs, as
they get better. Not to mention economies of scale.

Unemployment. Here be Unions. But they won't stop the advent of self driving
cars. Driver-less companies will simply drive the Driver-full companies out of
business. Unlike rail-road companies, they don't own the tracks. Now this
_will_ raise unemployment unless we do something about it. (Enforcing a 4 day
work-week would be a good start.)

Overall, I expect all those problems to set us back about a decade, 15 years
tops. But they won't even arise until we actually start selling those cars.

~~~
sergj
You are oversimplifying a lot of the problems. And saying that the problems
won't even arise until we start to sell these cars is just nonsense.

Also enforcing a 4 day work-week? How does this lower unemployment, except on
the paper? And keep in mind this solution would come with it own bag of
problems, like administrativ overhead for more employees etc.

~~~
Siecje
And each employee making less money but cost of living not going down. With
more administrative overhead wage would decrease or the cost of living would
increase in order for companies to keep the same profit margins.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Actually, no. By employing more people, you can cut the money you need for
unemployment insurances. You can actually have your cake and eat it too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6618615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6618615)

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steveplace
All I want _right now_ is a "traffic jam" button, where driving in congested
traffic (speeds under 30 mph) on a straight road are taken care of by an AI.
This is a much simpler problem to fix and can help with a transition rather
than some sort hard switch.

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ollysb
One of the things I'm really excited about with self-driving is that it will
tilt the economics towards car pools rather than car ownership.

Currently everyone has to buy cars that will be suitable for any journey they
might have to make. This means that people commute to work in cars that can
take a whole family on holiday. Self-driving would mean you could always get
the most suitable car for the journey you're about to make. Perhaps you're
feeling tired and want to sleep on the way to work? Maybe you want to do some
work so you'd like a desk? Put your feet up in an entertainment centre?

Self-driving will become popular because it will mean the end of wasting hours
of your life watching the car in front of you. Just think of the ads, what
could you do with an extra 3 hours a day?

~~~
Siecje
I'm not sure it will encourage car pools. People will still want the comfort
of having your own car with your personal music, temperature settings,
privacy, etc.

~~~
pmichaud
I don't think he meant car pools in the sense of multiple people for 1 car. I
think he meant pools of cars--multiple cars available for 1 person, depending
on that person's needs at the moment.

~~~
ollysb
Yeah, zipcar was what I had in mind.

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EGreg
Okay some thoughts:

1) Some roads can have sensors embedded in them. People would have to get an
account to drive on them (eg EZpass or SelfDrivingCarID). The sensors would
recognize a self-driving car and allow it on the road. Those roads could have
200mph speed limits. Cars attempting to enter the road which arent self-
driving, or too old of a version, would not be able to pass the tollbooth, and
will be fined for attempting to and wasting everyone's time at one of the
booths.

2) Parking tickets and metermaids should go the way of the dodo. Cars can
easily be detected at the side of a curb, and the money deducted from the
EZPass or whatever account. Instead of parking, though, you'd just timeshare
your cars in a demand based marketplace (type of car, time you need it for,
what the demand is for those hours etc) and then clean them up when you get
out. They'll go on to pick up the next passengers.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The lower economic class will use the self-driving self-cleaning taxis.

The middle class will have their own cars and use high-efficiency parking. It
will be no hardship to use a short, tight slot six blocks away.

The upper class will have their own cars and good parking. Some will even have
"drivers", because babysitting a fancy car is one of the less unpleasant ways
for the "driver" to earn his negative income tax credits.

~~~
EGreg
By the N I T are you talking about Milton Friedman's proposed system?

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martin-adams
My gut feeling is that it will take longer that we expect for it to be wide
stream.

I am extremely curious how far off the technology is to drive on less than
predictable roads, such as narrow streets of London during rush hour or in the
small villages of Yorkshire in the UK.

I love how the article refers to lives saved, whereas I always said, "we will
allow computer driven cars when the number of accidents/lives lost will be
less than those caused by humans". It goes to show that the nature of driving
is now out of anyone's hands and we accept there are fatalities, akin to
disease. With this acceptance is the race to save lives, rather than have
preventable loss.

>> And roughly 40 percent of fatal accidents are caused by alcohol,
distraction, drugs or fatigue. Letting robots take the wheel would save lives.

The part that I find interesting is that if you are in control over whether to
drive with alcohol, distraction, drugs or fatigue (at least for the car you
travel in); you can affect your chances of being in a fatal accident. With
computers at the wheel, you don't have control and accidents become the
lottery of driving. Unless of course, control over your fate is now down to
whether you install the latest firmware update on your car.

I do believe that mainstream driverless cars will happen and future
generations will look back at human driven cars like riding horses - mostly
done for recreational purposes and not for long distances.

~~~
papandrinko
>I am extremely curious how far off the technology is to drive on less than
predictable roads

I don't know which aspects of roads you are considering, but there are few
unpredictable roads nowadays, thanks to street view

~~~
martin-adams
I'm referring to parked cars on the left with oncoming traffic on the right,
adding driveways with vehicles entering and a wall on the right hand side of
the road.

I'm referring to really tight corners which you can't do it in a single turn
and have to reverse back, all while there is potential for oncoming traffic.

I'm referring to single lane country roads with passing points every few
hundred yards and having to reverse back to accommodate a vehicle or tractor
coming the other way.

I'm referring to blind corners where the only way to know if it's clear is to
watch for no cars between the visible gaps in a hedge or between cars.

I'm referring to the guy in the middle of the road with the road works sign
saying waving you to go or to stop.

I really mean the less than predictable conditions on the roads.

Stuff like this:

Cars on left:
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!q=holmfirth&data=!1m8...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!q=holmfirth&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-1.782294!3d53.567125!2m2!1f328.2!2f83.7!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1shyNnYnK19Ptbn2fzyWAxDA!2e0!5m2!1shyNnYnK19Ptbn2fzyWAxDA!2e0!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x487bc4ceed38a29b%3A0x807d7a8131476d90!3m8!1m3!1d100097!2d-1.4004929!3d50.9138216!3m2!1i1920!2i955!4f13.1!4m2!3d53.571744!4d-1.786292&fid=5)

Sharp turn:
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!q=laithe+avenue&data=...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!q=laithe+avenue&data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-1.818507!3d53.557762!2m2!1f268.42!2f73.96!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1sBwN7Jici9iUbFzo1gF1oow!2e0!5m2!1sBwN7Jici9iUbFzo1gF1oow!2e0!4m15!2m14!1m13!1s0x487bda9b8e913e43%3A0x7f746b9d85fdf3ee!3m8!1m3!1d23571!2d-1.8124635!3d53.5673161!3m2!1i1920!2i955!4f13.1!4m2!3d53.555649!4d-1.8160425&fid=5)

Pulling out onto this road:
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-1.864395!3d53.495086!2m2!1f244.94!2f82.17!4f75!2m7!1e1!2m2!1sHHMWT0D74ngmWnkdsy1HLA!2e0!5m2!1sHHMWT0D74ngmWnkdsy1HLA!2e0&fid=5)

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I know it's not easy.

~~~
dandellion
I'd expect them to drive themselves most of the time, but not always. On some
places you'd have to "switch to manual" and drive the car yourself to a place
where the gps tells you that it's suitable to turn on automatic driving.

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j2d3
This article is overly focused on cost, which is dumb because they're in
development. Clearly costs will not be the same when they become generally
available, and the ownership model is going to change completely, too. Car
service on demand will largely replace car ownership.

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hugh4life
Self driving cars are only going to work where not only every vehicle has
sensors that communicate with each other but also the roads themselves will
have to be retrofitted with sensors.

The only two places self driving cars have a future are:

1\. Planned communities which ban the use of personal cars inside that
community. 2\. An interstate highway system where there is a special lane
dedicated to self driving cars.

If google is serious about self driving cars, they need to buy or build a
town... or use this one.

[http://theweek.com/article/index/219043/the-ghost-town-
being...](http://theweek.com/article/index/219043/the-ghost-town-being-built-
as-a-science-experiment)

[edit]

The best hope for self driving vehicles is as an anti-social public(or public-
ish) transportation system.

~~~
lawn
Why do you assume self driving cars have to communicate with other cars to be
effective? The cars already have sensors far more advanced than us humans
have.

And why would the roads need sensors?

I do believe it would benefit self driving cars to have areas where only they
are allowed, and in the future I foresee that being the case as the cars can
drive faster and closer together if not driven by a human. But this shouldn't
be a necessity when cars gets more advanced.

Progress is fast and if history has showed us anything it's that history is
impossible to predict. About 100 years ago flight was thought as an
impossibility until the Wright brothers proved us wrong and look where we are
today.

In 100 years what role will self driving cars have? I'm certainly leaning
toward it being mainstream, even considered normal, to see them everywhere.

Then again, some would say we would have flying cars by then.

~~~
Siecje
If there are three cars beside each other

A B C

Car A is driven by a human and steers into car B. If car B could communicate
with car C it could ask it to move over (or slow down) so that it (car B) can
move out of the way of car A.

~~~
lawn
Oh yes, if cars would communicate they would behave better. But they don't
_have_ to do that to be effective.

If A B C are all driven by humans, C could move over or slow down if it sees
that B is steering into it. But self driving cars could do that as well.

That self driving cars could communicate is an argument for the self driving
car, not against it as the parent made it out be.

------
hawkharris
Another issue may be whether or not consumers want to be seen in one of
Google's self-driving cars.

The vehicles' outlandish appearance doesn't bother me because I'm a long-time
advocate of self-driving cars, but it may be an issue for other consumers.

Other car manufacturers such as Cadillac are working toward fully autonomous
vehicles that look like stylish, regular cars. The computers and sensors are
hidden in a spare tire compartment.

I wonder if Google is underestimating consumers' preference for traditionally
good-looking vehicles. I think about how the company was criticized for
underestimating the aesthetic roadblocks involved in the Google Glass rollout.

~~~
andyakb
I cannot imagine that google wants to rollout the current iteration of their
self driver car at scale to consumers. They want they technology sorted out
and for that phase of it, they do not care what the car looks like and you
cannot assume that's how their self driving cars will always look.

~~~
hawkharris
Google's technology depends on a series of lasers attached a large, spinning
rotor on the car's hood. Cadillac and GM's technology does not:
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/254192/cadillac_self_driving_...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/254192/cadillac_self_driving_cars_out_by_2015_.html)

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betawolf33
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/gfv/notes_on_autonomous_cars/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gfv/notes_on_autonomous_cars/)

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Daniel_Newby
Much of a car's weight is safety cages and crumple zones. Leaving out all that
superfluous metal will save lots of money.

~~~
mavhc
Build cars out of airbags, with 4 wheels attached, each with their own battery
pack, accidents would be almost fun

