
The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers - zbravo
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/12/driverless-cars-are-this-centurys-space-race/417672/?single_page=true
======
nostromo
One thing I haven't heard much about is how humans and AI drivers will
interact.

If we all assume that AI cars are going to be very conservative and very
competent drivers, will people take advantage of that? Will human drivers
become even bigger assholes that cut off AI drivers at every possibility,
knowing that an AI will not hit them? Why wait in a big line for an exit, when
you know an AI car will always let you in. The AI driver won't even mind, as
it has no emotional state, so why not?

Pedestrians and cyclists may also learn that they can freely cut off an AI car
at anytime they please. Why wait for a walk signal? Why walk all the way to
the intersection? Just saunter across anywhere you like, so long as you cross
in front of an AI car.

~~~
unclebucknasty
For me the bigger question is WRT the ongoing quest to marginalize human
beings.

Once we automate everything, then what?

~~~
robmcm
I imagine the same argument was made about the industrial revolution.

There is still a lot to work for once we remove the more mundane parts of our
existence.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _the same argument was made about the industrial revolution._

A bit of a specious comparison which assumes that the degree and quality of
the technology are irrelevant.

There was no Deep Mind during the Industrial Revolution.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Edit: there was no Deep Blue, that is.

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larrymcp
Well if this is a "race" as the headline says, it sure is gonna be a long
race, folks. These cars haven't yet been programmed to handle things like
snow-covered roads where you can't see the lines, or construction zones that
have you driving on the opposite side of the road at the direction of
flaggers, etc... there's just a ton of work remaining to be done if your goal
is truly to "rid the world of human drivers".

~~~
TheEzEzz
If those high targets are the only things remaining then I'd say the race is
pretty close to finishing. I'd be more pessimistic if features on the todo
list still included 'identifying stop signs', 'recognizing people', 'not
killing people', and 'driving more smoothly than a teenager'.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What's more, people are forgetting that normal traffic does not go through
wilderness, and roads are not just slabs of concrete in a line. We draw
markings on the road. We put signs next to them. It stands to reason that as
self-driving cars will be slowly deployed (I don't see them rolling out
simultaneously in sunny California and in snowy Switzerland), we'll be
updating road infrastructure with signs and other objects designed for AI
drivers - ones that could help them determine road conditions better.

~~~
vonmoltke
Considering how poorly current roads are maintained I don't hold out hope for
anything that requires _more_ maintenance. Many roads I drive on are not
properly marked for human drivers as it is.

------
rconti
I just bought a 2016 Volkswagen that has laser cruise control and lane assist.
I ordered the fully loaded package because the incremental cost was not large,
and I figured I might as well have all the toys if I was going to the expense
of buying a brand-new car.

I consider myself an enthusiast; I have a fair bit of time on the racetrack in
lapping days and amateur races, sometimes I volunteer at car control clinics
and teen instruction days. All of my cars have manual transmissions and I ride
a motorcycle. I definitely did not expect to become dependent on any driving
nannies.

What I've found is that it's absolutely astounding how fast you come to trust
the automated systems. In my car, the laser cruise control will drive the car
for you at virtually any speed. It does a great job of keeping up in traffic,
has no issues with hills or going around bends, it's always able to track the
car in front of me perfectly. It uses the brakes to slow the car. I've got the
manual transmission so it only slows the car down to about 15mph and then
prompts me to take over and press the brake; if I had the automatic, it would
come to a full stop in traffic and only require a tap of the accelerator to
resume once traffic ahead started moving.

Even though I only have 700 miles on the car and have only used the laser
cruise for perhaps 20 or 30 miles in total (mostly just playing with it), I
find I still expect the system to brake the car once disengaged. For example,
I'll be coming up to a red light, lift off the throttle, start braking, and
then think to myself "huh, I wonder why the car didn't start slowing down for
me."

The lane assist feature will correct the steering once or twice if you start
to come too close to the lane marker (within maybe 2 feet) but it's very
subtle and you barely feel it while your hands are on the wheel. After a
correction or two (and maybe 10 seconds, I'm not sure exactly how it decides),
the system tells you "hey, idiot, you're supposed to be steering". I have, on
multiple occasions, been surprised that it "allowed" me to get as close as I
was to adjacent cars, before realizing that it only is meant to keep me within
my lane, it knows nothing about the vehicles around me. But something about
the fact that it has lane assist (and, incidentally, ultrasonic parking
sensors) fools me into thinking it knows more than it does. I'm not saying I
was letting the car drive for me, I was fully in control, I was simply
surprised that it didn't override my judgement of how close is too close.

It's a brave new world out there. It's surprising how quickly you cede mental
control, if not physical control, even to systems that have clearly defined
limits and features that you don't even intend on using, let alone relying on.
I imagine things will get worse before they'll get better. That said, humans
are bad enough drivers that it might not get MUCH worse!

~~~
jobu
> _it 's always able to track the car in front of me perfectly_

I've always wondered how this would really work. What happens when the car
ahead changes lanes or exits the freeway? Have you run into any issues with
weather (rain, snow) interfering with the sensor?

~~~
wibr
That depends on the sensors which are used. Most current ACC systems use
radar, which should not be affected by weather but has other problems like
high cost, narrow field of view and you only get speed and distance as data
points which are not always easy to interpret correctly. Ideally it's combined
with a camera to get more information about the environment like land
markings, so that you know if the car in front of you is actually in your lane
or just going around the corner in the lane next to you. The camera is
obviously prone to glare, raindrops, etc.. When the car ahead changes lanes or
exits the freeway, the system will try to find another car as a target vehicle
and adapt the speed accordingly to keep a certain timegap, if it can't find a
target it will behave like normal cruise control.

~~~
vonmoltke
A more sophisticated (but expensive) radar sensor could do the job without the
camera. A sensor capable of Doppler processing, sweeping, and tied to some
sort of platform telemetry (GPS, INS, etc.) could maintain a large and fairly
comprehensive situational picture. Add moving target indication to the signal
processing and it could form tracks on all other vehicles on the road, which
would provide the motion vectors for them without the need for another sensor.
You could even use track behavior to detect anomalies in the road, assuming
you have multiple tracks.

I could go on all day about this (having actually worked on MTI radar for
several years), but I have actual work to do. :P

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vectorjohn
The comments on here are funny. People lose their mind when it comes to
autonomous anything. ZOMG everyone's going to shoot down autonomous delivery
drones! People will walk out into traffic! People will hack their cars and do
crimes!

Come on. All this is illegal now. It will still be illegal, and easily
enforceable. Which is what keeps crimes from happening. That and human decency
which most people have.

~~~
kagamine
I think it's the other way, people on here are funny and lose their minds if
you try to pose a problem that we can find a solution for. They're all "omg
it's not a problem Google are already perfecting it!" There are a lot of
issues that remain unresolved (snow does cover parts of N.America and Europe
for months at a time). What's wrong with raising these issues and discussing
them without resorting to "you so dumb, it gonna be fine, doomsayer!"?

~~~
to3m
Didn't you hear? You won't be permitted to purchase an autonomous vehicle
unless you can provide documentary evidence of your having been in favour of
the technology even before it was proven.

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beachstartup
anyone work on artificial intelligence technologies here? i have some lay
questions - is anyone testing driverless cars in an environment where most
cars are driverless? does that make a difference?

are there any weird effects / properties that can emerge?

does it have the potential to solve the persistent traffic jam issue?

~~~
caseysoftware
I believe so.

As driverless cars take over more and more, the weird (aka dangerous)
behaviors should become less common. Many forms of distracted driving will
simply vanish, not even considering the obvious issues like drunk driving.

Once you start automating dispatch, I think it simplifies and improves things
further. For one, you're going to be less likely to be late.. which means less
stress/anxiety and less distractions which should mean less accidents and
near-accidents that cause traffic issues.

 _IF_ you can eliminate many - but unlikely all - of the little issues,
problems, etc that compound to cause big problems, why would there be traffic
jams?

(And that's not considering traffic updates to re-route around existing
problems.)

My post on the topic: [http://caseysoftware.com/blog/future-transportation-
today](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/future-transportation-today)

~~~
thrownaway2424
My offhand anecdata suggests that the bulk of traffic jams are caused by
people driving older cars. There is a little-understood cosmic force that
causes cars to stop running in proportion to how critical the section of
roadway is to regional transportation and in proportion to the age of the car.
1985 Nissan Sentra in a tunnel? Guaranteed to burst into flames.

More seriously, there are obvious reasons why older cars are more likely to
just stop running, or to be involved in a fatal accident that snarls traffic.
I think the tipping point is not going to come from the deployment of self-
driving cars, but will arrive instead when the fleet of junkers nears
eradication.

~~~
sokoloff
It's not obvious to me why older cars are more likely to be in fatal
accidents. Even though my '66 Mustang is wildly less safe in many ways, it
also gets driven with much more care than what I see around me.

~~~
thrownaway2424
There's probably a bathtub-shapes curve of driver care. I'm sure that drivers
of classic American sports cars, at this distance from their dates of
manufacture, are taking due caution. People with new cars all have ABS,
stability control, and the other bells and whistles. But people who are
driving the 1994 Dodge Colt were probably forced into it by financial
circumstances. They don't have an investment to protect, they don't have any
safety features, and they probably don't even have working shock absorbers or
roadworthy tires.

I don't know if I am alone in this perception, but it has been built up over
many years of being stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge. What kinds of cars to
you see on fire, on the shoulder, or being pushed off the bridge by those
Caltrans wreckers? Old ones. Second-hand cop cars bought at auction. Old
Japanese compact pickups with 2 tons of concrete in the beds. Cars that were
going 75 MPH on emergency spare tires. Cars with no outside mirrors? WTF?

I ride the bus, so I'm biased. I think if your car breaks down or you get into
an accident on the Bay Bridge you should pay a million-dollar fine and have
your car and license seized permanently.

~~~
cpitman
Do you mean they push wrecked cars down the length of the bridge to get them
off? Or are they literally in such a rush that they just chuck it off the side
of the bridge? Because that would be awesome.

~~~
Animats
If it can roll and brake, a CALTRANS vehicle with a strong push bumper will
push it somewhere out of the way. If not, they have to tow.

------
isaaaaah
In the city of Nuremburg, Germany in the year 2006 Siemens started to
introduce automated trains. Until this day, they have to be operated under
supervision. So how exactly do all these tech companies want to get the fact
out of the way, that there is an actual AI needed before they can dive into
autonomous cars driving the streets? The wet dream of big biz for sure, if
only it could meet up with reality. Sorry for not thinking big enough, im just
confused how those companies, that not even manage to get their own available
products to be working flawless want to step into a market where things will
cost lives.

~~~
jpatokal
There are dozens and dozens of fully automated train lines in fully automated
operation:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems)

------
gadders
For people looking for an investment opportunity, once self-driving cars are a
reality, buy shares in British Pub chains. Being able to have a drink and not
worry about how to get home will make them a lot more accessible.

------
aurizon
well, first auto-car, then auto-truck, then auto-truck-train. (3-10 trailers
with one tractor, and possibly hub motors suitable for long hauls with no
turns) Then electric cars pas gas based cars. Then electric trucks with
droppable battery packs - full charged in 2 minutes by changing it. Then they
will get into local driving and delivery, into large mechanical drop boxes at
houses and businesses. Deliveries 24-7. The box can be a wall port with a live
floor = lots of space. The beginning of the robot age. The last thing they
will invent, before people are gone, will be the robot consumer...

~~~
kobayashi
The robot consumer might be the most underrated threat to humanity.

------
shanehoban
Perhaps a better solution would be something totally void of automobiles?

In terms of efficiency, is using the same technology (cars) in a different way
- removing the driver - really going to have long term affects?

My guess is that cars themselves will be out of production before we reach
100% adoption of driverless cars.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Electric cars seem to be a pretty good solution, though the cars of the future
will probably be much smaller - right now we pad them a lot with extra metal
and plastic so that the passengers can survive a collision. With self-driving
cars you won't need that anymore. I imagine the future of cars is a PRT[0]
system - it's a perfect thing for a city. As for travel between cities, that's
what trains are for.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit)

------
Animats
For a sense of how this is going, you can read the California DMV's collection
of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] 9 from Google, one from Delphi.
Almost all the Google ones are a Google vehicle being rear-ended by another
car at slow speed. Typical situation: Google AV turning right on red after a
full stop. AV advances enough to get a good sensor view of cross traffic,
detects cross traffic, and stops. Following vehicle rear-ends Google AV. Not
AV's fault.

If manually driven cars had radar-controlled braking (now a common option, and
one which may become as standard as ABS in a few years), that's enough to stop
most rear-end collisions. That may be all that's necessary for AVs and human-
driven cars to play well together.

[1]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auton...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/autonomousveh_ol316)

~~~
kagamine
Driving behavior and patterns are important for safety too, when you assume
that it's not the google AV's fault that it gets rear-ended you may be wrong.
If a human driver sees more than the AV (has a bigger brain, more experience)
and is able to better asses a situation, the human might not see _why_ the AV
is stopping, having assessed correctly that the way is clear. It is the AV's
fault for not being smart enough, and thus acting erratically _by normal
driving standards and patterns_.

I knew several people in the UK when we were learning to drive who failed
their test because the tester thought them too cautious and therefore not
confident enough to avoid an accident.

Reading on the subject of self driving cars, one gets the impression that
there is a auto-assumption that human drivers must all be idiots who should
never, ever have been allowed behind the wheel, but that probably isn't the
case. I'm not saying the roads will be any less safe with AVs, but let's not
believe all the Utopian propaganda of the businesses selling us this product.

~~~
revelation
No, if you rear-end someone driving safely, you are at fault and reckless.
This _I can control the situation_ thinking are the famous last words of every
idiot ever wrecking his car, or, sadly, killing others.

------
thrownaway2424
There's a crazy claim / instance of the Chinese Soda Fallacy in the middle of
the article. Why would the first-mover developer of automatic driving software
be able to reap 10 cents per mile driven?

~~~
chromaton
>Chinese Soda Fallcy

I've never heard of this particular logical fallacy and search engines are no
help. Can you explain?

~~~
thrownaway2424
Hrmm, I did find exactly one instance of the phrase on Google. I'm surprised,
too.

As it was explained to me, a Chinese Soda Fallacy is a business plan wherein
you stand to make a dollar selling a Coke to everybody in China. You will make
a billion dollars! Except that the market-clearing price for Coke in China
isn't a dollar, and not everybody wants one, and so on and so forth.

The idea that you will make a dime every time anyone drives a mile strikes me
as perfectly congruent with that fallacy.

Edit: This article seems to address the topic without using the phrase.

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240529702048303045741335...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204830304574133501980701202)

A COKE FOR EVERY KID IN CHINA This gambit rests its case on a plethora of
secondary data to show how large and fast-growing a market is. The plan then
makes a heroic leap and assumes that the new venture will grab X percent of
that market it could be 1%, 10%, 30% or whatever. "Surely," the plan argues,
"with the large number of customers in our market, we'll easily get enough. We
only need a small fraction to have a very nice business."

~~~
mikeash
Sounds like the more generalized equivalent of the typical software fallacy
that goes like, "There are umpty million iPhone users, if just 1% of them buys
our app...."

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jmspring
I don't have a commute. I just recently downsized from a VW gross polluter TDI
(jetta sportwagen) to a Toyota off-road tacoma. 1/2 the gas milage. This will
probably be the last vehicle I personally buy for years. It will be mostly
road trips and off road camping.

The wife plans on a Tesla Model 3 as her car.

For my uses, even my 2016 Tacoma TRD OR screams over technical for a lot of
back country camping / jeep trail stuff.

~~~
pc86
> _gross polluter TDI_

> _Toyota Tacoma for road trips_

The cognitive dissonance is impressive.

------
WalterBright
I'm going to miss shifting gears and double clutching.

~~~
pnut
Double clutching, seriously? That is some niche hardware you are driving - all
manual transmissions are synchromeshed nowadays, unless you're driving a
racecar maybe.

~~~
WalterBright
Double clutching makes downshifting at high revs much smoother, and reduces
wear&tear on the clutch & transmission. (I have a pretty grabby clutch, yes,
it's aftermarket.)

------
ourmandave
When my grandfather died back in the '80s my grandmother had to learn to drive
because she'd been a passenger her whole life.

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grogenaut
Sorry for typos, eating fried chicken...

I cant wait to see what happens once the modders and criminals get a hold of
self driving cars. My awesome car would pretend to be an emergency vehicle.
Pretend to be a truck and that it can't stop easily, pretend emergencies so
people move, claim that it's chaging lanes to mess with people. Without a
centralized authority it's just negotiation. With a CA then humans and remote
locations will have issues.

It's going to be a great dystopian future.

~~~
bglazer
All of these things are already possible. Hell I see an example of most of
these behaviors pretty frequently. It's not like normal people are going to
suddenly become psychopaths when they get self driving cars.

