The Hype Of Self-Driving Cars

[FrodosPet]

[jtuck004]

1. It's 1805. Clem looks at Cooter and says "You know, Cooter, one day these wagons won't need horses".

Cooter looks at him and says "Yeah, over-hyped as usual".

[FrodosPet]

2. Are Clem or Cooter the president of a horseless carriage company?

Scott Keogh, Audi of America President, discusses the current sentiment and technology surrounding autonomous and self-driving vehicles. CNBC's Phil LeBeau weighs in.

[longship]

3. Nope!

More than half the country has something called WINTER, with snow and ice.

Then, there's places like the Tejon and Cajon passes in SoCal. BTW, they are both eight lane major interstate highways and only a mad person would want an autonomous vehicle driving on them. And also BTW, both are often snowbound in winter.

I've driven them both, the Cajon multiple times. They are fucking scary as hell.

[jtuck004]

4. 30K plus people dead in traffic every year. I've picked up some of their bodies.

At least a quarter of them are under the influence of something at any given time - that increases near midnight. A good third can barely pay attention long enough to get where they are going.

I'll take good software over people driving any day. But it will take a long time to get rid of the provincial thinking that keeps us from making progress.

[longship]

5. Screw that. In winter with ice and snow, I don't want an autonomous vehicle anywhere near me.

Especially anywhere near the Grapevine -- the fucking Tejon pass -- even in dry sunny summer.

Ask Elon Musk how his autopilot feature is working out for him.

Fuck so-called, nonexistent autonomous vehicles. It's just yet another Kurzweil Matrix wet dream.

[jtuck004]

6. "Ask Elon Musk" He did say the car that hit the truck that turned in front of

him would not have had the accident had the guy updated the software.

[longship]

7. But the damned thing DID hit the truck.

Didn't it?

And there are other examples.

Why do they always test these things in clear weather in hot dry areas of the country?

All the roads where I live are unpaved. In winter they are covered in ice and snow. There are no shoulders and the roads are not quite two lanes, so oncoming vehicles are kind of treacherous. Some of the vehicles are huge farming implements. No autonomous vehicles here. EVER!

Which was kind of my point.
QED

Then there's the fucking Grapevine in SoCal. No sane person would put an autonomous vehicle on that road, and it's a major eight lane interstate highway!

[jtuck004]

8. Some people find it harder to deal with change than others.

I remember teachers who swore their beloved slide rules would never be replaced by computers, not to mention the one who swore she would never have a black kid in her classroom. Ah, the 70s.

The world just passed them by, because change is bigger than some folk's imagination.

Good luck. The rest of us have a future to work on.

[longship]

12. Good luck indeed .

Just keep your autonomous vehicles away from me.

Actually that's no problem since they are just like the flying cars, jet packs, and nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners of the fifties, a technological wet dream.

And then there's the Kurzweilian singularity idiots. Don't get me started with them.

Let's see an autonomous vehicle take on the Grapevine on Friday evening rush hour and I'll consider it. I just hope it doesn't get in front of a semi on the downhill side.

BTW, why do they only test these things in places where it doesn't fucking rain or snow? Answer me that.

Given this, ones whole argument falls apart when one argues that someone is against technology by opposing this crapola.

Oh! But it's all right around the corner, just like cold fusion, or nuclear-powered vacuum sweepers, or the fucking singularity.

[Urchin]

16. the more complex

The more complex you make the world with your technology, the more you try to make everything uniformly comfortable, controlled, and predictable, the more likely you will be vulnerable to unexpected and catastrophic events.

It's like when you put out every little forest fire, eventually the brush accumulates until you have a forest fire of epic proportions.

It's like how Greenspan tried to avoid small recessions (which would correct financial mistakes) and instead allowed those small mistakes to accumulate until now our entire financial system is vulnerable to a complete collapse.

Technlogy will not be able to keep ahead of the destruction it causes as a by product.

We should all strive to live as simple a life as possible. A little technology is a necessary evil. But to assume that there is such a thing as "progress" is wrong-headed.

Like when the Europeans discovered that native peoples did not store up provisions against a future shortage of food, the Europeans congratulated themselves on their technical ability to preserve and store food and viewed the native peoples as "primitive" and lacking in "progress."

Never realizing that should one natural food become scarce, the native hunter-gatherers could simply switch to a different natural food because their environment was diverse and not overly specialized to depend on a few crops (remember the Irish potato famine?).

[jtuck004]

17. Lol. I never said it was good or desirable. Just inevitable. n/t

[yeoman6987]

10. Change is hard. Progress is great for progressives

I wish they started this 20 years ago so it would be routine now.

[longship]

14. Well, start on the streets of Portland, OR.

Where it rains almost every damned day.

Then you can tackle Buffalo, NY in January.

Please, do not lecture me about change.

The only place that they've tested autonomous cars is where it never rains or snows, and on basically flat roads with light traffic.

Try the eastbound Grapevine during Friday evening rush hour!

Or try the Manistee National Forest, where I live. No paved roads, lots of rain and snow in season. No shoulders on the roads. No lane markers either. Then there's the fact that the roads are barely two lanes. Plus, one has to factor in the rather large farm implements with which one has to share the road.

Autonomous vehicles are a Matrix wet dream.

And people make the software argument?????

[FrodosPet]

9. GOOD software

It is coming. It is not here yet.

NOBODY in the industry is saying this is ready for wide distribution in less than 5 years. They are all pointing out the same issues that you claim are irrelevant.

I am a brave man personally. If all goes right (as in I leave DU and the news alone, and finish studying programming for LiDAR scanners using the Point Cloud Library), I will be riding in some developmental SDCs soon. I know the risk, I accept the risk.

I don't want people who DON'T know the risk riding in a potential killing machine until the tech is ready.

[Glassunion]

11. Oh thank God. I thought no one would bring this up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8178800

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Oh here we go again...

https://m.

[Urchin]

15. The Airplane Example

Aircraft accidents increased with increased automation.

This was because aircraft automation still needed the pilot to pay attention so that the pilot could take over if necessary.

But the result was that the pilots became so bored passively sitting there for hours that their attention would wander.

And accidents started to happen again.

Google this to find more info on this phenomenon.

The people developing these self-driving cars must be aware of what happened in the aircraft industry.

In addition to the pilot attention problem, the pilot's ability to manoeuvre the aircraft, especially in an emergency, began to atrophy from lack of practice, making the pilot less able to avoid a collision, pull out of a spin, or whatever.

The fact that they don't mention what happened when too much automation was introduced into airplanes, tells me they are pumping the technology to raise the stock price of their companies.

And we've already had one, maybe two, and possibly more accidents with these self driving cars because the drivers weren't paying attention to what the self driving car was doing.

If you're concerned about safety, a better answer would be to make cars safer.

For example, do we really need cars on the road that are capable of doing twice the speed limit and more?

Realize, once cars are on the internet of things, you'll get an instant ticket for breaking the speed limit; likely, you will be judged guilty (at least for minor infractions) until proven innocent (because it's expedient and because the state will get more money that way, it being too much to trouble to fight the charge--people will always believe the technology is right), the fine being instantly deducted from your bank account or credit card; and if the infraction is serious enough, your car will automatically lock its doors and take you to the nearest police station or pull over to the side of the road where you'll wait for the police to come get you.

It will be up to you to make a court case if you believe you were innocent or had a good excuse. After months of winding your way through the judicial system, you might get your $100 back.