What's your opinion on the future of self-driving cars?

[Maf 32,300]

I've been thinking for a while how self-driving (autonomous) vehicles will be integrated into our world, assuming it will happen at all. At the moment the only type of autonomous traffic used on a mass scale is trains, particularly metro trains (Vancouver, Dubai, Singapore...), which run on separate inaccessible tracks and basically just speed up and slow down, stopping at designated stations. This was possible to achieve because there are very few variables to consider, since there is no interaction with human vehicle operators, no edge cases, and nothing that would require human level of decision-making.

With cars it's much more complicated, which is why I don't see driverless cars completely taking over the roads in the near future (within 20 years). Tesla is making significant progress with their publicly available Autopilot system, while companies like Uber and Waymo are developing their fully autonomous navigation systems. But all of them are still very far from achieving full self-driving capability (for reference).

What I think is going to happen instead, is that select cities will start dedicating specific districts to autonomous vehicles. Those could be brand new developments, which integrated autonomy in their design from the start, or refurbished city centres. The way they would adapt is by having things like near-perfect road/sign maintenance, additional barriers to minimise number of pedestrians on roads, special traffic rules, and built-in guidance systems (like beacons) to help guide autonomous cars along the city streets.

That way, autonomous vehicle owners would be driving with normal level 3 automation (like today's Tesla Autopilot) on most roads, but when entering autonomous areas, their vehicle would automatically go into fully autonomous mode.

Drivers of normal vehicles would be restricted access to such zones, and would have to make use of park-and-ride services to get into the zone via autonomous public transport.

Such areas would be experimental at first (like that Singapore cargo dock), and will gradually expand to populated areas, eventually covering the span of cities. I can't wait to see something like this become reality.

As far as places like small town roads and villages - there's too many of them to adapt and maintain them all for autonomous vehicles and it would be too expensive, and there's too many edge cases for autonomous cars to be able to navigate them like a human, so it will be decades before this is achieved, if ever.

 

What do you think with happen?

[mjmj5558 2,346]

I dont't think that self-driver cars will ever replace normal cars. People like driving, and also, self-driving cars can cause many problem when a technical error appears. I think the future will be something much more exiting.

[iFros 1,891]

You can't drift with an automated car, so it's not legit.

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

I don't like the idea, of authorizing cars taking over manual driving. Because of the obvious amount of wrecks which would be caused by hands off driving. Like what if the self driving pilot thing malfunctions? And the person behind the wheel doesn't know how to drive?

[Maf 32,300]

1 hour ago, DieselPlatinum said:

I don't like the idea, of authorizing cars taking over manual driving. Because of the obvious amount of wrecks which would be caused by hands off driving. 

Tesla Autopilot is only level 3-4 autonomy and is already 30% safer than human drivers (by number of accidents per 1 million miles driven). Another extremely important factor is that if every single car is autonomous and constantly communicating with all other cars via a giant traffic network, it completely solves the issue of unpredictability of other vehicles on the road. If every car knows the exact intention of other cars nearby, then there is no need to account for things like reaction time, safe follow distance, traffic lights, etc.

You may have seen this (obviously edited) video:

Spoiler

 

With full autonomy crossroads like that can become reality, improving traffic flow by a large factor.

 

1 hour ago, DieselPlatinum said:

Like what if the self driving pilot thing malfunctions?

Then there should be independent systems in place which would take over control and bring the car to a safe stop, proceeded by specialised crew coming to evacuate or repair the vehicle. We already have plenty of non-vehicular autonomous systems which follow similar protocols.

[Maf 32,300]

5 hours ago, mjmj5558 said:

 People like driving

Oh I'm sure they do, and I'm sure there will be large protests by enthusiast drivers to prevent their right to drive being taken away from them. The answer to this is leaving dedicated areas specifically for manual driving. Just like how we have racetracks where you can take your car if you want to drive it fast, in the future there may be tracks where you take your care if you want to drive at all.

But I don't think the safety and convenience of many should be compromised to satisfy the desires of few.

[ILiveOnTheChatBox123 936]

22 minutes ago, Maf said:

Oh I'm sure they do, and I'm sure there will be large protests by enthusiast drivers to prevent their right to drive being taken away from them. The answer to this is leaving dedicated areas specifically for manual driving. Just like how we have racetracks where you can take your car if you want to drive it fast, in the future there may be tracks where you take your care if you want to drive at all.

But I don't think the safety and convenience of many should be compromised to satisfy the desires of few.

Such driver-less zones won't be able to be in residential areas, right? Also, not every major city may have the means to update all their roadwork infrastructure to the necessary amounts. Maybe a dozen cities may use such systems, but I don't see it becoming a way of life.

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

26 minutes ago, Maf said:

Tesla Autopilot is only level 3-4 autonomy and is already 30% safer than human drivers (by number of accidents per 1 million miles driven). Another extremely important factor is that if every single car is autonomous and constantly communicating with all other cars via a giant traffic network, it completely solves the issue of unpredictability of other vehicles on the road. If every car knows the exact intention of other cars nearby, then there is no need to account for things like reaction time, safe follow distance, traffic lights, etc.

You may have seen this (obviously edited) video:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

With full autonomy crossroads like that can become reality, improving traffic flow by a large factor.

 

Then there should be independent systems in place which would take over control and bring the car to a safe stop, proceeded by specialised crew coming to evacuate or repair the vehicle. We already have plenty of non-vehicular autonomous systems which follow similar protocols.

I still think that even if this new technology age comes, it doesnt give the driver the right to let the technology take them to their destinations, while they do things like text, or such.

[Viking4s 10,791]

This would be boring, like taking a train or a coach. The pleasure of driving is taking away.

For those who do not like driving or scared of driving that would be a nice option.

Positive is that everybody could then buy a car and will not need a driving licences nor pay for learning how to drive: potential saving here.

Important question: In case of an accident who is responsible? The car maker? The CPU? The car owner?

Edited February 7, 2020 by Viking4s

[Maf 32,300]

4 hours ago, ILiveOnTheChatBox123 said:

Such driver-less zones won't be able to be in residential areas, right? Also, not every major city may have the means to update all their roadwork infrastructure to the necessary amounts. Maybe a dozen cities may use such systems, but I don't see it becoming a way of life.

Residential areas are quite tricky indeed. I don't know how cars would deal with things like children suddenly running out into the road from behind cars. Right now the systems struggle to even detect normal people.

As for where it will happen - definitely major technological cities will come first, but assuming the world keeps developing and cities become more technologically advanced, then such infrastructure can gradually spread all over the world. At that point the question is whether or not issues like global warming and overpopulation will curb technological advancement, but that's a whole different discussion.

[Maf 32,300]

8 hours ago, DieselPlatinum said:

I still think that even if this new technology age comes, it doesnt give the driver the right to let the technology take them to their destinations, while they do things like text, or such.

That purely depends on the achieved level of autonomy. At autonomy level 5 the vehicle is guaranteed to be able to safely perform all driving tasks autonomously with zero human interaction required. At that point humans won't have any responsibility over the vehicle since they will not be able to take control of it at all. At the moment we are still decades away from such technology.

2 hours ago, Viking4s said:

Important question: In case of an accident who is responsible? The car maker? The CPU? The car owner?

If the user manual permits the driver to not monitor the road while the car is autonomous, then accidents will be the car maker's fault, since it's their software and code that made the wrong decision (assuming the autonomous car was at fault). Just like how if you buy an industrial robot today and use it strictly as instructed, any accidents caused by the machine will likely be the manufacturer's fault.

[aqwzsxedc 699]

Honestly, I do like the idea of "driverless cars" and having them would probably make our life easier... But, this would definitely mean that, just like in the industry, "bots" will definitely replace humans when it comes to driving (you know... "driverless"), so what would happen to the current drivers who make a living from that?

The thing is, maybe for developed countries it ain't a big deal, but for the rest it definitely is.

Not to mention the "loss of enjoyment of driving" etc.. 

It will also be a hard challenge due to the requirement of the autonom cars; to build new roads in order to seperate this kind of cars from the others

[DieselPlatinum 5,121]

3 hours ago, aqwzsxedc said:

Honestly, I do like the idea of "driverless cars" and having them would probably make our life easier... But, this would definitely mean that, just like in the industry, "bots" will definitely replace humans when it comes to driving (you know... "driverless"), so what would happen to the current drivers who make a living from that?

The thing is, maybe for developed countries it ain't a big deal, but for the rest it definitely is.

Not to mention the "loss of enjoyment of driving" etc.. 

It will also be a hard challenge due to the requirement of the autonom cars; to build new roads in order to seperate this kind of cars from the others

Yeah, that's another thing. People who's job is to drive around with people or items could be laid off because they got replaced by a computer.

[AudimasLTU 62]

I like the idea of self driving cars for older people. But for today I would like to drive because I like to drive. Also, there is a long way to go before self driving cars are allowed on the road. They need to stop crashing, and need to be checked that they are 100% um-hackable. I see it often in movies and TV shows where someone’s car is hacked it something bad happens. Example, who remembers the part in Fast and Furriest  where they hacked all these cars to barricade someone?? Yeah, that’s scary. 

[r_Given6 859]

I think that self-driving cars will never fully make it to the roads if there still are manually driven vehicles and pedestrians crossing the road. It would require very advanced and expensive technology to account for human error and other stuff. This would have to be in each and every self-driving vehicle since cloud based computing won't be able to bear the load of all the information at all times of hundreds of thousands of cars and quickly react in the correct manner to prevent accidents.

What is possible is a system of self-driving electric cars that sync together into a broad system providing 100% safe transportation, with nothing else occupying the roads. Once you input your destination, and the time limit within which you want to reach there into the car's system, it wiĺl rally on the information to the broad network. So if there are a bunch of cars that might cause a congestion, it will decide in advance at what time which cars would be present in which lane and moving with what speed, and also divert some cars to other routes.

Or maybe self-driving cars with individual systems would gradually begin to dominate the roads, becoming so advanced by the time they are the sole vehicles on the roads, that there's no need for a united network at all. 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Given

[Maf 32,300]

20 minutes ago, Given said:

Or maybe self-driving cars with individual systems would gradually begin to dominate the roads, becoming so advanced by the time they are the sole vehicles on the roads, that there's no need for a united network at all. 

Regardless of how advanced the systems get, they would greatly benefit from being inter-connected. The only issue with that is the possibility of lives being at risk due to hacking, but I'm sure certain security measures can be put in place to prevent that.

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

i wonder if dui would be legal with autonomous cars made mandatory

[spiderman1000 737]

ill make my points in scenarios

scenario 1

Spoiler

Police: stop! pull over!

driver: *avoids all obstacles and police cars and drives away*

Scenario 2

Spoiler

A man talking to his friend

person 1: do you want to go to easter island.

person 2: of course i want to go to easter island.

the car: so easter island it is.

 

and no one saw the man again. legend has it that he is still going for the easter island..... by road.

scenario 3

Spoiler

There is an accident

 

police: where is you license?

car: invalid program. fatal error. self destruct initiated.

scenario 4

Spoiler

news reporter: the american president has been kidnapped! how did this happen

 

meanwhile

 

mafia: pay this hacker handsomely for helping us get the president.

Scenario 5

Spoiler

man: take me home.

car: ok

man: uhhh why are we going east home is west.

car: the erath is round. we are going home the other way...... we are going home by covering 40,070 km instead of 5 km.

 

[Maf 32,300]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:05 PM, Total_SkiIl said:

i wonder if dui would be legal with autonomous cars made mandatory

Well, if the car is fully autonomous and driver intervention is not only unnecessary but completely impossible, then you won't be driving. Hence it's not DUI because the "Driving" part is missing. No reason for it to be illegal.

[sensei_tanker 3,098]

I think the biggest concern over self-driving cars is that people are afraid of being punished (in this case death or severe injuries) for something they aren't necessarily at fault. With regular cars, responsible drivers rarely get into accidents as compared to irresponsible drivers, and many people feel that irresponsible drivers "get what they deserve" in a sense if they are involved in an accident. Although the risk with self-driving cars is definitely significantly lower than that of manually-driven cars, people aren't rational when it comes to these types of decisions. They would rather be given more control in their own fate instead of handing it to a machine, where every time you start the car, there is always that same probability of certain death not at your own hands. To be honest, I don't see the future of personal transportation in cars, although self-driving cars for automated shipping is feasible. 

[Maf 32,300]

5 hours ago, sensei_tanker said:

I think the biggest concern over self-driving cars is that people are afraid of being punished (in this case death or severe injuries) for something they aren't necessarily at fault.

But is it really any different from public transport? I think there are very few people afraid to take the bus because they don't want to be killed/injured due to the driver's mistakes/ Because they trust the driver's training and the regulations put in place to make sure the driver is fit for the job (not tired, under influence, etc.). So in this case it's just a question of how long it will take for you to start trusting the autonomous technology, which will definitely be a long and difficult process for most people. You correctly remarked that people aren't always rational in this sense.

[Gauss-Hornet 489]

6 hours ago, TSY_the_crazy said:

My personal view is that automatic cars are a threat to humanity. Yes, they do improve safety in some ways, but they also create unemployment for our truckers and public transport workers.

Tbh, this "AI causes unemployment" argument is kind of misleading. The human population is rising, and its growth rate is rising, too. In the future, the most sensible decision would be to stabilise populations all around the world. This way, there won't be more people than resources, there won't be people available to do sanitation work, driving and transportation, and other services that are "underpaying" as compared to office jobs and stuff, and AI will readily take up such stuff. 

But this concept of worldwide high-level economies does look like a far away dream.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

The current pandemic has actually made me pro-automation. There are a lot of people who have to put themselves at risk because they have jobs that keep the world and economy going. If those jobs were automated, future crises like the current one would have a lesser impact on the economy and make complete lockdowns more feasible.

[ThirdOnion 4,898]

17 hours ago, sensei_tanker said:

With regular cars, responsible drivers rarely get into accidents as compared to irresponsible drivers, and many people feel that irresponsible drivers "get what they deserve" in a sense if they are involved in an accident.

The issue is that even if you are a responsible driver, there are many other irresponsible drivers on the road. You may do nothing wrong and still get into an accident because someone else was breaking the law. Like you implied, it's really about whether people will come to trust technology.

[spiderman1000 737]

On 5/1/2020 at 2:57 AM, ThirdOnion said:

The issue is that even if you are a responsible driver, there are many other irresponsible drivers on the road. You may do nothing wrong and still get into an accident because someone else was breaking the law. Like you implied, it's really about whether people will come to trust technology.

But then there can be malfunctions. If you have read about the space race, then you can tell that many astronauts have lost their lives due to malfunctions. And whats stopping them from coming to cars? If a rat cuts one of the crucial wires or if water goes into the delicate non-waterproof parts of the car, it could lead to fatal malfunctions which could lead to a rampaging 200 Kmph car, which is worse than a dr**k driver. Also since new models will be coming out frequently, there will be more chances of human error by the creators of the cars.

But on the other hand, it would decrease the accident chances. Well ill just keep this post towards the cons.