Autonomous cars or Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

[SPR-GRN]

Alright this is a thing, it's going to happen. I want to know your thoughts.
Here's how I feel on the subject.. UNDECIDED

The basics:
every auto manufacturer, and some other outfits (most notably Google) are working on cars that will drive themselves, park themselves, and essentially be at your beck and/or call with the tap on the screen of your smart phone.

Advantages:
1.) I won't have to actively drive to work, or on road trips, I'd be able to nap or read or engage in **comment removed due to inappropriateness** with my wife.
2.) I can go out drinking all night and not worry about driving later.
3.) My car will drop me at the door, and go find a parking space, then come pick me up when I call for it when whatever task I'm engaged in is complete (shopping, working, drinking, etc.).
4.) It's better for the environment - I presumably won't care if I have a massive consumer of dinosaur juice that can get to 60 in under 5 seconds, or a tree-hugging hybrid/all electric that emits love and rainbows from the tailpipe; because if I'm not driving, I don't care to illicit a phase change in my tires from solid rubber to smoke, or how quickly I can accelerate to the speed limit because I'll be napping, or reading, or engaged in **comment removed due to inappropriateness** with my wife.

Disadvantages:
1.) As a human, I have been raised to fear technology, as some day the machines will become self aware and rise up against us. It will go from an Asimov-esque utopia, to a Terminator global war scenario, until eventually a full on "people are batteries, but it's o.k. cause they don't know it" a la Matrix in no time.

Other Disadvantages:
1.) I don't even like automatic transmissions, how am I going to feel about a car that drives me around?
2.) IF i get over that, how am I going to feel about a car that drives my wife around?
3.) IF I can get over that, how am I going to feel about a car that drives my children around?
4.) Presumably, I won't be able to afford the deluxe over-engineered German version that can survive a direct hit from an Abrams tank, no, I'll probably end up with the "perfectly acceptable" Japanese version; essentially a Toyota Yaris that drives itself, but only has an "acceptable to good" crash rating, depending on where it's hit, what it's hit by, and what lunar phase we are currently experiencing.

To me it appears that my advantages are all reasonable and concise. The disadvantages appear to be emotionally driven, except for the machines killing all humans, that's a scientific fact.

So how do you all feel about autonomous cars?

 

[mb82]

So long as I have the ability from time to time to take over control so I can just enjoy the act of driving I don't think I will mind that much. I will miss my manual transmission, I will miss heel-toe downshifts. But I won't miss the misery of sitting in traffic b/c somebody in front of me does not know where the gas peddle is. The gas mileage increase from something that does not have a depleted uranium foot controlling the peddle on the right would be nice.

 

[Brewskii]

I live in a town full of tourists and senior citizens. They should be the law here! As long as they stay out of my way, bring it!

Besides; Think of the bars you can patronize now that you don't have to drive. I'm sure they'll suck the fun of that too somehow.

.....HUZZAH for Automatic cars!!!

 

[Warthaug]

They cannot get here fast enough. I drive rarely (I usually cycle to work), but when I drive its almost always long-haul; 6 hours to the cottage, 2.5 days to my parents, 8 hours to our favourite camping area, that kind of stuff. If I could do all of those, while sitting back reading a book instead of staring at the road for hours on end, I'd be a very happy man.

Plus, I'm sure traffic would flow a lot better - IMO, 99% of traffic slowdowns are due to driver incompetence, rather than actual problems.

Bryan

 

[DrunkleJon]

I am against them for personal use. I find driving theraputic, even with all the jerks on the road. Plus I really do not see these self driving cars being able to prioritize between hitting a k-rail verses a person or another car in an accident when some non early adopter does something stupid. I can see some benefits, but I prefer the manual approach.

Also, the safety/effectiveness of these systems depends on how it keeps track of where it is, how fast it is going, what objects/hazards are around it (think potholes, and sheets of plywood riddled with nails that fall off pickups). What about how many different things at a time it can pay attention to? That lady walking her dog would need to be paid attention to as much as the cars surrounding you as well as it would need to ignore the motion billboard which we seem to usually be able to do without trying. Also, who is designing the operating systems for these? I have had computers decide to not behave on a whim, the last place I want a freeze up would be while going 60 on the interstate.

 

[Melana]

I prefer the cars from yesterday over the cars from tomorrow (or today even).

I'm not so sure how soon these vehicles will be available... too many terrorist type agendas going around to make these feasible. There are many things in the world that will need to change before these come to fruition that - while parts of the concept are cool - it will be a long time before we see them on the mass market.

 

[Homercidal]

I don't want no damn AUTONYMOUS car! I want that FLYING CAR we've been promise for decades! I couldn't count the number of times I've sat in my car and wished I could press a button and just lift off from the highway and hit the sky!

 

[Zuljin]

Bad idea.

Road construction. Orange cones, barrels and Jersey barriers pop up like weeds. Lanes shift day to day without proper lane markings. Flag men. Heavy equipment enters the road. Speed limits change in work zones.

School zones. The speed limit changes in them twice a day, sometimes with only a metal sign to give notice.

Animals run into the road.

Kids, other pedestrians and bicyclists enter the road.

GPS is not good enough. We've two different GPS and they can't keep up with road construction and sometimes show us driving in fields along the road. And hey, I am a huge fan of GPS but, I realize its limits. "Turn left now", right into a tree or off a cliff. "You have arrived at your destination." No I haven't. And of course, "Recalculating!"

Hardware and software fails. Programs don't always have the logic to account for all the possibilities. I work at an automated facility. It's done some really squirrely stuff. When the integrators and automation engineers are sitting there with logic diagrams, narratives and watching the PLC work, and scratching their heads, saying, "That's not supposed to happen."; Joe Driver is gonna be screwed at 70 mph with no more diagnostic than a blinking light.

The car should not have total control to the point people are not driving. Automatics, cruise control, anti-lock brakes, traction control and the lane and accident avoidance warnings are great. Being all kicked back, drunk and pants off is a wreck waiting to happen. I heard they're not going to allow drunk autocar riding anyway since you still can and may have to assume control.

 

[Goofynewfie]

Can these cars change their shape and become giant sentient robots and back at will?

 

[Leithoa]

They're a mixed blessing.
Like you said, Everyone's a passenger now so you can do other things while traveling. Traffic jam frequency/severity will be greatly reduced if all the cars are talking to each other/ the cloud and know there's construction 15 miles up ahead the whole freeway can adjust their speed in order to alleviate the volume of cars arriving at the constriction.

The downside: All the cars are networked. Jokers like anonymous, China, Russia, Mob, etc. Can and will try to hack the infrastructure for chaos, profit, and lulz. Third parties will be able to control your vehicle without your consent. OnStar can already turn your car off remotely and have used it to recover stolen cars/stop police chases. What happens when the paperwork gets screwed up? The potential for abuse is very high.

They are coming whether you like them or not. DARPA, DOT, and car companies are pushing for them. It's just a matter of time.

 

[Melana]

They're a mixed blessing.
Like you said, Everyone's a passenger now so you can do other things while traveling. Traffic jam frequency/severity will be greatly reduced if all the cars are talking to each other/ the cloud and know there's construction 15 miles up ahead the whole freeway can adjust their speed in order to alleviate the volume of cars arriving at the constriction.

The downside: All the cars are networked. Jokers like anonymous, China, Russia, Mob, etc. Can and will try to hack the infrastructure for chaos, profit, and lulz. Third parties will be able to control your vehicle without your consent. OnStar can already turn your car off remotely and have used it to recover stolen cars/stop police chases. What happens when the paperwork gets screwed up? The potential for abuse is very high.

They are coming whether you like them or not. DARPA, DOT, and car companies are pushing for them. It's just a matter of time.

Doesn't mean that I have to buy one. Still prefer my cars without computers.

 

[Zuljin]

We've seen things in vehicles that were coming like it or not. Some did. Some did not. There have been arguments made for civilian owned vehicles to be no more than 4 cylinders and only have automatic transmissions.

Then there's the Melana's of the world. People like those old cars and keep them going. People hold on to cars because they're expensive and, treated well, can often last hundreds of thousands of miles. That's more than a decade for a lot of people. My truck is 13 years old and has over 200,000 miles. I'm keeping it until there's nothing left to keep.

It's still legal to drive a Model T on a public road and people do it. As a novelty but, they're out there and they're not auto-cars. Every non auto-car is a hiccup in that system.

As great as computers are at computing, they don't have the instinct and intuition of people. They're not even as good at gaining knowledge through reason as we are. Now I know, there's robots that do surgery. That's a delicate operation. Yes. They are operated by people. Computers also suck at multitasking. They excel at doing individual tasks in very rapid succession but, not at doing as much multiple processing as we do while driving. Not even close.

 

[Leithoa]

Melana: There may come a time in your life time when you may not have the choice of driving cars without computers in them.

Zuljin: The lack of computer learning is as much a reflection of our ability to program them as it is the hardware. As far as multi-tasking that depends heavily on the architecture of the processor. The CPU in your laptop/desktop/phone/tablet do suck at multitasking but the processor in your desktop's graphics card blows the CPU out of the water. Then there are FPGA's and ASIC boards that blow your GPU out of the water in terms of multitasking. These are the chips that are used to calculate particle interactions, crack encryption, mine bitcoins, and in atmospheric modeling where solving multiple interrelated equations simultaneously is paramount. It's all about the right hardware for the right job.

Computers can beat humans in nearly every strategy game created. They absolutely dominate in first person shooters and reaction based games, a few people in the world can give a computer a slight challenge in Chess or Go. The only game where some humans hold the edge is Starcraft/SCII, where reactions are paired with novel thinking. Even that is just a matter of time until that is conquered too.

Tangentially related is the book Wired for War. Which touches on the use of drones on the battlefield and SAR operations. It's a bit dated now in terms of machine capabilities but the commentary is as valid as ever.

 

[Melana]

Melana: There may come a time in your life time when you may not have the choice of driving cars without computers in them.

Zuljin: The lack of computer learning is as much a reflection of our ability to program them as it is the hardware. As far as multi-tasking that depends heavily on the architecture of the processor. The CPU in your laptop/desktop/phone/tablet do suck at multitasking but the processor in your desktop's graphics card blows the CPU out of the water. Then there are FPGA's and ASIC boards that blow your GPU out of the water in terms of multitasking. These are the chips that are used to calculate particle interactions, crack encryption, mine bitcoins, and in atmospheric modeling where solving multiple interrelated equations simultaneously is paramount. It's all about the right hardware for the right job.

Computers can beat humans in nearly every strategy game created. They absolutely dominate in first person shooters and reaction based games, a few people in the world can give a computer a slight challenge in Chess or Go. The only game where some humans hold the edge is Starcraft/SCII, where reactions are paired with novel thinking. Even that is just a matter of time until that is conquered too.

Tangentially related is the book Wired for War. Which touches on the use of drones on the battlefield and SAR operations. It's a bit dated now in terms of machine capabilities but the commentary is as valid as ever.

Really? Can't see them forcing me to hand over the keys to my Caddy. Really can't see them forcing the thousands of antique car enthusiasts into walking away from their passion.

 

[SPR-GRN]

I love the debate going on in this thread, it's also great to see others thoughts an opinions about the subject.

When I was shopping for a car about a year ago I went looking for as "basic" a car I could find, that also fit my wants and needs; there are several technological advances that I agree with, but there are far more that I don't agree with that I didn't want in my car. I avoided GM vehicles because of on-star, and the ability to remotely shut down my car at will. There was an article a while back where a disgruntled GM employee did just that, shut down a bunch of cars at random for kicks.

There will always be classic/vintage cars on the road; there are several people that prefer them (myself included) but more importantly it is a massive industry, generating billions annually; it's not going away.

keep it going!

 

[phuff7129]

If they can truly make an autonomous car I would be the first in line and I would mortgage my house to buy one if I had to. Autonomous cars could give independence back to millions of disabled people. Until you have lost your independence you have no idea how valuable it is. Plus it would give me a good excuse to buy a Mercedes?

 

[Beernik]

My dad's new Jeep Grand Cherokee will adjust the cruise control to match the speed of the car in front of him and alert him if he tries to change lanes when someone is in his blind spot. It also alerts him if he is backing into something, so it totally freaks out when he's trying to hook up his trailer .

 

[Zuljin]

If they can truly make an autonomous car I would be the first in line and I would mortgage my house to buy one if I had to. Autonomous cars could give independence back to millions of disabled people. Until you have lost your independence you have no idea how valuable it is. Plus it would give me a good excuse to buy a Mercedes?

Now that could be a good use of an auto-car. The concern though is what happens when that person has to take over control?

 

[phuff7129]

Now that could be a good use of an auto-car. The concern though is what happens when that person has to take over control?

That would be the problem. The car would truly have to be completely autonomous for it to work with disabled people. My understanding of the technology is that someone must drive the route you want to take and the car will memorize it. After the car memorizes the route it is not necessary to take control unless the car fails for some reason. I read where Mercedes tested their car on a 250 km drive through city and highway traffic over in Europe and the driver never had to take control of the car. It sounds like really promising technology!

 

[passedpawn]

I spent the whole day Friday at Mopar's R&D facility in MI (performance arm of Chrysler), integrating some cool stuff into new cars. I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you that there are some neat things coming soon. (hint: your favorite Mod might have designed some of them).

 

[Zuljin]

I spent the whole day Friday at Mopar's R&D facility in MI (performance arm of Chrysler), integrating some cool stuff into new cars. I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can tell you that there are some neat things coming soon. (hint: your favorite Mod might have designed some of them).

So it's going to read the sports page to me?

 

[Leithoa]

Some old press about Google's work on the autonomous car problem. Currently cars can only follow programmed routes, but it's just a hop and skip from explicit programming to importing turn-by-turn navigation from your favorite GPS software. Point-to-point navigation is the comparatively easy part. The collision avoidance is significantly harder.