Driverless Cars To Create 320,000 Jobs Report Claims

[Dorkins]

I'm not sure robots could live on busy roads with humans. Humans will game the robots by jumping out in front of them, pushing in queues, at roundabouts etc. because they know they will not crash into them if they can.

Replace "robots" with "other humans" and you just described driving in most of southern Europe.

[Rare Bear]

I imagine the solution to this is that the government would legislate that cars must be programmed to stop for pedestrians.

Combine with effective legislation against jay walking it would work fine.

[Errol]

Combine with effective legislation against jay walking it would work fine.

Yeah, no thanks. The last thing we want is the government telling us where we can and can't cross the road.

[Qetesuesi]

I'd rather have the risk than yet more freedom taken away

What freedom will be taken away? It will add freedom to do things while travelling that you can't do just now.

[Errol]

What freedom will be taken away? It will add freedom to do things while travelling that you can't do just now.

It only adds to it if it is entirely personal choice i.e. provided people can buy manual, fast sports cars and drive them around. I have no problem with people choosing to let a robot drive their car, I just don't want anything to do with that personally.

[MarkG]

What freedom will be taken away? It will add freedom to do things while travelling that you can't do just now.

Once you're unable to drive a car because all controls have been removed, driverless cars will require you to insert your ID card (or just scan your bar code) before they'll drive you anywhere. If you're on the 'no drive list', you'll be ******ed.

Marx knew what he was doing when he suggested Communists should centralize the means of transport in the hands of the State, in order to control the population.

[Qetesuesi]

It only adds to it if it is entirely personal choice i.e. provided people can buy manual, fast sports cars and drive them around. I have no problem with people choosing to let a robot drive their car, I just don't want anything to do with that personally.

If you like, and despite the ever-mounting comparative costs, you can maintain that attitude until your dying day - but your children and certainly your grandchildren won't. Your more distant descendants will chuckle to learn of that funny old ancestor of theirs.

Once you're unable to drive a car because all controls have been removed, driverless cars will require you to insert your ID card (or just scan your bar code) before they'll drive you anywhere. If you're on the 'no drive list', you'll be ******ed.

Marx knew what he was doing when he suggested Communists should centralize the means of transport in the hands of the State, in order to control the population.

Er - we have a 'no drive list' right now. You know, of all those people who are banned from driving, some of whom however go out and drive like maniacs anyway and end up killing children. There'd be no need for a list like that any more.

Who else would be on a no-travel list if not a wanted criminal?

[Riedquat]

It only adds to it if it is entirely personal choice i.e. provided people can buy manual, fast sports cars and drive them around. I have no problem with people choosing to let a robot drive their car, I just don't want anything to do with that personally.

I'm with this (provided that the technology is reliable enough). I'd add that also as long as my manual car isn't obliged to transmit its position supposedly for the benefit of the robot-controlled cars. At most I'd like the automatic part as an option (all of which could be turned off) that can drive me home from the pub.

[Qetesuesi]

I'm with this (provided that the technology is reliable enough). I'd add that also as long as my manual car isn't obliged to transmit its position supposedly for the benefit of the robot-controlled cars. At most I'd like the automatic part as an option (all of which could be turned off) that can drive me home from the pub.

Cue the line about the Scottish crofters who were delighted when electricity came to their area, so that they could see clearly after dark to switch on their gas lamps (or was it oil lamps).

Seriously, why is it that the only benefit of DCs so many people seem to see is "to take them back legless from the pub"?

This one technology will be more revolutionary for cars than all previous improvements combined. What about long journeys for holidays and such (see discussion on big thread on OT)? You could sleep all night in the car while it takes your family far off somewhere nice.

[Riedquat]

If you like, and despite the ever-mounting comparative costs, you can maintain that attitude until your dying day - but your children and certainly your grandchildren won't. Your more distant descendants will chuckle to learn of that funny old ancestor of theirs.

They'll also be chuckling at The Matrix, wondering why anyone wouldn't want to be part of it.

If I ever had children and that's how they viewed the world I'd disown them, they'd be the sort of lazy feckers who think that there was some point in automating headlights and wipers on cars.

How many people actually prefer being passengers than drivers?

[Riedquat]

Cue the line about the Scottish crofters who were delighted when electricity came to their area, so that they could see clearly after dark to switch on their gas lamps (or was it oil lamps).

Seriously, why is it that the only benefit of DCs so many people seem to see is "to take them back legless from the pub"?

This one technology will be more revolutionary for cars than all previous improvements combined. What about long journeys for holidays and such (see discussion on big thread on OT)? You could sleep all night in the car while it takes your family far off somewhere nice.

So, something that might be a benefit once or twice a year. Generally long journeys are even duller when you're a passenger, and do you expect to get a good night's sleep in one? It's a largely pointless technology doing something that human beings are perfectly capable of doing and don't mind doing.

[Ulfar]

I can think of some benefits.

Lower insurance for automated cars. The function it provides for those who either don't know or cannot drive i.e. disabled people, school kids. With school kids it could lead to a lessening of congestion as there would be less Chelsea tractor driving lunatics on the road who are being distracted by said children. Also less taxi/cab drivers, another bunch of people that seem to have a high proportion of bad drivers.

Fewer accidents, they are already proving to be safer than humans, accidents will still happen but less is good. Fewer pedestrian/cyclist deaths.

Cars themselves could be redesigned to be more efficient, smaller, lighter. The Google car is an example of this. This would also lead to less wear and tear on roads, more space to park.

We could have automated trucks, something which I imagine is quite a bit more tricky so will follow automated cars. Automated trains, planes would be easier but vested interests will resist this for as long as possible. An instance of this is the pilots union preventing cockpit video recording, limiting it to sound. With the latest crash they are going to lose on this one and I could see it being used for implementing automated planes, or planes that can be controlled from the ground.

Will there be downsides, yes there will especially if your livelihood depends on transport.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Ulfar

[wonderpup]

I'm not sure robots could live on busy roads with humans. Humans will game the robots by jumping out in front of them, pushing in queues, at roundabouts etc. because they know they will not crash into them if they can.

They'd never be able to get out of a busy junction where you take your life in your hands and only get away with it because other commuters know people are likely to do this at that junction.

Google are actually looking at this aspect and are actually trying to incorporate some degree of 'attitude' into their cars, so that they do to some degree assert themselves in these types of situation- but I doubt they will be able to really do this without compromising safety.

The bluff thing works both ways of course- unlike a human driver the robot will ultimately have nothing to lose by crashing into you or mowing you down- so playing chicken with these things may not be a risk worth taking.

The other factor is reaction time- if these cars can manoeuvre and react faster than human drivers their lack of aggression may be offset by their agility. For example at a junction most people will stop to take stock of the situation before deciding what to do, even if the road is clear- a computer might be a lot quicker off the mark here giving the robot car a speed advantage- so it may all average out.

[Riedquat]

Fewer accidents, they are already proving to be safer than humans, accidents will still happen but less is good. Fewer pedestrian/cyclist deaths.

I don't find the risks high enough to be moved at all by safety arguments. The numbers might look bad but when you take into account the incredibly huge number of people they're being applied to they're really not.

Cars themselves could be redesigned to be more efficient, smaller, lighter. The Google car is an example of this. This would also lead to less wear and tear on roads, more space to park.

That's nothing to do with driverless cars - like the electric car arguments earlier in the thread it applies to any cars, automated or not (and those are developments I'd welcome).

We could have automated trucks, something which I imagine is quite a bit more tricky so will follow automated cars. Automated trains, planes would be easier but vested interests will resist this for as long as possible. An instance of this is the pilots union preventing cockpit video recording, limiting it to sound. With the latest crash they are going to lose on this one and I could see it being used for implementing automated planes, or planes that can be controlled from the ground.

Will there be downsides, yes there will especially if your livelihood depends on transport.

Automation of things that people don't seem to mind doing is fairly pointless unless there's a labour shortage. If it contributes towards a more impersonal world then it's downright negative. Edited March 30, 2015 by Riedquat

[zugzwang]

Google are actually looking at this aspect and are actually trying to incorporate some degree of 'attitude' into their cars, so that they do to some degree assert themselves in these types of situation- but I doubt they will be able to really do this without compromising safety.

The bluff thing works both ways of course- unlike a human driver the robot will ultimately have nothing to lose by crashing into you or mowing you down- so playing chicken with these things may not be a risk worth taking.

The other factor is reaction time- if these cars can manoeuvre and react faster than human drivers their lack of aggression may be offset by their agility. For example at a junction most people will stop to take stock of the situation before deciding what to do, even if the road is clear- a computer might be a lot quicker off the mark here giving the robot car a speed advantage- so it may all average out.

You could get around it if all driven vehicles were semi-autonomous. The robot at the junction would 'poll' the other vehicles with increasing urgency until a threshold was reached which automagically slowed the approaching traffic.

[rxe]

Seriously, why is it that the only benefit of DCs so many people seem to see is "to take them back legless from the pub"?

Because that is the use case for total automation. I'm quite unable to drive, and the thing will get me home. Not "the thing will drive me for 10 hours to France and wake me up before we leave the motorway".

[wonderpup]

You could get around it if all driven vehicles were semi-autonomous. The robot at the junction would 'poll' the other vehicles with increasing urgency until a threshold was reached which automagically slowed the approaching traffic.

Yes- it's the ability for the vehicles to coordinate in this immediate way that might eventually give driverless cars the edge in any debate about banning human drivers- it's a unique ability that those human drivers simply could not duplicate.

[billybong]

Of course then there's always the random dog, rabbit, cat, fox, bird etc ready to suddenly dart in front/jump on the windscreen in broad daylight or out from the dark etc etc to confound everything. Hopefully they'll also be able to anticipate when their driverless sensors even in duplicate are about to suddenly wear out half way down the road.

Edited March 30, 2015 by billybong

[moedo12]

Yes- it's the ability for the vehicles to coordinate in this immediate way that might eventually give driverless cars the edge in any debate about banning human drivers- it's a unique ability that those human drivers simply could not duplicate.

I just wonder if they'll ever make use of neural networks. They may have the ability to learn from their environment, eventually anyway although that could go horribly wrong I guess. lol

Edited March 31, 2015 by moedo12

[moedo12]

Yeah, no thanks. The last thing we want is the government telling us where we can and can't cross the road.

Haven't they already told you where the roads, cars, cyclists and pedestrians should be?

[Riedquat]

Haven't they already told you where the roads, cars, cyclists and pedestrians should be?

Should, not must, at least as far as pedestrians go. Pedestrians have the right to wander wherever they like over any road with the reasonable exception of motorways and one or two others. Cars are more restricted but that's no reason to therefore accept any and every restriction and monitoring.

[moedo12]

Should, not must, at least as far as pedestrians go. Pedestrians have the right to wander wherever they like over any road with the reasonable exception of motorways and one or two others. Cars are more restricted but that's no reason to therefore accept any and every restriction and monitoring.

I'm just saying that if we didn't have rules, we'd have complete anarchy, not that this would be a bad thing necessarily.

[200p]

36.58m in Jim Mellon predicts all taxi drivers, bus drivers, lorry drivers will be out of the job in 15 years. Driver less vehicles will make the roads 80% more efficient.

[Austin Allegro]

Much of the scenarios described already existed in the UK for many years. From the late eighteenth century to the mid twentieth century, transport was effectively 'automated' because it was only possible to travel long distances by stage coach, inland/coastal waterways, and railways. All those systems were heavily regulated. Any other journeys were done on foot, by horse or by bicycle, because there was no need to travel further than a few miles. I heard on the radio that in legal terms, auto-cars correspond to a lot of old laws about horse drawn vehicles, eg, an auto-car that had a software meltdown and ran someone over would be viewed more or less in the same way as a horse that bolted and killed someone, as sometimes happened in the old days.

The idea that you can just jump in your own machine and drive anywhere in the country is a relatively new one and it has a law of diminishing returns; eg the more people want that 'freedom' the less it becomes freedom, because the transport system becomes totally clogged, as it almost is now.

I think what we'll see is initially, driverless cars and lorries on the motorway network, which is already heavily policed, monitored and controlled. Manually driven cars will gradually become less and less viable because it will just become too much of a chore to do it. Eg, boy racers will not be able to bully people out of the outside lane because the driverless cars will just refuse to pull over. The Clarkson style egotism which keeps the car culture going will no longer have an outlet. Instead it will be more about the luxury type of autocar that you have; there will be huge opportunities for moneylenders by building ever bigger and more luxurious mobile home type autocars - maybe they'll even replace houses and we'll just drive round the M25 all our lives!

If you think about it, we wont' even need roads. Drone technology will allow floating cars to travel along designated routes through fields etc.

The big problem I think will be if the authorities then say well you don't need roads; you must travel on these monitored, controlled systems and if you try to get round it by riding a bicycle or walking, well, you're obviously a terrorist and we'll ban bicycles.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Austin Allegro

[Austin Allegro]

My point is though, that a robot may never draw clear from a busy junction because it actually requires what seems to be dangerous, irrational behaviour that other humans on the road know about and take some account of (usually). Robots could only work on roads dominated by other robots where 'safe' rules are in place to account for busy junctions and the like.

This is why I believe we won't have mixed-use private auto-cars and manual cars on roads together. Eg an auto-car will not be able to do the little things that keep the traffic moving. They won't be able, for example, to let drivers into streams of traffic, or drive on the wrong side of the road to pass an obstruction, etc. It will only work on designated roads, bus lanes or motorway lanes with complex monitoring systems, just as fast motor traffic is only allowed currently on certain types of road where pedestrians and cyclists are not permitted to travel because of the problems of safe interaction.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Austin Allegro