Why self driving cars will eventually be banned

[martin-w 3,238]

2 hours ago, Chock said:

That's a really good point. It gets into a classic AI/morality dilemma which sci-fi has sometimes addressed, touching on wider issues such as autonomous combat drones and all kinds of stuff like that.

It would be kind of interesting to see the placard which would, in these litigious times, inevitably have to be placed on the dashboard similar to the one you find in aeroplanes about potential for fatality when operating it.

Can't imagine it being a big selling point in the showrooms if when the salesperson said 'go ahead, sit in it and try it out..' if the first thing you noticed was a sign which said: 'Please note that in a situation where the personal safety of large numbers of people is concerned, this vehicle may choose the option to maim or kill you, rather than do this to a large group of pedestrians. The vehicle will not start until you click the accept button to acknowledge you have read and understood the potential implications of this warning'

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking that maybe such decisions by car AI will be bypassed. Think they might have too. Nobody is going to buy a car that would kill you, determine your life to be a lower priority. Whether its the correct decision morally or not. I'm thinking the system would revert to "brake only mode and not change direction. "I'm not interested mode". 

[martin-w 3,238]

13 hours ago, Chock said:

The concept is all very well until you take it into the real world where some roads are really crappy, with blind bends, dodgy road surfaces, things pulling out unexpectedly, people doing stupid stuff, pedestrians, animals, bikes and such all over the place.

It's difficult to conceive of anything more likely to result in a fatal crash than something autonomously driving down some of the roads I have to take my truck down a lot of the time. Some of them are barely what I would call roads, often with unadopted sections which are a complete enigma to a GPS, yet they frequently have national speed limit signs (60 mph for a single carriageway and 70 mph for a dual carriageway). You'd have to be completely insane to go anywhere near that kind of speed on some of them, since they often are not wide enough for vehicles to pass one another at anything other than a crawl, with your car's nearside scraping the hedgerows. I presume an autonomous car would detect that was what the speed limit was and go for it, with predictably disastrous results, or if it had a safety override to prevent this, then its progress would have to be walking pace in order to be sure it wasn't causing such an incident.

Certainly in the UK there are many winding national speed limit roads where an autonomous car simply wouldn't have a prayer of making it safely from A to B if an attempt was made to do so at anything approaching the road's speed limit, or even a sensible percentage of that for the prevailing conditions. So yeah, on lovely arrow-straight autobahns and such with great road surfaces, good camber and drainage and no tractors pulling out on you whilst you are doing 70 mph, where a proximity radar can detect a braking car when it is still 70 feet away, the concept is cool, but as I say, on real roads, it's literally an accident waiting to happen (and not waiting that long either).

What actually would be a good thing technology might be able to do, is inhibit the use of phones inside a vehicle, unless they were set up and presently functioning to be hands free. I bet you that would see the accident figures drop dramatically. I wish I had a quid for every twonk I see updating their Facetube status whilst driving.

 

 

To be honest, the roads you mention, with 60 or 70 MPH speed limits are absolutely insane. I don't drive down them now after moving location but I used to detest them. Insane to have speed limits as high as 60 or 70 down winding lanes with hidden junctions, pedestrians, cyclists etc. It's no wonder that country roads like that have the highest death toll.

And of course, the authorities say that its the max speed limit and if required you drive more slowly. Trouble is, that doesn't take into consideration that the average level of intelligence, not to mention perception of danger,  is rock bottom. YES, there are numerous nut jobs who are under the impression that its an advised speed instead of a max speed if safe. They actually think you SHOULD drive at that speed.

Then we have the macho morons who think they are cool if they can drive at 70 down a narrow winding road. God knows why the government haven't done something about these roads and their insane speed limits. BRAKE the road safety charity have been warning about it for many years. And the governments own figures tell them its a huge issue. 

As for autonomous vehicles driving down such roads, I suspect that the technology to do so with greater safety than a human at the controls will arrive. 

Edited December 20, 2020 by martin-w

[HighBypass 2,339]

55 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

On a daily basis I encounter people who obviously can see round blind corners. I'd like to be able to do it.

In my rural location this is a regular occurrence. People cutting corners even when physics doesn't dictate the need to do so.. What I mean by this is, let's assume for sake of example, a particular car would be able to negotiate a particular corner on "my" country road at 50mph whilst remaining on the correct side of the dotted line. It would not run out of grip and fall off the road. If they were to cut the corner using a racing line then the car would stay on the road at say 85 mph before physics told it to eff off.

Why, oh why, does a person doing 35 mph insist on cutting the corner then? They are lazy. They should go deeper into the bend and turn their steering wheel more! Lazy!  Don't cut a corner you cannot see around!! Simples!

This is why I have a hankering to buy an old Russian Army truck such as a Kamaz 4310 or a Kraz 255 (longer bonnet!! Not a cabover. More metal between me and the accident). They are pretty much immovable, large and more importantly, usually painted green. Nice colour to use in these parts. Thus I can "hide" just around the bend on the correct side of the road, armed with a scaffold pole and a shovel. Not to teach the errant driver the error of their ways, but to use the tools to dig out the wreckage from my front bumper and axle.. 6 wheel drive would hopefully ensure that I can continue my journey...

Thinking about it, an Abbott self-propelled gun or a Scorpion tank might be fun too!

I've had some close calls... and I'm only in a tiny Mitsubishi hatchback!!  Oh, and don't get me started on the impatient buggers who decide to overtake a cyclist next to a blind corner. Yes, I said a cyclist, singular. God forbid if there's a pack of them. The impatience I see is staggering and sometimes scary. The scary bit is when I see a car coming at me head-on... 

Speaking of wacky speed limits - this "road" near me had a 60 mph limit the last time I checked with Lancashire County Highways dept. I used to love taking my Land Rover Discovery II up and down it. Snape Rake Lane.. just around the curve it drops steeply down to a ford in the brook next to a footbridge.

Not even a Trophy truck would manage 60 down there.. 6 mph maybe... 

EDIT the red marker on the map is not the position in the first photo. I was at the north end, facing south at the treeline running SW to NE approximately.. Ah, good times!

Edited December 20, 2020 by HighBypass

[birdguy 3,943]

14 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Eventually what will be banned is manual operation of motor vehicles on public roads.

For me driving is a form of recreation.  I would not like to have that taken away from me.  I have driven coast to coast several times across the United States.  And I avoid the interstate highways if I can.  I like to drive the secondary roads.

Two magnificent drives are the Natchez Traceway that I believe goes from Natchez to Nashville and the Blue Ridge Parkway along the Appalachian Mountains.

I'll bet I have driven a million miles in my lifetime and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Especially the mountain roads of the Rockies when I lived in Denver.

Technology is making us slaves to it.  iPhones are becoming an essential part of our anatomy.

Self driving cars?  Baahh!  There are things I like to do for myself as I long for those old black telephones with dials that just let you talk and listen without sharing your daily lives in photographs and texting.

Noel the Luddite

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Agreed, Noel. Some of us do enjoy driving even without pretending to be Mario Andretti. Although spirited drving can also be fun, I cannot deny that. However some of my most enjoyable times were when I got to use the 4wd capabilities of my Land Rover in adverse conditions and when out "four-wheelin' " most of it at walking pace!

My own take on this: Modern phones have many bells and whistles attached - some are more useful than others, but I do prefer an actual watch, be it mechanical, automatic, analogue, quartz, digital whatever to tell the time with.

[birdguy 3,943]

37 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

but I do prefer an actual watch, be it mechanical, automatic, analogue, quartz, digital whatever to tell the time with.

I don't like wearing any kind of jewelry or anything attached to my body.  I only wore my wedding ring once, during the wedding ceremony.  It's been in a little box on my dresser for the past 57 years.

I have an old style analog pocket watch my son gave me for my birthday attached to a belt loop with a nice chain.  I suppose it's not quite as convenient as a wristwatch since I have to dig it out of my pocket when I want to know the time.  But we are seldom out of sight of a clock somewhere so I don't have to look at it very often.

Noel the Luddite

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Self driving cars will also allow many people who probably shouldn't be on the road at all to continue to be mobile. This includes the young, the elderly and those who have physical limitations. In the future every individual won't need their own car. Communities can purchase autonomous vehicles that can be used for ride sharing. 

Noel, like yourself I do enjoy driving. But most people just want to go from point A to point B in a safe and expeditious manner. And one day, someone will question our right to continuing driving because of failing eyesight or some other infirmity. And then where will we be?

[WingZ 547]

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

I long for those old black telephones with dials that just let you talk and listen without sharing your daily lives in photographs and texting.

Noel the Luddite

 

You kids with your new-fangled devices! 
I long for those old black telephones with crank handles that just let you talk and listen to everyone on the shared party line without having to tell the post mistress everything yourself 🙂

Edited December 20, 2020 by WingZ

[martin-w 3,238]

16 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm just waiting for Elon Musk to finish one of these:

My favorite way to travel.

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

Yes Rob. Trouble is it disintegrates the person on the pad and makes a COPY elsewhere. Might be out of the same atom's, but its still a copy.

And the original traveller dead as a door nail. Unfortunately our names aren't inscribed onto our atom's. A carbon atom from your body is no different to a carbon atom on the other side of the universe. An atom is an atom and once your atomic structure is dissembled you are dead sir.

 

You wouldn't get me stepping into the word not allowed thing. 🙂

[martin-w 3,238]

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Self driving cars will also allow many people who probably shouldn't be on the road at all to continue to be mobile. This includes the young, the elderly and those who have physical limitations. In the future every individual won't need their own car. Communities can purchase autonomous vehicles that can be used for ride sharing. 

Noel, like yourself I do enjoy driving. But most people just want to go from point A to point B in a safe and expeditious manner. And one day, someone will question our right to continuing driving because of failing eyesight or some other infirmity. And then where will we be?

 

Tell you what, all these guys complaining because they like to drive manually, I have a solution. We will install into their autonomous vehicles a pretend gear stick and clutch. They can pretend to change gear as much as they like, while the super advanced autonomous vehicle gets them to their destinations safely. 

A  plastic gear stick from Toys R Us will do. 👍

[speedyTC 195]

In a perfect world with perfect infrastructure autonomous vehicles would probably become a staple. In our current reality, however, think Chaos Theory and Murpy's Law combined. Not pretty.

As for the future, well, anything goes, really. I'm old enough to remember Dick Tracey and the phone-on-a-wrist and thinking how cool would that be but impossible, yet here we are in just a few decades.

Regarding the AI conundrum, "Kill the driver or the kids" I'd suggest that a human being in control in that kind of situation would not be much better than a dumb algorithm flipping an imaginary coin. I think that we are currently in a situation of "six of one and half a dozen of the other".

[HiFlyer 9,362]

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

They can pretend to change gear as much as they like, while the super advanced autonomous vehicle gets them to their destinations safely. 

A  plastic gear stick from Toys R Us will do. 👍

I would just note that decades after aircraft autopilots became common, aircraft still have working manual controls, and its still not suggested that pilots go take a nap without another pilot watching over things.....

And that's despite the fact that there's a lot less to hit, up there inna' sky.

Should I mention the boeing MCAS, apparently designed by Asobo?

Now, I'm just as much a techy, I think, as just about anyone here, but I also recognize that eager companies with dollar signs in their eyes sometimes push things with the public as test subjects, and a few deaths here and there as apparently acceptable collateral damage.

Do I think autonomous cars are cool?

Yup.

Would I fall asleep in one during a few hundred mile trip in any sort of inclement weather?

Or in fact at any time with the likely state of tech in the near term future?

Nope!!

Edited December 20, 2020 by HiFlyer

[birdguy 3,943]

1 hour ago, WingZ said:

I long for those old black telephones with crank handles that just let you talk and listen to everyone on the shared party line without having to tell the post mistress everything yourself 

I grew up in a house with a four party line.  We thought it was wonderful.  Sometimes you'd pick the phone up and someone would be on it but in a few minutes you could make your call.  We had a code ring.  Three shorts and a long or something like that.

You don't know what your missing until some tells you about something you need now that you didn't need before he told you. 

People chide me because our we don't have smart TV sets that connect to the internet.  No, there's a lot of stuff we don't get, but there's also more stuff we get that we don't need or want.

Noel the Luddite

[birdguy 3,943]

Another advantage of technology and the dependence on it is that governments can hack other governments computers and digital infrastructure and cause chaos.  Ain't that fun?

Noel 

[Mace 1,928]

13 minutes ago, birdguy said:

I grew up in a house with a four party line.  We thought it was wonderful.  Sometimes you'd pick the phone up and someone would be on it but in a few minutes you could make your call.  We had a code ring.  Three shorts and a long or something like that.

You don't know what your missing until some tells you about something you need now that you didn't need before he told you. 

People chide me because our we don't have smart TV sets that connect to the internet.  No, there's a lot of stuff we don't get, but there's also more stuff we get that we don't need or want.

Noel the Luddite

I still have a flip phone that I use every day, and I still have a picture-tube TV.  I don't watch it that much.  Maybe if I watched it more, it would wear out faster?  Maybe its Louisville Slugger-to-the-screen time?  Oops, the New Madrid Fault had a tremor, the TV fell off it's stand...

I feel bad for the kid in the video.  All of this technology, but a regressive world -- it's on full display.