Please help me understand something about self-driving cars

[Ferrets are Cool]

Why in the world would we want these vehicles to take jobs from people who need them? This isn't Star Trek people. We don't live in a utopian world where all our needs are taken care of by automation.
So, please help me understand why normal, average Americans would want these cars and trucks to be available, notwithstanding the safety issues.

Thanks

[madaboutharry]

1. I don't understand the point of it.

[JHB]

2. Because "we" aren't relevant. People who want to cut cost on drivers are.

Shareholder return on investment uber alles, baby!

[ProudLib72]

3. It opens up access to people with disabilities

[USALiberal]

8. Ding, Ding, Ding You are the winner!nt

[TheFrenchRazor]

37. what's wrong with taxis, buses, lyft, etc.? nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

40. Nothing, but then, why should anyone have his own car?

Maybe it's the convenience of walking out the door, hopping in the car, and going to wherever you want. No waiting. And if you think of something along the way, you can change your route, stop for a snack, etc.

I hope the self-driving cars are available before I become too old to drive.

[jberryhill]

4. I'm going to guess...

That you have no significant visual impairments.

Did I guess right?

[femmedem]

5. I think of my elderly parents who don't feel confident driving anymore

and what a boon self-driving cars would be for them.

People who've had a little too much to drink.

I'm not sure the advantages outweigh the loss of jobs--I'm one of those people who won't use the self check-out because of the loss of retail jobs--but there are some up sides.

[DFW]

6. This may be a little exaggerated, but maybe not, too

I just do NOT trust a machine to be programmed to cover any and all situations.

[USALiberal]

7. You can't and should not stop technological advancement........

Horse and buggy salesman hated cars.

Lamp lighters hated electricity!

Etc.

Ask a blind, physically challanged or elderly person if they think an automatic car would be nice to have.

[Major Nikon]

9. Why would we want combines to harvest our wheat?

Each one easily displaces 50 or more jobs which could be done by humans who need them.

[Igel]

11. That was a decision based on cost.

Purely financial, people = $.

It's why my school has one guy who sometimes rides around using a riding mower and cutting all the grass in an hour or two instead of more people pushing reel mowers for longer. (We understand it when it's our wallet; not so much when it's others'.)

I'd note the huge number of unemployed agricultural workers who are citizens protesting the use of combines. The cost efficiencies help undercut small farms, but that process is largely finished and, you know, very few people in the cities complained about the reduced food prices or relative abundance of baked goods.

[FBaggins]

26. This decision would be the same

Self-driving cars (if they become viable) would not just replace drivers (a significant expense), but also replace much of the need for car ownership

[Major Nikon]

28. The point is productivity is only going to go in one direction

Throughout the Industrial Age there have been numerous attempts to stifle productivity in the interest of saving jobs. The results have never been favorable.

[Blue_true]

48. So.

You gave the benefits of intelligent machines when arguing against them. The crux is that it all boils down to savings and total efficiency, period. When those conditions exist anywhere, intelligent machines will replace people. The risk today and in the future versus the past, today and in the future, intelligent machines will erode society and concentrate wealth in a small number of hands, during the past, machines expanded human capability, increased opportunities and wealth for everyone.

[Codeine]

10. Because 1.3 million people are killed

every year in automobile accidents. 50 million more are injured. Autonomous vehicles will be safer by far.

[pnwmom]

13. They're not safer yet. n/t

[Blue_true]

49. They will be, by a large margin. nt

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

46. Reduction of road rage incidents

If everyone’s car is driving the same speed, and doing the same maneuvers, entitled jerks don’t have a reason to weave in and out to get one car length ahead. And it reduces the possibility of road rage.

[Coventina]

55. I have to disagree with you there. I think it will make things worse.

UNLESS human drivers are banned completely.

And I don't think that will happen, at least in our lifetime.

What "entitled jerks" will figure out in about 30 seconds is that they can always cut off the driverless cars, swerve, crowd them out, etc. because the cars are programmed to give way. You will see people driving at highway speeds because driverless cars will be completely predictable, and going so much more slowly.

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

58. Thats fair

And there’s always going to be a motorcycle driver who is going to split the lanes.

[TomSlick]

12. I am dreading the coming day when I have to take my parents' car from them.

Maybe - just maybe - my son won't face that problem.

[pnwmom]

15. I was lucky. My mother made one serious driving mistake, sometime in her mid seventies,

and decided that was it. She wouldn't drive again. (Fortunately, that mistake -- hitting the gas instead of the brake-- didn't hurt her or anyone else. But she knew it shouldn't have happened.)

[TomSlick]

18. You were VERY lucky.

I represent a lot of defendants in car accident cases. I can't remember how many times I've had a client's children tell me that they ought it would be OK if mom only drove in town. If I get involved, that means someone got hurt. A few times, things were serious enough that that either mom was killed or mom's insurance wasn't enough to cover the victim's damages or both.

[pnwmom]

22. Ten years earlier, my mother had gotten hurt in an accident

when a 96 year old ran a stop light and plowed into her vehicle. She ended up with a few broken ribs that never fully healed. So she was well aware of the risks of a person continuing to drive after their driving skills had deteriorated -- even in a small town.

[TomSlick]

24. Hard lesson well learned.

[pnwmom]

25. One issue that older people have is they think they need a car to get to doctor's appointments.

So I thought this was a good idea.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/589464779/uber-launches-service-to-get-people-to-their-doctors-offices

Uber wants to get you from your home to your doctor's office — and you won't even need to open the Uber app. The company announced Thursday that it's teaming up with health care organizations to provide transportation for patients going to and from medical appointments.

The rides can be scheduled for patients through doctor's offices, by receptionists or other staffers. And they can be booked for immediate pickup or up to 30 days in advance. That means patients without a smartphone — who wouldn't be able to use Uber otherwise — can become Uber customers.

[TomSlick]

27. Great, unless you live in a small town with no Uber drivers.

The related problem is that older folks in small towns often need to travel considerable distance to the nearest city for appointments.

I'm not confident that self-driving cars will ready by the time I need them but I hope so.

[pnwmom]

29. You're right, of course. Self-driving cars will be especially important in rural areas

without good transportation.

[X_Digger]

14. Buggy Whips Union 101 local, represent! n/t

[Ferrets are Cool]

61. Thanks so much for adding significantly to this discussion.

[X_Digger]

63. It'd be like kicking a puppy, when so many have already said it so well.

You can embrace technology, or you can sit with your head.. in the sand.

History sniggers and chortles at luddites.

[NCTraveler]

16. Safety, limit environmental impact, freedom of mobility... nt

[FrodosNewPet]

32. Two out of three ain't bad

As far as limiting environmental impact:

Taxis, ride sharing, autonomous mobility as a service all mean MORE miles driven. When you get in your car and drive 5 miles, then park, you are only using 5 miles of energy. When you hail a ride, the vehicle has to drive the 5 miles PLUS the distance to get to you. Perhaps that's 1 mile, or perhaps it is 10 miles.

As a cab driver, only about 35 to 40% of my miles were with a passenger in the car. The rest were getting to the pickup, getting to a staging area, or leaving and returning to the garage.

Another issue is that transportation demand is not steady around the clock. With transportation as a service, you generally have excess or inadequate capacity. In order to have enough capacity to serve peaks, you are going to end up with a lot of cars that have to park somewhere for most of the day. Conversely, if you limit your fleet in order to have a reasonably high utilization rate for 16 to 18 hours a day, you are going to have a lot of unavailability during peak demand.

[NCTraveler]

39. You didnt negate my points. Nt

[mr_lebowski]

56. Well, in theory if people stop buying and owning cars in large numbers and are told 'you WILL share

rides with others' using hailed rides in self-driving electric cars (vans in cities would likely make sense) in theory the demand over time would be pretty steady except late at night. Good time for the cars to go to their charging up station/maintenance locations.

Usage patterns would go into algorithms that would move the cars into neighborhoods where usage is likely to be high at a given time (when a basketball game gets out, when the bars are closing, etc). The guidance computers, knowing everyone's destination and plugged into the traffic grids thus knowing about slowdowns (in theory you get WAY less slowdowns if most people are actually carpooling in this fashion) and such will calc the very most efficient routes to get everyone to their required destinations, etc.

Remote/small towns it could be fairly inefficient but suburbs and cities it could become efficient enough that effectively you'd have a ton of 'carpooling' and a whole lot less cars needing to be created in the first place ... building cars has a HUGE environmental impact.

If 'things' are done smartly (that's a big if) the potential for a huge fleet of self-driving cars and vans has the potential to provide a positive environmental impact, mostly through lots of carpooling and reduced demand for car ownership, plus they should be electric and run on wind/solar/geo to greatest extent possible.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. I don't see why we use computers to communicate when we have perfectly good postal workers

who can deliver our letters to each other.

[Ferrets are Cool]

62. When is the last time someone died because their computer crashed into another

computer?

[mythology]

19. For the same reasons we want other technology gains

No offense to the people who drive for a living, but they can do other things that would be more productive for society.

Agriculture as a percentage of the labor force was 57.2 in 1400 in England. It's 1.2% today.

Yes technology is scary and in the short term has winners and losers, but long term society wins.

[Kilgore]

20. I would buy one tomorrow if....

They were so good that I could sit in the back seat and have a ham sandwich, drink a beer, take a nap, and arrive safely at my destination.

Thats tech that I fully support!!

[Doodley]

21. Self-driving cars are needed to fire hundreds of thousands of professional drivers.

[brooklynite]

23. Tell us the last time you demanded to have a operator place your phone call...

[Adrahil]

34. Or an elevator operator. NT

[rickford66]

30. Driving down the road is only a first step.

Real problems arise at the destination. There are no standard parking lot rules. If a disabled person takes their self driver to the store, they probably want to get dropped off at the entrance. How does the car get parked without a passenger? There are many scenarios to anticipate and there are an infinite number of them. I believe their use will be severely limited in use. Probably per-programmed routs.

[lostnfound]

44. So many benefits eventually. Cars that talk to each other, space themselves out evenly.

There are predictions that in 10 years self-driving cars will be the norm.
Cars with no steering wheels.
Narrower lanes, remote parking, communication between automobiles like anti collision. Less pollution due to smoother traffic flow and smoother acceleration / deceleration, and some trips cut in half (ever provided “shuttle service” for teens or for elderly people?)

Versus:
“drugs, speeding, aggressive driving, over-compensation, inexperience, slow reaction time, inattentiveness, and ignoring road condition”

[rickford66]

50. I've been writing similar s/w for a dozen years or so.

I have to move entities in a 3D world which among other tasks have to avoid objects. Even though there's a limited number of inputs, the combination of these are effectively infinite. No way I can anticipate every situation and discrepancies are uncovered. They get fixed and hopefully it's infinity minus one. This is for military training and no one gets killed. And the code gets more complicated as time goes on making it more difficult to fix problems or make necessary updates. On another note, there should be more emphasis on mass transit as opposed to more cars on the road.

PS. A little known fact. Software engineers are not perfect. Unlimited testing doesn't find all the problems. Computers still do what they are programmed to do.

I'm retired now and am not under the pressure to expediently correct problems. I don't envy the driver less car engineers, especially after they have to debug and find a solution to a deadly bug which will have to be updated in maybe thousands of cars built by several manufacturers. I know there are amazing advances in design techniques and hardware so I'm sure it will be as safe or safer than cars with drivers, but there will still be a good number of fatal accidents.

[Locut0s]

31. This is why we need UBI. Because progress is painful but inevitable...

Because the only way we get to something a little closer to that Star Trek utopia is through automation which replaces jobs that are drudge work. Jobs that are outdated. That isn't a judgement of the jobs themsleves or the people who do them. It's simply a statement that technology eventually progresses to a point where it's cheaper and more efficient to fully automated the job. And the truth is that properly handled with UBI, training and humane services it's better for society and people as a whole. None of our modern society and the benefits we have from it would exist were it not for automation which has done away with countless millions of jobs. It's not automation that we need to stop but punishing people for being put out of work BY automation. Again I go back to UBI.

[Pope George Ringo II]

53. I'm with you.

Technology has been multiplying labor since the Industrial Revolution, and we're getting to the point that it's going to replace labor. The only question is how we handle that. A feudal system of capitalists dispensing favors to serfs? A Terminator scenario? Or a more equitable democratic utopia? But the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

[hunter]

33. Death to car culture. I don't care who or what is driving.

.

[Adrahil]

35. Good luck with that....

Simply could not function with cars where I live.

[loyalsister]

36. yes!

[LeftishBrit]

38. They could be of vital importance for people with disabilities that prevent them from driving

I have always dreamt of a self-driving car (before these were real possibilities) because, though I am not seriously disabled or blind, I do have visual processsing disabilities that make me unable to drive. This has significantly restricted where I have been able to live and work. At least in the UK, though restrictive, it's *possible* to find places to live where driving is unnecessary; in most parts of the USA, it is much more difficult - one reason why I never seriously considered working there.

Self-driving cars could give a lot more independence to people with a variety of disabilities, and to elderly people.

Of course, as they do become a possibility, the disadvantages become more obvious. Alternatives, of course, would be some sort of scheme for disabled and elderly people to get subsidized taxi services; and for public transport to become more available and affordable (in the UK, pensioners do get bus passes) and more frequent so that it is less crowded - the same people, who cannot drive, often also cannot stand in moving vehicles for any length of time. But that's not likely to happen in these days of cuts. Our county council is currently threatening to cut free transport for seriously disabled teenagers going to college for further education and training.

[DrDan]

41. most normal average Americans will grow older, lose their ability to see well enough to drive,

have diminished motor skills (no pun intended), etc.

Do you really feel we should stop progress with technology and innovation just to protect jobs?

[EffieBlack]

42. "If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses."

Quote attributed to Henry Ford

[McCamy Taylor]

43. They are as safe as our paper free electronic eections!

[spinbaby]

45. Safety

Self-driving vehicles are still glitchy, but will ultimately be far safer than human drivers because they don’t get sleepy, drunk, or distracted.

[Blue_true]

47. Utility, freedom from mistakes, available on demand.

I honestly feel that self driving vehicles are way off from being fool proof, but I think they will get there.m, and when they do, care survives will go to them and rich car services will wipe out poorer car services as well as eliminate jobs. The same dynamics apply to any job, food service, white collar, ect. Is it fair? Use, under out system of capitalism, certainly. Is it good for society? Absolutely HELL NO!!!!!! Steven Hawkings said it best, once intelligent machines rule, if the rich owners are willing to share the rewards with society, everyone benefits and can live a life of leisure perusing things that they are passionate about, but if owners don't share, we get chaos, then revolution, then dark chaos (akin to the lead up to the French Revolution, the revolution, and the prolonged period after the revolution).

Look, intelligent machines are going to happen, period. As a technologist, if I can replace a person with a machine that meets EVERYONE of my needs, I am going to do that, BUT I am also keen on sharing my gains with the workers that are left AND the workers that are displaced. The willingness or lack of willingness to share gains is the issue, not whether intelligent machines replace people.

[samnsara]

51. like who the hell would ride in them?

[Historic NY]

52. Did they find the car guilty in the recent accident...

[SonofDonald]

54. I own four vehicles, three are vintage

A 1928 model A truck, a 1947 Ford four door, a 1991 Dodge Turbo Diesel truck and a 1998 Cobra Convertible.

I own them because they are what I want to drive, they don't make retro fit kits to make them self drivers, they never will.

I'll keep them, drive and enjoy them, I will retro fit them to electric if some day that feasible and have always thought that would be better than the internal combustion engine even though I like them the way they are.

But I'll drive them myself thank you, when you consider the story I read here yesterday that nearly all self driving cars under test failed within 1200 miles and the fatal "accident" recently I'll let others find out how bad a self driving car can be.

[MineralMan]

57. We way overestimate the ability of technology to do human things.

It cannot, at least not at this time. If we rely on that overestimation, there will be problems with technology.

We will learn that as this autonomous technology is deployed. I guarantee it.

People do unexpected things. They don't always follow the rules. The woman killed in Arizona crossed the road at the wrong place. People do that all the time.

Jaywalking is not a capital offense. She died, because self-driving cars follow rules. People do not follow the rules consistently. That is the conflict that will create many such incidents.

[treestar]

59. Like most advances in technology

Some jobs go, but others open up. These and robots have to increase jobs in computer programming, building, maintenance.

That most of them would go to China might be another issue, though. There could be other jobs that would have to be here - selling the cars, maintaining the cars, and other such things.

[forgotmylogin]

60. I think the real appeal to some people...

is the idea that you could tell the car to drive you to work, and then read a book or play with your phone as a passenger.

Companies such as Uber or truck companies could basically hire people minimally trained to "supervise" the vehicle along its route instead of being trained to drive it.

The problem is just what we've already experienced - someone dressed in black and crossing the road illegally in a dark and unexpected location is not detected by the car sensors, and the "driver" isn't paying attention to override the computer. I think under normal driving conditions, if a driver had seen someone crossing the road ahead, they would have slowed down temporarily to make sure the cyclist made it across and not even needed to stop.