lpetrich
Contributor
7 Arguments Against the Autonomous-Vehicle Utopia - The Atlantic
The most successful self-driving vehicles have run in much simpler environments. Ships and airplanes have had autopilot systems for decades, and spacecraft are almost universally controlled by their onboard computers -- computers which often relay instructions from the spacecraft operators' computers. The most successful automated land vehicles to date are subway and rapid-transit trains, because they have completely isolated rights-of-way.
The second one is underappreciated, I think. It also causes problems for a proposed application: platooning, essentially computerized mass tailgating.
The third one I don't consider very strong.
The fourth one I think is very serious, even though one ought to ask what level of safety that one should reasonably expect. A self-driving car will have to successfully drive through conditions that human drivers drive through all the time, meaning that the first problem implies a big problem here also.
The fifth one I consider a likely possibility if self-driving cars will ever drive with the proficiency of good human drivers. A LOT of testing and tweaking will be necessary.
The sixth one I consider the most likely near-future possibility. It may even turn into a halfway sort of self-driving where the car requests assistance in difficult situations. So car drivers will become backseat drivers for their cars.
The seventh one does seem at least a little possible. But self-driving cars also mean self-driving buses and trains, and self-driving buses could operate much like taxis. Those who dislike the prospect of sharing a vehicle with drunkards and bums may like some subscription service where one can have similar fellow passengers.
There is a further problem, a problem that that article did not mention. What happens to manual driving? In Isaac Asimov's short story "Sally", it was outlawed as needlessly dangerous, an action that was denounced as everything from fascism to communism.
The first one is a case of Moravec's paradox -- it's much easier to get computers to do high-level reasoning than it is to get them to do real-world sensorimotor tasks, even low-level ones like recognizing objects, manipulating them, or walking. Driving clearly falls into the latter category, with a very complicated environment that one must navigate. One has to know what's bad to collide with and what's not, so one doesn't get stymied by snow, for instance. One also has to recognize traffic lights and traffic signs and construction workers waving signal flags.Bear Case 1: They Won’t Work Until Cars Are as Smart as Humans
Bear Case 2: They Won’t Work, Because They’ll Get Hacked
Bear Case 3: They Won’t Work as a Transportation Service
Bear Case 4: They Won’t Work, Because You Can’t Prove They’re Safe
Bear Case 5: They’ll Work, But Not Anytime Soon
Bear Case 6: Self-Driving Cars Will Mostly Mean Computer-Assisted Drivers
Bear Case 7: Self-Driving Cars Will Work, But Make Traffic and Emissions Worse
The most successful self-driving vehicles have run in much simpler environments. Ships and airplanes have had autopilot systems for decades, and spacecraft are almost universally controlled by their onboard computers -- computers which often relay instructions from the spacecraft operators' computers. The most successful automated land vehicles to date are subway and rapid-transit trains, because they have completely isolated rights-of-way.
The second one is underappreciated, I think. It also causes problems for a proposed application: platooning, essentially computerized mass tailgating.
The third one I don't consider very strong.
The fourth one I think is very serious, even though one ought to ask what level of safety that one should reasonably expect. A self-driving car will have to successfully drive through conditions that human drivers drive through all the time, meaning that the first problem implies a big problem here also.
The fifth one I consider a likely possibility if self-driving cars will ever drive with the proficiency of good human drivers. A LOT of testing and tweaking will be necessary.
The sixth one I consider the most likely near-future possibility. It may even turn into a halfway sort of self-driving where the car requests assistance in difficult situations. So car drivers will become backseat drivers for their cars.
The seventh one does seem at least a little possible. But self-driving cars also mean self-driving buses and trains, and self-driving buses could operate much like taxis. Those who dislike the prospect of sharing a vehicle with drunkards and bums may like some subscription service where one can have similar fellow passengers.
There is a further problem, a problem that that article did not mention. What happens to manual driving? In Isaac Asimov's short story "Sally", it was outlawed as needlessly dangerous, an action that was denounced as everything from fascism to communism.