Fun Future Predictions: How will self drive cars impact the future?
There was an old thread a while back about the Google project, but I couldn't find it, sorry if Fata.
Self-Drive cars are now an inevitability. Some experts are suggesting even in the next four to five years. I got my head spinning with all of the possible impacts this will have on our day to day lives. Some things are obvious, but with every revolutionary technology, some impacts are only predicted by really intelligent people. Are you one? How will this impact the future?
A) How many lives will be saved? How many serious injuries prevented? Is this bigger than most medical breakthroughs of the last number of decades?
B) How will this impact transportation costs? Will they decrease? If so, by any significant amount, energy prices will surely increase as transportation is used more, wouldn't they?
C) What will happen with insurance companies? Obviously they will still be there, but their roles will likely be largely decreased as less claims are made. I don't know enough about the insurance industry to know how that impacts profits, but costs will go down for sure.
D) How would it be regulated? The common comment is people are excited they can still take their car home if drunk, but wouldn't it still be mandatory to be sober in case of computer failure and you have to drive? Same goes with taxi drivers and truckers: wouldn't the need still exist for an operator? Wouldn't seat belts still be necessary eliminating my dream of comfy naps on the way to a destination?
E) Does it really impact your commute? With car pooling and sharing vehicles, most people are used to being a passenger anyways. All this does is effectively make more passengers as far as I can tell.
F) How does this impact car design? As less time is spent driving, how does the car change to suit the change in major activities of the "driver's" seat? Less focusing on instruments on the dash? Do we see larger larger screens for movie viewing in the front?
G) Purchasing behaviors. Would co-op buying be more preferable? If a co-op owned a fleet of self drive cars, wouldn't it be cheaper and then you just "call" the car when you need it instead of owning your own?
They seem like a great concept, I am just not sure how much I'd trust one to get me out of a four wheel drift in the dead of winter on a mountain highway. I'd rather be driving myself, unless they advance the technology to a point where it's more responsive than a human being... which would seem to be a long ways off.
That said, for the elderly and impaired it seems like something that could improve quality of life tremendously.
There was an old thread a while back about the Google project, but I couldn't find it, sorry if Fata.
Self-Drive cars are now an inevitability. Some experts are suggesting even in the next four to five years. I got my head spinning with all of the possible impacts this will have on our day to day lives. Some things are obvious, but with every revolutionary technology, some impacts are only predicted by really intelligent people. Are you one? How will this impact the future?
A) How many lives will be saved? How many serious injuries prevented? Is this bigger than most medical breakthroughs of the last number of decades?
B) How will this impact transportation costs? Will they decrease? If so, by any significant amount, energy prices will surely increase as transportation is used more, wouldn't they?
C) What will happen with insurance companies? Obviously they will still be there, but their roles will likely be largely decreased as less claims are made. I don't know enough about the insurance industry to know how that impacts profits, but costs will go down for sure.
D) How would it be regulated? The common comment is people are excited they can still take their car home if drunk, but wouldn't it still be mandatory to be sober in case of computer failure and you have to drive? Same goes with taxi drivers and truckers: wouldn't the need still exist for an operator? Wouldn't seat belts still be necessary eliminating my dream of comfy naps on the way to a destination?
E) Does it really impact your commute? With car pooling and sharing vehicles, most people are used to being a passenger anyways. All this does is effectively make more passengers as far as I can tell.
F) How does this impact car design? As less time is spent driving, how does the car change to suit the change in major activities of the "driver's" seat? Less focusing on instruments on the dash? Do we see larger larger screens for movie viewing in the front?
G) Purchasing behaviors. Would co-op buying be more preferable? If a co-op owned a fleet of self drive cars, wouldn't it be cheaper and then you just "call" the car when you need it instead of owning your own?
Any other impacts?
Self driving cars exist today, and are legal in at least three states: Nevada, Florida, and California.
They seem like a great concept, I am just not sure how much I'd trust one to get me out of a four wheel drift in the dead of winter on a mountain highway. I'd rather be driving myself, unless they advance the technology to a point where it's more responsive than a human being... which would seem to be a long ways off.
That said, for the elderly and impaired it seems like something that could improve quality of life tremendously.
I would think sensors would disable the "auto pilot" at first when road conditions deteriorate. Eventually though, and probably not very far off, they will indeed be better than humans at traversing on bad conditions. Due to liability issues though, complete autopilot in those conditions might make it prohibitive
Self driving cars exist today, and are legal in at least three states: Nevada, Florida, and California.
Sorry, I meant for mass consumption. I should have clarified. These prototypes are the reason for my questioning, but I'm more interested in the eventual mass production
On the road hummers won't have the same kind of thrill. Its pretty tough to keep your car going straight with all of that action happening.
I have a vivid memory of getting one from my G/F when I was 17 and we were coming back from her parent's cabin in the interior. I lost count of how many times I nearly drove off the side of a mountain.
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The problem with self-drive cars turning off the automation when conditions are extreme, is that then you have a driver who barely drives now in control of the car when experience is at a premium. I'm not sure if that's a good solution to the problem, rather I would think that only when such cars are uniformly better than humans in all situations will they gain acceptance, and maybe not even then.
Problem is, if you get in an accident with an automated car, who are you going to blame? Even if it's far safer in aggregate than human drivers in practice, your lack of control over circumstance will make any incidents seem far more significant. Anecdotes trump statistics.
As to the original question, if it is successfully implemented, one consequence will be a large decrease in short and medium-range air travel. If it's cheaper and more convenient to take your car, the trade-off of spending more time becomes less of a factor - a drive of 10-15 hours is not nearly as big a deal if you aren't worried about spelling off drivers, fatigue, night, inclement weather, and the like.
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I think higher speed limits is probably the biggest thing. That means you can get to your destination much quicker than before.
As for insurance companies, they'll still be around, but mostly for things like vandalism, theft, hail damage, etc. They'll probably keep premiums the same, because well.... that's just how they do things.
I predict it will have an impact on our vision, pretty much the only distance viewing we do now-a-days is driving, now that will be replaced with continuing to look at a phone or computer. That's got to be bad for the eyes, right?
Just another skill a future generation will no longer have to cope with. As alluded to by Jammies the problem is going to be how are these future drivers going to cope with a real world emergency situation when they have virtually no experience or feel when it comes to driving a real car.
If there is a technology failure that causes mass fatalities, who's going to get sued? The manufacturers of these operating systems, that's who. I hoep everyone is going to be prepared to spend $500,000 for a basic car, as that is what the cost will have to be to cover all of the litigation. Especially in the US where suing is pretty much their favorite hobby.
The problem with self-drive cars turning off the automation when conditions are extreme, is that then you have a driver who barely drives now in control of the car when experience is at a premium. I'm not sure if that's a good solution to the problem, rather I would think that only when such cars are uniformly better than humans in all situations will they gain acceptance, and maybe not even then.
Problem is, if you get in an accident with an automated car, who are you going to blame? Even if it's far safer in aggregate than human drivers in practice, your lack of control over circumstance will make any incidents seem far more significant. Anecdotes trump statistics.
As to the original question, if it is successfully implemented, one consequence will be a large decrease in short and medium-range air travel. If it's cheaper and more convenient to take your car, the trade-off of spending more time becomes less of a factor - a drive of 10-15 hours is not nearly as big a deal if you aren't worried about spelling off drivers, fatigue, night, inclement weather, and the like.
Your first point is valid, but I don't think the time span between the cars being available and being better than us in all conditions is very much. At most 5 years in my compete guess.
I would challenge the second assumption. We see automation in other areas, and concerns were raised. Anecdotes are more important in the court of opinion, but not law (think cruise control, auto pilot for aircraft, etc). If there's an accident, with proper logging off data, I'm sure liability will start decreasing. Insurance companies will make sure of it.
I don't know about the last point either. Bus transit is cheaper too. However, scheduling is easier when you can leave whenever you want.
We're going to look back at the time when people actually drove cars as so quaint and such an odd historical anachronism.
The real debate isn't about whether self driving cars will dominate driving but what the impacts of that will be for energy use and emissions. Will ease of driving promote more driving and more GHG emissions or will the efficiency gains from automated vehicles overcome that?
Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants.
Exp:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
I would challenge the second assumption. We see automation in other areas, and concerns were raised. Anecdotes are more important in the court of opinion, but not law (think cruise control, auto pilot for aircraft, etc). If there's an accident, with proper logging off data, I'm sure liability will start decreasing. Insurance companies will make sure of it.
I'm not as concerned about lawsuits, as getting approval in the first place to use the cars at all. Lawmakers will hear all about the one car that was tested for 1,000,000 km and ran over some jaywalking grandma, and nothing about the 10 accidents that were avoided - because how do you prove that the automation was responsible for something *not* happening?
I call this the "NRA effect". Thousands of people die in gun accidents due to home-stored guns, but the one guy who kills a burglar with his AR-15 is the guy whose case they propagandize as an unassailable argument that guns = safety.
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Fun Future Predictions: How will self drive cars impact the future?
