Self Driving cars (Split from Ring Road Thread)

[Canehdianman]

Originally Posted by polak

All of these points are great, if every car is self driving. I would 100% get into a car that drives itself if every car drove itself and they talked to one another. It's combining humans with self driving cars on the same roads that I don't think will work. Hesitation, behavioral cues, common courtesy, all of these things are things I'm doubtful that a self driven car can understand at the level of a human being.

Hell, what happens when you get to a 4 way stop and the self driving car gets there at the same time as a human and the human believes they were there first? Self driving cars will always wait? That won't get annoying. What happens when the weather is crap and the self driven car, which will most likely be programmed to drive more cautiously, is going 30 when confident human drivers are going 60? Cause now we have a bunch of cars that don't speak the same language or behave the same way going significantly different speeds? What happens when someone decides to wave someone in or does something that the self driving car doesn't understand? Is it just going to sit there confused, until the person gives up and goes? What happens in construction areas, places with unpainted lanes, places that place the self driving car in extremely unique situations that it'll never see on a normal basis, where human intervention will be needed? Construction worker is holding some sort of sign or does some sort of gesture that the car doesn't understand? Maybe there is an accident and the police is telling cars to drive around on the grass?

These are all programming issues, which I imagine would be handled rather easily. I agree that early variations of the computer-driven car might have limitations (gravel roads perhaps?), but most of the examples you give above are fairly ridiculous. Do computers you use right now lock up and stop working because you do something out of turn? Hit f5 on your computer and then hit f5 before it finishing refreshing... Does your computer give up and 'sit there confused'?

Originally Posted by polak

I don't know, maybe I'm out to lunch and computers can now calculate all these actions of human beings in the speeds required for human driven cars and self driving cars to share the road, but I have a hard time believing it.

I'm not even sure how to respond if you don't think that a computer can calculate things faster than you can.

Quick, what's 385435439x12354854? For reference, it took my ancient work computer 0.28 seconds.

Originally Posted by polak

What I think you will see, maybe within 20 years, are self driving car lanes where only self driving cars are allowed and they talk to one another, but once you drive off of that lane, the human driver has to take over control. Which is kind of pointless outside of the highway, and we can't even afford to light up our highways so....

I agree that this wouldn't really be a feasible solution. They will have to share the road from the beginnning. The first generation of self-driving cars (I'm sick of typing that. Let it be known as SDC from now on) will have to be very adaptive in the event that a human driver does something stupid. I imagine they will require the 'driver' to pay attention to potentially take over if necessary. I would bet that all cars (SDC or not) will have computers in them that network to share information (speed, destination, upcoming turns, traffic ahead, detours, etc...)

[Canehdianman]

Originally Posted by polak

Double or nothing if that beer is served by robot with boobs?

deal!

[photon]

Originally Posted by polak

I don't know, maybe I'm out to lunch and computers can now calculate all these actions of human beings in the speeds required for human driven cars and self driving cars to share the road, but I have a hard time believing it.

That's by FAR the easiest part. The laws of physics dictate what is possible for any car or cyclist or pedestrian to do an for what the car itself can do. The Google cars can keep track of hundreds of objects simultaneously, and can easily predict with far greater accuracy what will happen given a set of circumstances. Plus it's aware of all the variables since its vision is all around and doesn't blink or get distracted.

The more difficult task is identifying the things it sees in the first place. For it to know how to react or predict something, it has to know which things are cars, cyclists, people, etc. But they do that and more, including things like arm gestures from cyclists, traffic cones, hand signs by construction workers or crossing guards, rail crossing barriers, etc.

1 million+ real world km is impressive. A lot of accidents would be avoided in the first place by not being in a vulnerable position, a computer doesn't get impatient and follow too close.

Plus they made a virtual version of all of California's roads in a computer simulator and have the Google cars drive in there as well, with over 6.6 million km driven. And virtual testing lets them test scenarios that would be dangerous to set up in the real world; hard to hire someone to run out in front of your driverless car at highway speeds.

They even program the cars to act in ways that other drivers and even passengers expect rather than just what's safest. If cut off by another driver the car will brake harder than is absolutely necessary (as long as it's safe) as passengers feel safer.

It's still a long way from being everywhere, different areas have different conventions for drivers, different rules, different weather conditions, etc.

But once it starts going it'll snowball, instead of Google streetview cars it'll be Google robot car information gathering cars.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by polak

B) Planes have millions of people employed to make sure that they don't collide with one another. Literally a massive, massive network probably worth billions of dollars.

While I think millions of people is an exaggeration, I don't doubt that it would cost billions of dollars per year to maintain a network that extensive. Let's say it costs $10 billion per year. If you divide that by 200 million cars in North America*- that works out to $50 per car per year. At that price, sign me up.

* I made that number up, based upon 350 million people in US and Canada, and figuring it's safe to assume one vehicle for 57% of the population.

[psicodude]

Great post, Photon.

I attended a Gartner conference last month and had the opportunity to speak to an IT director from Papa John's pizza. He was telling me that they are going to start early testing of driver-less delivery vehicles next year sometime. Basically, the vehicle will contain 6 or 8 warming compartments that are locked by default. The local pizza joint will load the vehicle up with the pizza's for 8 customers along with their address, etc. The vehicle will then pull up to your house and text/call you when it arrives and sends you a PIN number or something that allows you to unlock the warming compartment with your pizza in it. After you grab your pizza, it carries on to the next customer.

The potential benefits are huge to both company and customer: Lower labour costs, no drivers getting lost, no tipping, pizza arrives hot, for example. I could see the technology taking hold in this sort of application much earlier than privately owned autonomous vehicles.

[photon]

It's different enough, disruptive enough that calling them driverless cars is like calling cars horseless carriages.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by ken0042

While I think millions of people is an exaggeration, I don't doubt that it would cost billions of dollars per year to maintain a network that extensive. Let's say it costs $10 billion per year.

FAA is a $15 billion budget, I think... and for Canada it's about $1.2B in revenue (airlines pay a hefty service for ATC service to be provided, so really it's travellers paying what ends up being an ATC surcharge) with expenses at about $1B per year. So we'll call it $16B for the whole continent, and a good chunk of that is labour. I heard the radar screens are like $20k each, I guess that means it's less likely to break while I'm looking at it.

All these planes have extensive autopilots and know when they're about to hit each and other and provide warnings to the pilots to take evasive action, but considering the number of computers in them we still put in a hell of a lot of work to keep them apart. I don't think cars will be any different, for quite some time.

[Street Pharmacist]

I think taxis and delivery vehicles will be the earliest adopters