Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
1) No, it wouldn't. Glitches could still happen. Plus, wouldn't you want to be in control?
2) Yeah, it might be smooth, but there'll still be probably worse traffic when those algorithms take you to the run address. You fall asleep and end up in Savannah, GA instead of Savannah OK.
3) That's an even worse idea to get cars closer together, so that if an accident happens, it will a long line of cars that got into the accident. There should always be space.
4) Most of the speed limits are speed limits because you can't really go that much faster according to the angles and turns in the road.
5) That would be inefficient to park further away and have it come back. Waste of energy, you still need parking lots nearby.
6) It would be good for disabled, handicapped and other people.
7) There won't be any environmental benefits, since the energy is still gonna come from some factory, you're just transferring the combustion from the car to the factory where you can't see it
8) You think they should still keep maintaining those roads, even if people aren't driving real cars? Just dismantle them all and dismantle the houses while they're at it and just make everything walking distance. Most of the houses would be rotten by then anyway.
In all seriousness, autonomous is just a fad. Just like every other fad. In the 1920's they had a very specific vision of the future. Then in the 1930's they had another. Then in the 1950's, another. Then in the 1980's, they had Back To The Future. Now autonomous cars are all the rage. Guess, what. It's not gonna happen. Every movie that's coming out now always includes whatever the latest trends are. Facebook is probably not gonna be around. That's just how it usually is.
Now, I don't think cars should ever autonomous because of freedom. People should be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want. It shouldn't be connected to a grid. Also, there will always be regular vehicles. You can't stop that. I could easily build my own factory of cars that are not connected to any grid and just start selling it. It doesn't even make sense. Government would have to actively ban people from doing it and enforce it too, which would be a big infringement on the freedom to travel.
What's the main reason for having autonomous cars? Safety? Just improve the safety of vehicles so that if they are in a car accident, they can survive. That's much better than trusting a computer system. A computer system is going to make cars less safe (by making them less sturdy, and the potential for accidents will still be there that can from any glitch. Why would a human want to do that? Would you get on a plastick-y vehicle going very fast, if there was a potential for glitches? No. What makes you think people in the future are gonna want that.
If you want to sleep or do anything, you could do that now. You could just get an Uber and that's it. Just live that dream fantasy now. Why involve the rest of the world into it?
I think there will always be manufacturers that make cars that have no computers on them and you can just drive wherever you want. Just give people a choice. Or maybe just make exclusive roads just for autonomous and then let the regular cars drive in the other roads. There's the solution. Or just have them both used. Give people a choice.
These concepts are really wasteful though. Our cheap energy is what allows for our current lifestyle. Once energy stops being cheap, the very concept of having people live faraway and commuting to distant places, will not be sustainable. You'll live right next to the place you work, otherwise just won't be able to go. The whole city of Atlanta will dismantled. Every house you see and neighborhood and freeways will be taken down and people will just live next to whatever factory they work at.
Or maybe there just won't be factories anymore. You'll just be in huts. Scavenging for food and picking berries and peaches of Peachtree St. Or what's left of it. All this talk about trying to be one with nature and being "organic." Well, you won't have to pretend anymore. It will just be what the norm.
Last edited by clearlevel; 05-09-2017 at 04:26 PM..
1) No, it wouldn't. Glitches could still happen. Plus, wouldn't you want to be in control?
Wrong, the world of autonomous vehicles will be a whole lot safer- occasional glitches and all. Nothing will ever be 100% safe, but AV's are going to be a lot safer than human drivers are. They even are already, and we're at a very, very early stage of the technology.
Humans have all kinds of limitations that computers simply don't have. Computers have eyes in the back of their head, in addition to eyes (sensors) everywhere else, too. And not just cameras, but also lasers, radar, whatever other sensors. Computers can constantly learn, and get even better and better at driving. Computers can also make split second decisions, that are more logical, informed, well-calculated, and more precise and more careful than our own.
About 10,000 people die per year from alcohol-impaired car accidents, and over 3,000 people die every year from distracted driving- so right there alone in AV-world you'd have a savings of at least 13,000 fatalities, since computers can't get drunk or distracted.
And no, I wouldn't rather be in control, and I especially wouldn't rather trust you in control of your car. Since, once again, computers are safer and better drivers than any of us. Just because of our human limitations. (And that's assuming that we're all decent drivers- which, many of us clearly shouldn't be driving, anyway- particularly older people.)
Over 30,000 people die in car wrecks each year. If we can get that number in half, then even that would be huge- but I'm betting in AV-only-world, we could eventually cut it down to maybe 5% of that number.
Quote:
2) Yeah, it might be smooth, but there'll still be probably worse traffic when those algorithms take you to the run address. You fall asleep and end up in Savannah, GA instead of Savannah OK.
If you enter in a destination other than where you're going, then that's on you, not the computer.
Your point here just backs up my point. Which is that humans are too stupid to be trusted to drive.
Because of how good of a driver the computer is, and how cars will talk to each other, the general ride and the flow of traffic will be so much smoother and so much more efficient in general (less stop and go).
Quote:
3) That's an even worse idea to get cars closer together, so that if an accident happens, it will a long line of cars that got into the accident. There should always be space.
There should always be enough following distance for the driver to react, yes. But in the case of computers and their near-instant reaction speed, the following distance only needs to allow enough space for the car to physically brake in time. Therefore they can drive closer together, increasing road capacity.
Now, this is relatively not as important of a point vs. some of these other points. I'm fine with the AV cars leaving extra following distance, too. Whatever works better.
Quote:
4) Most of the speed limits are speed limits because you can't really go that much faster according to the angles and turns in the road.
Not generally the case on long-distance interstate trips.
Quote:
5) That would be inefficient to park further away and have it come back. Waste of energy, you still need parking lots nearby.
Actually, no, it would be a gain of energy and efficiency. Because your city could be built a lot more dense and walkable without all the parking everywhere, thereby reducing the need for vehicle trips at all.
Quote:
6) It would be good for disabled, handicapped and other people.
Absolutely.
Quote:
7) There won't be any environmental benefits, since the energy is still gonna come from some factory, you're just transferring the combustion from the car to the factory where you can't see it
Not true at all, if we move our power plants away from polluting sources of energy. We need to heavily adopt nuclear power (which is clean and safe), supplemented by renewables like hydro/wind/solar.
Quote:
8) You think they should still keep maintaining those roads, even if people aren't driving real cars? Just dismantle them all and dismantle the houses while they're at it and just make everything walking distance. Most of the houses would be rotten by then anyway.
Huh?
Quote:
In all seriousness, autonomous is just a fad.
In all seriousness, no, it isn't.
Quote:
Now, I don't think cars should ever autonomous because of freedom. People should be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want.
Which they'd still be able to do. It's just that the steering and acceleration and braking will be automated.
Quote:
Also, there will always be regular vehicles. You can't stop that.
Yeah, we could, and should totally transition away from human-driven vehicles on the roads. Someday.
Quote:
What's the main reason for having autonomous cars? Safety?
For a lot of reasons, safety being only one of them. Read this whole thread and all the links in it.
1) No, it wouldn't. Glitches could still happen. Plus, wouldn't you want to be in control?
In all seriousness, autonomous is just a fad. Just like every other fad.
Humans are in control and 1,400 people died on Georgia roads ALONE last year. Do you think glitches will account for 1/10 of that? I know it won't. There will be glitches and issues, but it will never be as bad as it is now. The current unsafe state of driving must be taken into account when considering the risks of Automation.
In regards to it being a fad... absolutely not. Money makes things happen and not having to pay drivers is going to save a monumental amount of money for companies.
And actually 20-25 mph is not bad at all inside the city if you are moving steadily.
I think all cars should be limited to that speed on city surface streets, but that is not really a feasible way to get around a metro like Atlanta. The really benefit of autonomous cars will be their ability to link people between the city and the suburbs. Non-car-owners can get easy & affordable trips to the suburbs, and suburbanites can easily & affordably get into the city without living next to a transit station or paying for pricey parking. You need to go over 25 mph to do that.
I think all cars should be limited to that speed on city surface streets, but that is not really a feasible way to get around a metro like Atlanta. The really benefit of autonomous cars will be their ability to link people between the city and the suburbs. Non-car-owners can get easy & affordable trips to the suburbs, and suburbanites can easily & affordably get into the city without living next to a transit station or paying for pricey parking. You need to go over 25 mph to do that.
It's fine for them run 55-60 out on the freeway but they need to slow down on city streets.
Once AVs are a thing, there will be no reason to walk. I think we should convert sidewalks into queue lanes and reserve existing lanes for high speed travel.
But seriously, we better be hitting 100+ on grade separated, AV exclusive highways.
For a lot of reasons, safety being only one of them. Read this whole thread and all the links in it.
I appreciate you running through the list and responding accordingly. There's just so much you could talk about when it comes autonomous vehicles. At the end of the day, though, I still feel like it's too much of a liability and subject to errors. I'm not saying that computers aren't capable of running smoothly. However, in a constantly changing world, where software is constantly being upgraded and varying systems are constantly being made, there will always be opportunities for errors and glitches. We can't even run an app efficiently and you're trying to tell me that it's a good idea to turn all cars into apps? Imagine something like the release of the new iPhone iOS. This is the most powerful company and obviously they're very good at what they do and even they can't stop getting the inevitable glitches that often happen once a new iOS hits the market. At the end of the day the computers are subject to human manipulation. The computers are also subject to physical degradation which could also impede its ability. There are times when entire iOS devices were bricked due to an iOS glitch. Imagine if something as catastrophic could happen with cars, that are driving people around? All it takes is for one glitch that could instantly 'cause the death of thousands, potentially even millions. Why not? Even computer viruses. Governments wanting to wage war with each other and wanting to manipulate and cause havoc or mayhem.
There is something to be said about being able to control a car and have an accident that way, and getting into an accident because of a computer accident. There is a difference. Imagine getting injured or something, but it wasn't your fault. It was a computer glitch. Humans at least have the ability to prevent, whereas with computers, there's a hopelessness to it.
The other thing is that you mention cars driving very close to each other. That's the other problem, which is that as a person you've lost the ability to control how your car functions. It's always going to be more unsafe to have a train of cars closely following each other going 80 miles an hour, than if cars were spaced out and going 65. Do you see what I mean? The choice of how the vehicles behaves wouldn't even be yours. All it takes is for that one car at the front of the train to somehow stop or crash into something and physics would take over and could cause a train of crashes.
There's so much you could say, I don't even know where to go next. You didn't address my other issue, which is the idea of freedom. Of someone being able to drive a car in the middle of a field or wherever. You could potentially drive an off-road car up mountains and all kinds of places. You can do so without people surveying you. There's freedom. You can control where you want to go and when you want to go. When I talked about the glitch about Savannah, GA to Savannah, OK (which I made up and don't know if it actually exists), I was talking about a computer possibly making the error, not the human. Imagine if you didn't have steering wheels or a way to physically control the car (which is what a lot prototypes are showing), and imagine if the car just by way of a glitch goes another way, instead of the way you want to go. Even if you do put the instructions in properly. That's the point. You're really not in control. If the computer decides to go somewhere else, you're not even in control. The computer could even lock you into the car by some weird glitch. There are many different kinds of glitches that would happen and since you can't manually control the car, you can't even fix it. You just have to sit there and wait until it stops. What if the glitch is to go from where you are and just drive around in circle and the car never slows down. Then, what? And the doors are locked and can't open. You might call the police, but how will they stop a runaway car that's glitched and you can't get out or control it manually. These are the kinds of glitches I'm talking about that can happen. It could even be a virus.
I feel like autonomous vehicles do have a place in industry for example, or as factory transport systems, in places that are heavily-monitored and where the vehicles aren't moving too fast, and they're not carrying anything, other than products and minerals. That to me seems like a good way of using AI.
Last edited by clearlevel; 05-09-2017 at 10:30 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
