Self driving cars

[Kevin]

What do you guys think of these things? When the first stories came out about them, I envisioned them to be more of an experimental concept that might be a reality on our roads sometime in the future. But it appears as though the "future" I had in mind might come more quickly than I had at first anticipated. It seems there are stories about them in the news all the time and now states are starting prepare to make laws concerning there use. I am still not sure of the time frame though when the first vehicles would be available at the local car dealers. Maybe 10-15 years out?? Perhaps sooner?

My own opinion of them is that they would be great if safe, but it's hard to define what is exactly safe. It's not as though every driver on the road currently is operating in a safe manner, but at least when they mess up you know who is at fault. What I am not sure about is how much the human thought process goes into making decisions on the road that prevents accidents that technology can't replicate. For instance you see a person walking on a sidewalk that appears not to be quite right, perhaps a medical issue, drunk, high on something etc. So you slow down and become more attentive to the fact that they might suddenly stumble into the road. I don't know how technology could interpret that same situation in the same manner.

I am usually slow to take on new technology. I am never one of the first to own one of the latest gadgets. So I don't see myself being one of the first on my block to own a driverless vehicle, and I personally like the act of driving myself around. However, it would be nice on a long trip to join the wife and kid in watching a movie while the vehicle gets us to our destination. We like to drive through National Parks and such on sight seeing trips, it would be great for that sort of stuff.

 

[twich54]

Kevin, given the way I see some cars being driven today I assumed they were already on the road !

On a serious note technology marches forward, my industry (railroading) is going through something similar, PTC (positive train control), will basically take control of a train if the engineer does not operate it properly. Thanks to GPS both of these technologies are at our doorstep

 

[ElectroNoob]

Here's the different levels of autonomous cars. https://www.wired.com/2016/08/self-driving-car-levels-sae-nhtsa/

Elon promises the Model 3 will be level 4 when it is released but it has enough hardware to get it to level 5. As for who is responsible, it would depend on what level it is at. If an automobile company sells a level 5 autonomous car I would assume that they have confidence in it and willing to pay for any liability it is responsible for. I think the harder issue is morality of the decision it makes when it has to choose between the safety of the occupants or the safety of other cars.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Electric cars are here now and they are almost good enough.

By almost good enough I mean that they are already better drivers on average than people are, but before people are willing to hand them control they will need to be better than the best drivers on the road and that will be here within 5 years.

They will happen because they will save lives and the insurance companies will back them.

Some key benefits.

1. Elderly will have increased mobility.
2. The cars will be able to communicate with each other and eventually they will dramatically improve traffic patterns
3. Improved gas mileage on trips by forming virtual "trains" reducing wind resistance dramatically for most cars inline that are drafting.
4. Insurance rates will drop.
5. Fatalities and accidents will drop.
6. GDP will increase due to less wasted time in traffic jams and stuck behind accidents.
7. Cars will become communal for many like using an Uber.

 

[Gordon Gray]

As I slowly descend into the "old fart" category, this new tech gives me great hope regarding having personal control of my travel wishes in the future.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

As I slowly descend into the "old fart" category, this new tech gives me great hope regarding having personal control of my travel wishes in the future.

It would also make it easier to enjoy a good bottle of scotch and still get home safely

Having just driven over 600 miles each way to visit my in-laws. I would definitely have liked an automatic driving system. My wife and I just got the crud and both of us felt pretty bad driving home.

 

[Rich]

Technically, they are already on the road. In a limited fashion, anyway. My father-in-law uses the self-driving mode on his Tesla all the time. It only really works well on the interstate highway at the moment, but it does seem to work well. He still pays attention just in case. So basically, it is like an advanced version of cruise control.

In five to ten years this technology is going to be very advanced and will basically take over. Anybody that's a truck driver for a living better retrain for a new job now, because they will be going the way of the wagon wheel manufacturers. Of course, they won't see it coming and they won't retrain, and we'll hear the same complaints from them that we hear from the former coal miners and former manufacturing laborers.

 

[stuwee]

They are the future, although, many of us prefer to drive like we have the control of the driving experience and we enjoy that. A self driving BMW is kind of a oxymoron isn't it?

There's an old joke "how do you stop a millennial from stealing your car"?...make sure it has a manual transmission..

What scares the crap outta me is the self driving big rigs they are testing, that is scary folks.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

They are the future, although, many of us prefer to drive like we have the control of the driving experience and we enjoy that. A self driving BMW is kind of a oxymoron isn't it?

There's an old joke "how do you stop a millennial from stealing your car"?...make sure it has a manual transmission..

What scares the crap outta me is the self driving big rigs they are testing, that is scary folks.

FWIW I used to really enjoy rowing through the gears These days, my car has become a means of conveyance only and all I want is for it to be is reliable, comfortable and to swallow all the stuff I want to move.

BMW is selling mostly automatics these days with adaptive cruise control. Electric cars have no gears to shift.

There are typically about 4,000 people killed in car crashes involving Large trucks and buses each year, so they seem to be on the safe side.

Each year 1.3 million people die in car accidents and 20-50 million are injured or disabled.

There is a lot of room for improvement since people are easily distracted, emotional, and drive while sleepy or intoxicated etc.. Automated vehicles won't suffer from the human condition.

I see this happening over the course of a generation.

Kids will become used to grabbing an automated vehicle to get somewhere before they are of driving age and won't miss driving.
Elderly who have trouble driving will welcome the increased mobility.
Many who are not driving enthusiasts will start to use it at a crutch for longer drives etc.. and learn to trust it.

People who want to stay in control will keep driving for a couple decades while the systems improve.

 

[JonFo]

Even tough I'm a certified car nut, I personally welcome the fully automated vehicles (Level 5), and happy they seem to be close to being generally available.

I see this tech transforming large metro areas, such as Atlanta in many positive ways. The first is traffic congestion, as it will be possible to coordinate the patterns and the speeds to ensure as smooth a flow as possible.
However, that will likely soon lead to certain roads being deemed for "Level 5 only" and ban self-driven cars from them, as humans are too 'dumb' to deal with the swarm on those roads.

So I'm grateful there is a motorsports park nearby (AMP) that I can take my car to and drive at high-speed in great safety.

 

[Kevin]

Sort of related to this- I saw an interview with Thomas Friedman of the NY Times recently. The interview was about his recent book “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations”. His book was about how the advances of technology now are occurring at such a faster pace than they ever did in the past, that people can't keep up and digest it all. I didn't catch the beginning, but I think I saw enough of the interview to get the idea that he thinks this will eventually have negative consequences. I am not sure I believe that, I would think people perhaps could have said the same thing during the start of the Industrial Revolution and the invention of electricity towards the end of that period.

But it did bring up something that made me think about my own life and all the technology available, because I myself have a hard time with it. I have a waterproof Swiss Army watch that I have used for 25 years for fishing and being on the beach. It has scratches all over the face but still keeps ticking and keeping time like a champ. At one point I couldn't find it and told my wife I had lost it. She got me a new waterproof watch that Christmas with all these buttons around the face of it. My Swiss watch had only 1 knob. So I read this 80 page booklet to see how to work the thing. One button you push once to see the temperature and twice to see elevation. Another button is for a stop watch function, or you can hold it down for 3 seconds and use it to track your speed when moving. Stuff like that. I couldn't ever remember how to reset the time? Within a few months of receiving the watch I was cleaning up some stuff and found my old Swiss Army. I put the other watch away never to use it again.

That's just one example, but it seems like every device I get now does so much stuff more than I need it to. Unless it's something I use really often, like my phone, I have to relearn the functions every time I pick up a device. From my go pro camera to my handheld gps unit and such, I have to go over the functions if I put them away for a few months. I have 2012 Toyota Tundra and it was the first vehicle that I have really splurged on in years. I purchased the limited and the guy hands me the owners manual and it's an inch thick. But then he say's "and here's the electronics manual", and it's an inch and a half thick. Because it's just my fishing and vacation vehicle, I don't drive it very often and still don't know half of what some of the stuff in it can do.

At least in my case.......maybe Thomas Friedman has a point?

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I would think people perhaps could have said the same thing during the start of the Industrial Revolution and the invention of electricity towards the end of that period.

This is very different from the Industrial Revolution. We are looking at the exponential automation of many people's jobs.

This isn't empowering people to do other things. In fact it is working opposite to that.

Jobs are being created at the bottom(lots) and the very top(few). There is a huge sucking sound in the middle. Middle class jobs are the easiest to automate. The salaries involved are also large enough to motivate automation. So what happens is that there are more people fighting for lower paying jobs. The few highly intelligent people with the right skills are also in demand. Automation will first start moving downstream towards the bottom jobs as it gets cheaper and last but not least it will close in on those at the top.

 

[ElectroNoob]

Mark, what middle class jobs do you see getting automated? The only ones I see are low end jobs

Transportation (trucks, trains, etc.) , taxi jobs, fast food services, and retail clothing and merchandise

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Mark, what middle class jobs do you see getting automated? The only ones I see are low end jobs

Transportation (trucks, trains, etc.) , taxi jobs, fast food services, and retail clothing and merchandise

White collar work in droves!

I do business process automation for a living.

I once automated a division of 50 people down to 2. These people were college educated and handled a somewhat complex process. My software kicked off every 15 minutes and did everything that it took 48 people about 10 days to accomplish. In addition I took the division paperless and went to Internet Fax instead of sending mail.

What is probably scarier is that it took me about 4 months to do this.

Businesses can get by with many less college educated people doing white collar work than ever in history.

Another good example of this is something like Legal Zoom.com
This online company allows a person to create all the paperwork for a legally binding will, Power of Attorney, Creation of a corporation, divorce etc..
You just fill out questionnaires that drive everything to create all the legalese you need WITHOUT a Lawyer.

Blue collar workers in droves!

Foxconn which builds smart phones for Apple and Samsung just laid off 60,000 workers who assembled electronics and replaced them with robots.

So if you work on an assembly line in a factory, you are a prime candidate for automation.

Here is a TED talk about how we are expected to have 2 Billion jobs disappear by 2030.
http://www.futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/2-billion-jobs-to-disappear-by-2030/

How we could lose 47% of our jobs in the next 25 years.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/why-the-coming-jobs-crisis-is-bigger-than-you-think/

The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/...-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html?_r=2

 

[Rich]

Yep, this is the elephant in the room that no politician is discussing. So many jobs are going to be lost to automation over the next few decades. The average citizens who see it coming often discuss the need to institute a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to help soften the effect of the job losses. Of course, politicians are highly resistant to such a drastic policy change. No doubt they will do nothing until the crap hits the fan and then there will be highly reactionary policies enacted. If a majority of lower/middle income jobs disappear, it will create a huge societal imbalance. Policies will have to change or there will be blood in the streets. Something akin to the French Revolution. If we plan for it, I expect this outcome could be avoided.

 

[Kevin]

This is very different from the Industrial Revolution. We are looking at the exponential automation of many people's jobs.

This isn't empowering people to do other things. In fact it is working opposite to that.

Jobs are being created at the bottom(lots) and the very top(few). There is a huge sucking sound in the middle. Middle class jobs are the easiest to automate. The salaries involved are also large enough to motivate automation. So what happens is that there are more people fighting for lower paying jobs. The few highly intelligent people with the right skills are also in demand. Automation will first start moving downstream towards the bottom jobs as it gets cheaper and last but not least it will close in on those at the top.

I haven't read his book, and like I said I started watching the interview sometime probably towards the end, but I didn't hear him mention jobs, but perhaps it was covered and you are probably correct about this being different than the past. So I wasn't thinking of it from a jobs perspective. My perspective was from has there been other times in history where advances in technology changed lives just as quickly and profoundly as today? I would imagine when electricity started entering homes, and the products and advances created by that new resource started exploding, the people of that time might have felt like life was changing for them as quickly as we think it is for us today.

From a jobs perspective, I am not sure we are looking at a doomsday scenario of machines taking over our human work force. The middle class is shrinking right now, but that has more to do with more people in the middle class making too much money to now be considered "middle class". Not sure if this will continue or not, but I hope so. I think new technology will change more jobs than they will completely destroy, and people will need to adapt. Also a lot of technology just makes jobs easier more so than they take the job away completely.

I am having gallbladder surgery here in about a month. The surgeon said he's going to use a technique called "Single Site da Vinci", which means a robotic arm is going to perform most of the tasks. But the doctor is still going to be there.........and an anesthesiologist I hope!

 

[RCHeliGuy]

Life is changing at an exponential rate outside of jobs.

Doctors are very much still involved in surgery. The robots are currently tools that allow them to be more precise and steadier than the human hand is capable of. Furthermore surgery still involves a lot of very quick decisions and handling unexpected situations. It would take something approaching AI to handle that and it is still a ways off.

However IBM's Dr. Watson is busy becoming the best diagnostician for reading MRI's, PET, CAT, X-Rays etc.. The job of radiologist will become a technician position in the not to distant future. If I were an aspiring doctor right now I would not be going into radiology. Doctors are not the greatest diagnosticians. Their ability varies widely and they tend to become less effective when they have more test data to look at. A computer doesn't have that issue.

 

[JonFo]

The rate of change is about to increase, maybe even exponentially thanks to advances in AI.

An example of that is language translation, there was a great piece on this in the NYT magazine, it's long but well worth the read.

One can easily see these AI-driven advances bringing unknown changes to the employment, healthcare and transportation arenas.
One arena one might hope would be seriously disrupted would be governance, as we clearly need some serious intelligence applied to the local, national and global spheres.

But even in our world of audio, I expect to see cloud-assisted system configuration and tuning to increasingly become both available and capable.
I foresee a day when we can use an app on the smartphone that captures the room configuration through pictures, listens to the room with the built-in mic (while using the camera and other sensors to detect relative locations of the samples), asks the user a few questions, and after the cloud-based AI has crunches the data, starts to interactively guide the user in re-positioning the speakers, furniture and system settings to optimize the placement in the room. Basically our jobs as forum denizens helping others with their setups will be taken over by a 'bot

BTW- Dibs on that idea, sounds like a cool thing for my third startup in a year or so.

 

[Rich]

Basically our jobs as forum denizens helping others with their setups will be taken over by a 'bot

Crap! Where am I going to find another job? This is the only thing I've got any long-term experience in.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

It looks like the new Auto pilot features by Tesla are making our roads safer already. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report says that the Tesla crash rate dropped 40% after autopilot safety features were installed.

Tesla has also improved their software so that one situation that resulted in a fatality would not reoccur. While some articles will cherry pick whenever there is a failure, over 3,000 people die every day in the US because of bad decisions made by human drivers. Tesla, Mercedes and many others are rapidly improving automated driving systems and lives will be saved because of them.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/1...ercent-after-autopilot-was-installed-feds-say