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Driverless Cars – are they good or are they bad?

One of the coolest things about “Daylight saving time” is that it shifts the world an hour later. Where the sun had dipped below the horizon around 6 pm – now it slides well past seven oms. Here is a link to my snarky yesterday’s weather forecast! https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottDocAndersen

The concept of driver-less cars makes people either happy or nervous. I understand both sides. As a driver in one of the worst US metropolitan areas in the US for driving, I think driverless cars are a good thing. Having gone to and ridden in cars in Itlay, I think there are parts of the world that the driverless car should be mandatory today. The reality of the cars is that you will still have a driver and that person will be responsible for making emergency decisions. Following up on comments by Albert, and by Alex, the reality of the AI being able to handle mixed mode driving is going to be the issue (Alex’s comment) while enforcing driverless or automated driving requires some tech (Albert’s comment).

The reality of driverless cars is the ever-expanding push towards what is called edge computing. Edge computing allows for the distribution of assets within the broader concept of a network. It reduces both the latency and lag for transmission. Knowing the conditions (traffic) and the conditions (Weather) in real time is the value of Edge Computing. Look, you get a road with 200 automated cars and one human drive car, and the AI will be able to respond properly. If you have 50 human drivers, it requires many more adjustments per second. Driverless or Automated cars will stay in the same location in their lane. They will be the same position about the sides of the road.

Humans don’t do that by the way. The current system of Lidar sensors in cars (sometimes called Collision Prevention systems) is important. First, the cars with those systems (2016 and later for many car companies) have caused a reduction in the most prevalent form of auto impacts. Read end, or stopped car and approaching the car, striking the read of the stopped car. Reducing that globally by 20% will result in billions of dollars saved. Scary fact if you think bout it.

A fully automated driving system would reduce that even further.  Plus a car (blown tire say) with an issue can notify all the cars about it that there is an issue.

The future is always interesting. Driverless cars are they good or are they bad?

  • Question of

    Do you think Driverless cars will be a good thing?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you think Driverless cars are a bad thing?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you think driverless cars should be mandatory?

    • Yes
    • No

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What do you think?

11 Points

Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

27 Comments

  1. I’m not so sure about driverless cars to be honest. I’d much prefer to be behind the wheel and being in control of the vehicle. I’m sure lots of people think like this too.

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  2. There are already driverless trains so a driverless car is not impossible to imagine. In Indonesia, they have BRT or bus rapid transit system in which there is a dedicated lane for buses. If driverless cars will have a lane similar to that then I do not see any harm. Besides, that means people like me who have no interest in learning how to drive can now have a car.

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    • enforcement is the easy part – getting to the tipping point where they can be mandated is the hard part.

      What is the market tipping point towards no more human drivers?
      80%
      90%

      That makes me wonder…

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      • let’s just assume they don’t try to jail anyone for driving, they just seize the car. if someone needs that car to go to work, they’re out of a job and not paying taxes. it could be an economic disaster

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          • we could always have roaming driverless cars that got to folks when they got to folks. like an automated uber. enough of those might solve the issue entirely, especially if there were incentives which allowed employees to WFH

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        • Uber and Lyft were the first to jump on Driverless cars. I suspect that is the very first use case, although there would be backside economic impact (fewer people earning money as Uber drivers. The skills now would be checking on automated cars, so it would be fewer higher paying jobs.)

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        • I suspect that will be a tech job (fixing the driverless car) that combines a level of understanding the software and understand the car. The future state mechanic!

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  3. All I have to say is that I am scared shitless in any type of moving vehicle but less so in a bus because they are more massive. Also I would be deadly afraid of a malfunction in a driverless car especially if I was alone in it… The concept is interesting but there are still many factors and technologies to work on before they become ever mandatory.

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      • Sorry about the delay in answering but Virily was kind of down yesterday again. When it comes to driverless cars, I am totally hopeless to convince as I would much rather use my two legs any day and anytime. BTW, do you know what happened yesterday on Virily?

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        • There are many interesting use cases for driverless cars, I do prefer to walk myself!

          I am not exactly sure what happened yesterday. From pure speculation, I would say an update to the system failed.

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    • The ride-share companies Lyft and Uber have them in the US right now. Google has driven nearly 20,000 miles with their driverless cars without incidence since last summer.