Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
If You Think the Cabbies Are Mad Now…
Buckle your seat belts, everybody. We’ve reached peak disruption: a story of the gig economy intersecting with the rise of the robots. From Thomas Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle:
From taxicab unions and package couriers to politicians and regulators, a growing crowd of people would like to destroy Uber. Add one more name to the list: Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.
Somewhere lost in the scrum over whether Uber drivers are employees or contractors, or whether the company conducts proper background checks, is the simple fact that Kalanick wants to eventually replace all Uber drivers with software and computers. Like Google and Tesla, Uber is trying to develop a car that can drive without a human operator.
The piece, of course, dedicates a fair amount of time to what Lee perceives to be Uber’s hypocrisy: the company’s current PR strategy partially revolves around arguing that it offers drivers a better deal than cab companies, while its long-term strategy would remove drivers from the equation altogether.
I’m inclined to go a little easier on the company then that. If they think this is the way the market is inevitably going to move, I don’t know that they have much of a choice. How are you going to compete if your price has to include labor costs that your competitors aren’t shouldering?
What’s more interesting to me is the fact that the vision here is bigger than Uber. Indeed, what Kalanick and company have in mind is nothing more than the destruction of the idea of personal automobiles. From the Guardian piece by Alex Hern linked in the quote above:
While a full move to driverless cars would be Uber’s dream scenario, letting it cut the cost of a ride to little more than fuel plus wear and tear, it could very well be a nightmare for car manufacturers. Self-driving cars could prove the death-knell for private car ownership, with services like Uber offering a cheap substitution while avoiding the wastefulness of leaving an asset worth thousands of pounds sit unused on the side of the road. A self-driving car can carry someone from home to work, head off to a different office and pick up someone going to the airport, even take a package in the boot to be delivered to a client – all while a conventional car would be sitting in its owner’s car park.
Perhaps because of that, the focus from the conventional auto industry has been less on driverless cars, and more on using self-driving technology as a safety feature to augment traditional driving. For instance, a number of cars already on the market are able to maintain a steady cruising speed, stay in lane, stay a safe distance away from cars in front, and even park themselves, all without human intervention. In a patchwork fashion, those cars could eventually build up to almost full automation – but the signals coming from the industry indicate that the final step might be something they are loathe to take.
I own one of these “AI vehicles,” and I have to admit that this technology is very cool (though not yet reliable enough that you would rush out to get the fully automated version). Still, I’m conflicted — and I wonder if you are too.
I’m largely receptive to the intellectual case for driverless cars. But I’m emotionally resistant.
Now, granted, I’m an outlier when it comes to romanticizing driving. In just the past year or so, I’ve piloted my SUV through 42 states. For tax purposes, my official residence is the interstate highway system. But I don’t think you have to be as much of a road warrior as I am to be a little uneasy about this. (Please note before you jump into the comments that this in no way means I think we should attempt to arrest technological progress on this front.)
Here are my questions: Are those of us who feel like we’d be losing some ineffable freedom by having the wheel taken away from us just sentimental luddites? Should we just chill out and await the brave new world of driverless cars and hyperloops? Will personal automobiles become indulgences rather than necessities? For that matter, to what extent can they coexist with driverless vehicles?
I realize I’m getting perilously close to “Get off my lawn” territory. I’m just hoping I’m not the only one.
Published in Economics, Science & Technology
The car company builds it and sells it to itself. The car takes a loan then goes out looking for work to pay it back. Then one day he can earn enough to buy himself a new self.
“Here are my questions: Are those of us who feel like we’d be losing some ineffable freedom by having the wheel taken away from us just sentimental luddites? Should we just chill out and await the brave new world of driverless cars and hyperloops?”
I know just what you mean. I think it’s going to take time to get there emotionally. I also look forward to the day I can drink as much wine as I want to and not worry about driving home.
We will if it costs us $2,000 mo to insure them.
Just curious, why do you think the insurance rates for human drivers will go up?
You’ll simply take the driverless car to the rental station closest to the mountains and rent a car for the day.
The snow problem will be solved by driverless snowplows and the driverless cars slowing themselves down to 25 mph.
50%+ of the cars on the road in major metro areas will be driverless by 2036.
The amount of the bet will be what all gentleman bet – $1
ubber
I thought you said earlier than humans will not be allowed to drive cars at all because of the potential for accidents. Am I misunderstanding your point?
On the snow issue, I think you missed the part where I said:
Simply driving slow doesn’t address the problem at all.
Liability, since the accident rate for human driven cars will be so much higher than driverless cars.
But why would they be higher than present?
Looks like one of them is likely to be Larry3435. Hope it isn’t true, Larry.
Joke from “Take the Money and Run,” (1969).
During job interview: “Do you have any experience with computers?” “Yes, my aunt has one.”
Very funny in 1969. Today, not perceived as a joke at all.
Driverless cars won’t be everywhere intially, due to the challenge of mapping dirt roads.
The snow problem can be solved with technology
Will the driverless cars be able to adjust for when there is a marathon or bicycle race going? Or will the cars drive right into the runners and/or bicyclists? In other words, will they be able to read the road signs that say “Road closed today for race.”
I think there was a thread about that technology yesterday.
Seawriter
The reason horses are no longer the preferred mode of transportation is that no one has been able to develop one that has more than one horsepower.
There is a business opportunity there.
If we use commonly owned driverless cars will my wife be able to find out when I’ve been to visit my girlfriend?
There’s a show about it too. And you know what’s a great idea? Self-driving flamethrowers.
And here we are back at square one, begging the question.
Count me in the skeptic column re the self-driving car. Or maybe we should call it the auto-automobile?
Just noting that the DARPA Grand Challenge for autonomous vehicles was run on dirt roads before it was attempted on urban streets, so the depth of experience is actually greater there.
Uber doesn’t exist to provide jobs. It exists to turn a profit.
So, driverless or no, the company will change to meet a market demand, and that may result in a shrinkage of auto sales.
Which I would salute, whole-heartedly, because disruption is good for any industry in the long term.
How will they know to take over if they’re busy commenting on Ricochet or writing the next great novel or Skyping with the Hong Kong office?
I only meant that the development of the driverless forklift field would be a more natural first step and also an indicator of the possibility of the eventual success of driverless cars.
Actually I think warehouses are a much more hectic place than city streets. It might be a good proving ground but the general lack of “laws of the road” in a warehouse could prove to be a challenge.
If you search for driverless forklift you will see it is being worked on. Also, while not technically a forklift you should look at the Kiva Robot system Amazon is using in their warehouses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs
My hunch with the Segway is it failed because it doesn’t fit. It’s too fast and bulky for the sidewalk and way too slow for the road. It has nowhere to go. (It is kinda dorky too though).
I’ve got me one of those new Ford F150’s and it has some fancy driver aids, adaptive cruise, lane keeping, collision detection and a few others. My wife drives is most of the time but when I am driving it I find myself focused on the challenges of a driverless car. It can be fascinating to see the issues that come up that I as a software engineer have trouble seeing the solution.
As an example, with adaptive cruise engaged it will leave a nice gap between me and the car ahead. It works well. I’ve noticed that when the aggressive motorist sees that gap and dives into it, the truck is able to detect that though a car is now much closer it is moving pretty quickly and so the truck slows gently until the gap is restored. But there have been two interesting experiences a guy on a lovely Ducati jumped into that gap at very high speed and then quickly changed lanes again, the truck halted slowly — so slowly I thought I was going to get rear-ended — then as the bike moved away it accelerated quite quickly.
(continued)
(continued)
Similarly some sheet rock snapped off of a load a truck to my right was carrying and bounded into my lane. The material was of sufficient size that the truck thought it a car and proceeded to brake fiercely. Again, I thought I’d be hit from behind.
Ultimately I get Dan’s points and I’ve worked on enough software projects to know the devil is indeed in the details. That said, I still think they’ll get it sorted in short order.
I love that all these idiots on their phones will be able to let the car drive sanely but I’ll hate not being able to drive — I love driving. More than that, I love riding my motorcycles. When it is against the law to ride and drive I will NOT be happy.
Here’s a problem with adaptive cruise: You’ve set your cruise to 50mph. Now you get into slow traffic, going maybe 20 mph. So you’re following this traffic along, and you get to your freeway exit. You turn out of the slow traffic, and suddenly the cruise goes “Oh, open road!” and starts to accelerate.
If this happens in slippery conditions it’s a perfect situation for your car to spin out of control and go off the road. I believe the more sophisticated adaptive cruise controls can now detect steering angle and prevent acceleration while turning, but the early ones could cause accidents in this way.
I think there is still a class of problems requiring human judgment and morals that we aren’t likely to solve until we have true AI – which may never happen.
My example of the ‘no-win’ situation is one I don’t think we can easily solve. Drivers are sometimes forced to make choices that will both result in bad outcomes, with one hopefully being less bad than the other. These are ‘fuzzy’ choices with no clear solution. Should you hit the deer or swerve into the ditch? What if it’s an Elk? Or a Moose? Or what if it’s just a large empty cardboard box? What if the ditch sides are steep and you are likely to roll? What if there are people standing on the side of the road and you might lose control and hit them? What’s the least-risky course of action?
These kinds of judgements have to be made in a split second and have life-changing consequences. You really don’t want to hit a Moose, for example, because they stand tall enough that they are likely to come right through the windshield and kill everyone in the car. On the other hand, a deer is likely to bounce off the car. A cardboard box of the same shape can be hit with little damage.
So what happens when a driverless car swerves to avoid a cardboard box and wipes out some children standing at a bus stop?
Then there’s the moral component – we generally swerve to avoid dogs and cats in the road, even though that puts humans at risk. Probably not a smart choice, but a human one. But do we want automated cars to mow down cats and dogs with no attempt to avoid them if they can’t brake in time?
Let me know how the trademark battle sorts out. I’m starting Udder, to leverage driverless cow technologies.