Why Self-Driving Cars Are Still a Long Way Down the Road 352
moon_unit2 writes "Technology Review has a piece on the reality behind all the hype surrounding self-driving, or driverless, cars. From the article: 'Vehicle automation is being developed at a blistering pace, and it should make driving safer, more fuel-efficient, and less tiring. But despite such progress and the attention surrounding Google's "self-driving" cars, full autonomy remains a distant destination. A truly autonomous car, one capable of dealing with any real-world situation, would require much smarter artificial intelligence than Google or anyone else has developed. The problem is that until the moment our cars can completely take over, we will need automotive technologies to strike a tricky balance: they will have to extend our abilities without doing too much for the driver.'"
Great AI (Score:2, Funny)
Imagine if you had a car with a great AI, better than what is out there today. You just tell it to drive somewhere and it does. It never gets lost, knows where all addresses are, knows how to park, etc. Basically everything.
There'd still be people that did things like, "It seemed to be going too fast so I slammed on the brakes and the car spun out of control and into a ditch. If it weren't for your AI, this never would have happened! I want a million dollars." or "I was sitting in the driver's seat drunk off my ass with my hands on the wheel and pretending to steer the car. Your AI drove the car into a school bus full of nuns and now everyone is accusing me of being a drunk driver, I want a million dollars!" or maybe even "Your AI car was trying to kill me, so I had to run it off the road and set it on fire, killing the person who was also inside. Now the police are charging me with murder. Had your AI not been sent back in time to kill the humans, I wouldn't have had to do this!"
Look at the case history of cruise control, for example. It was a big thing to automatically claim cruise control fucked up and cause you to drive to the bar, get drunk, and then try to drive home.
Answer (Score:5, Funny)
Because Skynet, that's why.
Re:Don't have to be perfect, just better (Score:2, Funny)
...probably better at normal driving situations
Will auto-pilot have the blood lust to take out the squirrel crowding your lane? Humans are number one!
Re:Don't have to be perfect, just better (Score:4, Funny)
I completely agree. You can imagine any emergency scenario you want with combinations of black ice, sand, curves, blowouts, etc. But a human being has to rely on what they've experienced to help them react to those situations and I'm willing to bet that most people are unprepared for that scenario. On the other hand, a computer which has been programmed for that scenario, or has learned from it, can easily benefit the entire population of cars via a software update. A computer can make real time assessments of weather, tire wear, etc to determine the best possible course of action. Most people I see around here can't even be expected to turn on their lights in inclement weather let alone know how to reactor to uncommon emergency situations.