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Transportation Technology

Autonomous Cars and the Centralization of Driving 181

Posted by Soulskill from the go-where-the-algorithm-lets-you dept.
New submitter arctother writes: Taxicab Subjects has posted a response to a Morgan Stanley analyst's recent take on how driverless cars will shape society in the future. From the article: [R]eally, 'autonomy' is still not the right word for it. Just as the old-fashioned 'automobile' was never truly 'auto-mobile,' but relied, not only on human drivers, but an entire concrete infrastructure built into cities and smeared across the countryside, so the interconnected 'autonomous vehicles' of the future will be even more dependent on the interconnected systems of which they are part. To see this as 'autonomy' is to miss the deeper reality, which will be control. Which is why the important movement reflected in the chart's up-down continuum is not away from 'Human Drivers' to 'Autonomous' cars, but from a relatively decentralized system (which relies on large numbers of people knowing how to drive) to an increasingly centralized system (relying on the knowledge of a small number of people)."
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Autonomous Cars and the Centralization of Driving

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  • Just as the old-fashioned 'automobile' was never truly 'auto-mobile,' but relied, not only on human drivers, but an entire concrete infrastructure built into cities and smeared across the countryside

    The original "horseless carriages" started out by following the paths their horse-drawn peers used. No special infrastructure just for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by in4mer ( 181985 )

      The writer of this is just an overblown troll, backed by an industry that stands to lose basically everything when cars don't require drivers. Circular logic? Check. Overly flowery, net-zero phrases and rhetorical questions? Check. Erroneous assumptions? Hat trick!

      Please don't feed the trolls.

    • Re:Start with an erroneous *world view* ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @05:45PM (#49454957) Homepage Journal

      Fixed that or you.

      People who come up with this crap usually live in urban areas and have never driven on anything but city streets and urban highways. I somehow don't see the autonomous car getting me up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies that doesn't show up on any road map. I also don't see me trusting said car to pick it's way around, over and between the various obstacles like wash outs and large lose rocks that take some very careful driving to get over or around. Especially when there's a 1,000 foot drop on one side and a cliff face on the other. Routes like the Alpine Loop between Silverton and Lake City or the "road" to Argentine Pass to name just two places I've driven.

      Cheers,
      Dave

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @05:56PM (#49454995)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Why do you think that I prefer to be driven than to drive myself? It's an awfully big assumption don't you think?
          In the city and on commercial transport corridors there is some scope for this, but a lot of other use cases, people actually enjoy the process of operating a machine. How does your robot car solve that problem?
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sl149q ( 1537343 )

            Because one of the first perks that well off people get is to be driven around in cars by other people.

            A lot of people like driving, on some roads, for pleasure, some of the time.

            That does not describe the vast majority of required driving in most conditions. I.e. to and from work or the mall.

            Again, small enough demand that driving clubs will accommodate it. Just like some people own and ride horses, other people will own and drive cars.

            The vast majority of people won't own horses or drive their own cars.

            • You were making sense until the last line. There will be a small demand, but price and practicality will put it in the same ballpark as the horse or Limo. The vast majority of people won't own horses, limos, or their own cars - robot or otherwise.

          • Why do you think that I prefer to be driven than to drive myself?

            I am not the one you replied to but I don't believe you will want to be driven. I just want the idiots who can't be arsed to drive with their eyes on the road instead of on their phones to be driven. I also assume you don't fall in that category because those people don't seem to enjoy driving. They probably just want to get from A to B. Exactly what a self driving car would provide.

            If I had a car I would also want it to be self-driving because I find driving to be boring. I do, however, realize it is a 1 t

        • Simple: it wouldn't be any fun or a challenge. Still no dings in the skid plate.

          Cheers,
          Dave

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )

          Why do you think that a vehicle that can see in 360 degrees around it in the visible spectrum, infrared spectrum, and LIDAR -- including underneath itself -- and knows exactly where it is within a few millimeters would be worse at navigating between obstacles than you are?

          If anything, static obstacles are the easy part. Predicting what crazy human drivers are going to do is hard.

          I don't think that the autonomous vehicle would be willing to take the changes offroad that a practiced offroad enthusiast is willing to take and has a degree of experience with the ramifications thereof. Heavy offroading requires understanding how the vehicle will react when used other than for its original on-road intent. It means knowing how it'll work in extremely low traction, when wheel(s) are lifted off of the ground, when the ground conditions are constantly changing, and how speed versus braking

          • Re:Start with an erroneous *world view* ... (Score:4, Informative)

            by bitingduck ( 810730 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @09:13PM (#49455621) Homepage

            You mean like in the DARPA grand challenge [wikipedia.org]?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by TWX ( 665546 )
              And will I be able to buy that vehicle for $40,000, put almost 200,000 miles on it, carry five occupants, and still drive on the highway at 75 miles per hour?

              • Sure, they don't cost $40,000. But neither does the human-driven vehicle, when you add in the 2k+ man-hours * you're going to need for the control system.

                *more if you actually take it off-road...

              • Probably not long after you can get the on-road version.

                There are very real commercial applications for OR autonomous driving, and keep in mind that this was 10 years ago and those were self-funded (or by whatever sponsors they could round up) university teams doing one-off vehicles. If you look at what they achieved for what they spent, and extrapolate it to mass production it's very reasonable to expect off-road autonomy to be available on the same time scale as on-road.

                And as zippthorne notes, you have

              • And will I be able to buy that vehicle for $40,000, put almost 200,000 miles on it, carry five occupants, and still drive on the highway at 75 miles per hour?

                Please don't move the goalposts - he answered your original concern fairly succinctly. If he's anything like most nerds I know he won't appreciate having to puff and run to keep up! :-)

          • No reason that autonomous vehicles can't handle most unpaved roads eventually -- after decades of development and a lot of "incidents" -- some amusing, some tragic. And a LOT of lawsuits incidentally. Unpaved rural roads that are well maintained are fairly common in rural areas of the Eastern US. They really aren't much different from urban and suburban surface streets except for more washboarding, more washouts, more livestock in the road, no curbs, and perhaps fewer potholes. Poorly maintained unpaved

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • but take into consideration that the army has autonomous vehicles right now that drive offroad constantly.

              Well, no. They don't seem to. They're talking about autonomous vehicles And there is at least one far enough along for photo shoots. http://rt.com/usa/driverless-a... [rt.com] But it's often a long way from capability demonstration to proven capability. Not to mention that there may be some significant differences between the appropriate method for an autonomous APC to deal with a couple of cows in the roa

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Why do you think that a vehicle that can see in 360 degrees around it in the visible spectrum, infrared spectrum, and LIDAR

          Sounds like you've got zero experience using these technologies in the real world.

          The first problem you have is that these technologies aren't as good as you think. Rain and snow tends to have a very negative effect on the LIDAR, IR and Visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (which are actually quite close to each other). There's some very good reasons Google is testing thei

      • Fixed that or you.

        Fixed that for you. 3rd time's a charm :-)

      • Re:Start with an erroneous *world view* ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by sl149q ( 1537343 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @11:59PM (#49456047)

        Who cares if autonomous cars can't take you up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies. The number of trips along those roads is small enough that the EXISTING set of vehicles will satisfy all demand for many decades EVEN if no more are built.

        On the other hand, for the other 99.999% of required commutes autonomous vehicles will do fine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Fixed that or you.

        People who come up with this crap usually live in urban areas and have never driven on anything but city streets and urban highways. I somehow don't see the autonomous car getting me up an old mining road in the Colorado Rockies that doesn't show up on any road map. I also don't see me trusting said car to pick it's way around, over and between the various obstacles like wash outs and large lose rocks that take some very careful driving to get over or around. Especially when there's a 1,000 foot drop on one side and a cliff face on the other. Routes like the Alpine Loop between Silverton and Lake City or the "road" to Argentine Pass to name just two places I've driven.

        Cheers,
        Dave

        Whoa, hold on, that's getting way to advanced for autonomous cars. They're going to suck in city traffic too.

        What the proponents of autonomous cars often ignore is the fact that they'll all be using the same navigation data, so that means they're all going to pick the same route without manual human intervention. Anyone who drives in a city who has half a brain knows that sometimes a longer route gets you where you want to go faster because it avoids congestion.

        • Traffic data is included in modern navigation systems. Last modern car I was in just asked me something in the lines of "Traffic congestion ahead. Reroute?".

    • This article seems to have missed the point altogether. If we're talking about automation then it's less about cars or how they are controlled and more about the most effective and efficient forms of transportation. I don't care if it a car, bike, walking, horse or UFO, if it gets me where I want to go quickly safely and cheaply I'm there.
      We are getting more urbanised as a race, and cities are becoming larger so scale, efficiency, and design become key. I travel a fair bit and the only model of transporta

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @04:03PM (#49454531)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:So how long before (Score:5, Interesting)

      by currently_awake ( 1248758 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @04:53PM (#49454735)
      The ability to remote control a car is a major worry. Some possible problems: No driver suicide car bombs, abduction by remote control, changing the route a car uses so it puts someone the government doesn't like at the scene of a crime, if you cancel a persons authorization to use an autonomous car (assuming this replaces mass transit) you basically imprison them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by alfredo ( 18243 )
        What about corporate control of your movements?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sl149q ( 1537343 )

      Versus a car chase that injures how many other people and ends with you crashing into a barrier and / or being shot by police as they try to apprehend you.

      Not saying its a good idea to have the police control your car... just saying that the current defacto law enforcement is not much better when you get down to it.

      • The problem of remote control of a car is that you cannot assume it'll happen for good reasons, or by the people that you think. It's the same issue of having an encryption backdoor, theoretically held by "the good guys"

        If a vehicle can be controlled remotely, it's because there is some authentication mechanism that allows that to happen. Anyone that steals the keys can remotely control the car. Imagine how much fun kidnapping becomes when you can do it from the comfort of your own home.

        Same problem when pe

  • Basically (Score:5, Funny)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday April 11, 2015 @04:10PM (#49454555) Journal
    So basically farmers will be the only ones who know how to drive, and the only ones who know how to use a gun, and they'll have all the power. It'll be like 19th century France all over again.

    Sounds reasonable.........~

  • What I'm curious about is how will different algorithms from different manufacturers all react to each other? Is there a standard set of rules that Google/Tesla/etc are all working together on? i.e. What happens when one mfgr's car does something mfgr B's car doesn't recognize or "agree" to?

    Further, if the rules states "minimum distance is 3 car lengths" then how does it know when the brakes have worn out and 3 car lengths is no longer a safe distance? Is the onus on the car or the owner at that point?

    • "What I'm curious about is how will different algorithms from different manufacturers all react to each other?"

      Like in "I'll try not to crash into anything" and then the competing brand goes with "I'll crash into everything that moves around"? Please, show me you have think of it at least for a few seconds offering a detailed example of your scenario.

      "how does it know when the brakes have worn out?"

      Doesn't your car have an indicator of braking pads' end of life? Mine has, and it's 15 years old.

      "Is the onu

  • Autonomous vehicles will have to scrupulously obey the law. But society and business depend on the mass NOT obeying the law. We get to work on time because we cheat. How long would it take you to do anything if you could not depend on the timing from route selection and speed? You would not be able to project the future. And huge chunks of your life would disappear into these prison-pod vehicles full of people desperately checking their watches. Also, how about the fact that actually driving the vehicle tak
  • I think in a relatively near future - 25 years or so - manually driven cars will be regarded much in the same way that we regard horses today. They'll still be around, albeit in smaller numbers. There'll be lots of people who love them and keep them as a hobby. There will be special trails were you can go ride them. There will be enthusiast meetings and the like. But no one will use them as transportation to go back and forth to work every day.

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