Google Cars Drive Themselves, In Traffic 293
An anonymous reader noted that "At the TED 2011 conference this week, Google has been giving extremely rare demos of its self-driving cars. TED attendees have even been allowed to travel inside them, on a closed course. The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver."
Can't wait ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't drive due to my disabilities. This would be useful. Of course, it has to be bug free (OK almost). It probably won't be ready until after I am dead though. I always wanted KITT type of car! :(
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It only has to be better than the average driver.
At least from a rational standpoint. From a legal standpoint it probably has to be 100 times better and wait 10 years "just in case".
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The trick will be to introduce the anti-collision technology as a driver aid. That way it can be proven and become normal and thus pave the way to fully automatic cars.
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Sadly true. For some reason people will continue to want faulty human drivers on the road who kill tens of thousands of innocents every year.
I guess it must be because when a computer error results in a death, who do you blame? When a human error results in a death you can blame, cuss, guilt-trip, defame, and more. It's a much more satisfying experience when you have someone to blame.
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It only has to be better than the average driver
No, drivers can be delicensed too. It only needs to be able to *get* a license, voice-assisted by whatever "disabled" person is on the driver's seat --think disabled men, or backseat children whose parent driver just had a heart attack at 70mph. Good plan, unless lawmakers actively kill this automation effort in its infancy on grounds of "automated terror attacks that leave no video-trackable humans to chase... like we caught that Times Square guy in 2010" or something.
IBM's recently lauded "Watson techno
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This is the same concern people have with flying, despite it's vastly safer statistical margins. People are bothered when they are not in control of their own fate.
Flight is an excellent example of how human control is still far better than any computer; would an autopilot have safely landed that US Air flight in the middle of the Hudson river? Would even the best modern AI have brought UA232 in as well as the human crew did?
Re:Can't wait ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's just anecdotal. What about instances where clear pilot error has caused fatal crashes? You can't just pick out particular instances, one way or the other, and made your judgment on the issue based on that. I honestly don't know whether it's true or not, not having looked at any data on it myself, but I think it's a huge mistake to jump to conclusions like that.
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Cars, by virtue of the fact that they're resting on the ground, have an option that aircraft don't. It's called passively rolling to a stop.
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I have to question the safety of ANYTHING landing a plane in the middle of the Hudson river.
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I can't drive due to my disabilities. This would be useful. Of course, it has to be bug free (OK almost). It probably won't be ready until after I am dead though. I always wanted KITT type of car! :(
Keep in mind the guy with the robotic arms whose car swerved off the road and crashed for no apparent reason when they offer to give out these cars to the handicapped.
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People with regular arms do that all the time - for no apparent reason, or for reasons that are truly terrible - they're drunk, they're speeding dangerously, they're too old to drive safely, they're exhausted, they're just plain old terrible drivers. At least with GoogleDrive, you know they'll have logs, will generally be able to look at what caused an accident, and then code around it for next time!
I look forward to robot drivers not just because I find driving a painful chore, but also because I don't lik
Going to be a long time unfortunately (Score:3)
Not only are there significant technological hurdles, of course, since you have to make your self-driving car capable of coping with all the regular cars and pedestrians and so on, but there are legal hurdles. The first time your car gets in a major accident, you are getting sued big time and it'll be humans, not car computers, on the jury. Say your car hits and kills a pedestrian because there was simply no way to avoid it at all. Their family will sue you for tons.
As such you have to be able to prove, bey
Re:Going to be a long time unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
*(Not that I agree with holding the manufacturer liable for a pedestrian jumping out in front of a car. I just think it's better that the family frivolously sue a car company with plenty of lawyers than an average citizen with no money for extended legal shenanigans.)
2nd order effects (Score:4, Interesting)
The 2nd order effects from this are going to be interesting. If you only have robot drivers (and you will, cause with lower accident rates, you'll have lower insurance rates if you always let the computer drive), you won't need visible signs or traffic lights. How would this affect pedestrian crossings? Would pedestrians feel irrationally unsafe crossing a road with robot drivers on it? Will we remove speed limits as computer reaction and cognitive ability gets faster?
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If you only have robot drivers (and you will, cause with lower accident rates, you'll have lower insurance rates if you always let the computer drive), you won't need visible signs or traffic lights.
Until humans driving cars is actually made illegal, there will always be some cars still driven by humans (if only because some people like doing the driving themselves, or want to use a "classic" car that doesn't support auto-drive, or -- most likely -- don't trust a computer to drive them safely). And as lon
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Would pedestrians feel irrationally unsafe crossing a road with robot drivers on it?
Maybe, but I don't think it'd last for long. Do you feel irrationally unsafe whenever you're walking past an automatic door? I mean, it could close right on you if it malfunctions. And don't even get me started on what could happen if it's an elevator door!
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I'd assume there will always be visible signs. It doesn't make much sense to equip every car with automated systems, because each one would likely require custom programming. Also, in the event of a computer malfunction, you don't want the human backup drivers, who are already not used to driving, trying to work without direction.
Speed limits are an interesting question. Assuming that cars actually did reach that point, I'd expect to see speed limits become raised or lowered to adjust traffic rates as neede
Re:2nd order effects (Score:5, Interesting)
obligatory (Score:2)
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Alcohol Industry Boon (Score:2)
It would make huge sense for the alcohol industry to invest heavily in this technology.
Cars which breath-test their drivers and serve as 'designated drivers' could give a huge boost to bars and nightclubs. And, no more alcohol-related traffic deaths.
Whats the worst that could happen? (Score:2)
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Absolutely true. Every time I watch traffic from my commuter bus on the highway I feel very very glad I'm not out there driving.
It gets worse when I'm out cycling. I was cycling on a nice quiet park road in SF (Washington+Arguello Blvd) the other weekend and some tourists were driving 15mph swerving in and out of the shoulder/bike lane. I ended up picking a safe time to pull around and pass them on the left since I wasn't interested in waiting for them to do something stupid like slam on the brakes.
If this comes to market... (Score:2)
All in all it would probably be better than normal drivers out there but food for
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You're giving the computer too much credit. The choice that the computer makes is dependent on how it was programmed. No computer at the application level is purely logical.
An AI isn't going to be driving your car, an automated driving program is. The driving program won't even consider your worth compared to the 7-year old. It's likely that it will be programmed to chose paths which will cause the least damage while prioritizing some types of damage.
Having an AI driving your car is silly, I don't want my c
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I don't want my car to have an existential crisis while on the freeway.
Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to drive to the AM/PM to pick up beer. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cause I don't.
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On a nonsensical note, I think its cool if they park my car in a "elevator thingy"hahha
You mean the car park in iRobot where cars are rotated vertically so they can be stacked closely together? I wondered about that thing. It seems like a great idea... until you realise you left grandma's priceless collection of bone china in the boot.
Not the first (Score:2)
Google isn't the first to do this, not by a long shot. Last year, there was a story about an autonomous car driving from Italy to China [ieee.org]. There were humans on board to take over in the event of a problem, of course. I'm sure there are other examples as well.
It is cool tech, but I think it'll be a long time before it's mature, and an even longer time before it gains acceptance. People want to be in control of their lives, even if they're better off relinquishing control. Whether it's long road trips due
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Just a matter of time really. My parents will think it's ridiculous, I'll think it's "scary" for the reasons you mentioned, but my kids (or their kids if this needs a lot more time) will know no better.
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People want to be in control of their lives, even if they're better off relinquishing control.
That's true only until the first iCar is released.
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Not many people will be willing to trust a computer to drive them, even if it's safer.
Actually, users won't have to. People think that robocars = no human drivers, but I don't think this is really true. All they need to do is have the same algorithms, but give the human drivers say 1 foot of play back and forth in the lane and say 2 seconds ahead and behind. Then people will still feel like they're in control, driving will still be fun for those of us who enjoy it, and those of us who would get sick to our stomachs in a robocar would feel better.
Under normal driving conditions, a human
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Under normal driving conditions, a human is not really better than a robot. It's the extreme conditions, where the driver is not paying attention to the road, or a sudden even, or ice and snow or a mechanical problem that gets you.
It's normal conditions, such as rain, boring roadworks and heavy traffic that a robot will be infinitely better than a distracted, incompetent or stupid driver.
It's extreme conditions where the human has infinitely better capacity to understand what's happening and choose the least bad outcome where the robot would be fucked.
I know I can put my car onto snow at speed, go into a semi-controlled slide and come out the other side in full control pointing the right way. A robot can't (yet) plan ahead like that,
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While I understand the sentiment, you have to make it worth my while before I'll relinquish control.
Step 1: The Automated Vehicle Lane on the Freeway.
Take out those annoying carpool lanes and replace them with "Automated Vehicle Lanes." Since the vehicles are automated, they can travel at a faster rate. So I get to work in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes. I'd sign up for that.
Step 2: DUIs
So I can go out drinking, stagger to my car, climb in and slur "Home, James!" and I don't have to worry about a DUI
Highway Holocaust (Score:4, Insightful)
Thirty thousand people dead each year in US car accidents. That's over half a million dead each generation. Robots could not do worse. And I think they could do a lot better. Especially if the cars talk to each other.
In fifty years people may well look back upon our manual driving culture as next to insane. That said. I love to drive. But really. It's hell out there
Can't Wait for the First DIY Experiments (Score:2)
It wasn't Skynet, it was Google (Score:2)
when I drive to work, (Score:2)
It's Stanford, not Google. (Score:5, Informative)
This is just funded by Google. It's the group at Stanford which did the DARPA Urban Challenge that's doing the work. It's essentially the same technology. They're getting very good at this.
The thing on top of the car is a rotating cone of LIDAR scanners. The original version of that was developed by Team DAD for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The prototype, which was a much bigger wheel of scanners, fell off the vehicle. But they then built a more compact production version, the Velodyne scanner, with 64 lasers. It costs about $100K per unit, but automatic driving became much better once that came out. Most of the teams in the DARPA Urban Challenge used that.
Personally, I think the rotating machinery approach is too expensive for production, and that the Advanced Scientific Concepts flash LIDAR has more promise as a production product. The ASC system requires some exotic custom imaging ICs, with a time-of-flight timer behind each pixel. That's the kind of thing that's incredibly expensive when you make 10 of them, and cheap when you make 10 million.
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Standard cars should get it too. On the old Daytona USA racing game you had a little on-screen "radar" that showed your car in the middle and the position of other cars to the side and behind it. It made up for the lack of a rear view mirror and the ability to look out the side windows.
Having something similar projected on the windscreen would be an amazing driving aid, especially on motorways where idiots seem to change lane without checking their blind spot as a matter of course.
Tangent... (Score:2)
Eye contact (Score:2)
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Slashdot needs a URL extender, and auto block/ban goatse.*
Re:More info on the AI behind this (Score:4, Funny)
It's pretty amazing how they've stretched the limits of technology!
Real question is does it advertise, not track (Score:3)
Does it track you everywhere you go?
Its from Google, of course it harvests data to better deliver targeted advertising. The real question is will it deliver targeted ads while driving. A pleasant voice telling you of the sponsored sites you are driving near.
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Nah, it'll just take you on "detours" and park in front of businesses similar to the one you were going to...
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...The real question is will it deliver targeted ads while driving....
This could be a real boon for the billboard industry! The car plans the route to expose you to the client's advertising product most relevant to your selected destination. And, if you are willing to give up information on your friends personal preferences, you might travel the most direct path along with the message:
As our way of thanking you for your
positive contributions to Google Transit,
you are eligible to disable advertising...
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This could be a real boon for the billboard industry! The car plans the route to expose you to the client's advertising product most relevant to your selected destination.
You are on to something but I see a different implementation. No need to change the route, since you are not driving the system can project targeted ads onto the windshield. Billboards are obsolete. Advertising is how we will finally get heads-up-displays into our cars. [/satire]
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Billboards are obsolete.
I would agree but sadly old business models never die the just buy legislators. HUD in a car questions the very need for a windshield at all, and we can't have that for many many contributors, I mean "reasons"....
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So how do humans do it?
Re:awful, awful awful awful (Score:4, Insightful)
So how do humans do it?
They start with a small number of basic "rules" and acquire the majority of their learning from experience.
In general it seems like an expert systems AI project. You have a domain that has an incomplete definition, many variables and many inputs. You hand code some basic rules as a starting point. You rig up sensors so that a computer can observe the environment and the human and it generates new rules based on its observations(*). And/Or you let the computer loose in a simulated environment and it learns through trial and error.
(*) In the movie Starman the alien learns to drive via observation. Red means stop, green means go, and yellow means go faster. Selection of the expert to observe is a critical step.
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The responsibility/accountability is the main problem: if Toyota released a self driving car and it crashed and killed people in "corner cases" where even a skilled human might, Toyota would still get in trouble.
Using the elevator is generally much safer than using the stairs. Fortunately for elevator manufacturers and suppliers an elevator shaft i
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The real problem is that there comes a point where the "corner cases" where the self-driving car would crash are vastly outnumbered by the real situations where humans actually do crash.. and because of the liability issue, we still don't get self-driving cars.
Re:awful, awful awful awful (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not, but it's likely to be a hell of a lot better at not doing the idiotic things that cause the overwhelming majority of accidents in the first place.
Almost all accidents other than collisions with animals that run out in front of you are due to human stupidity. Black ice may be an exception, maybe, except that if the conditions allow it to happen a prudent driver accounts for the possibility (note that if you hit a patch of black ice the accident is considered your fault esp. for purposes of determining liability). Everything from:
You name it. It's plain old human stupidity. It's a particularly egregious kind of imbecility too, the kind that fails to recognize that other people exist and can be harmed by your poor decision-making. If "robots" can be programmed not to do these things I'm all for it. Alternatively, if robots can be programmed to beat the living shit out of people who do these things, I'm all for that too.
That's a new one to me. I have heard complaints that many train systems would be uneconomical, in the sense that they'd never survive without some kind of subsidy. I haven't heard anyone actually refer to alternate transportation as a tenet of Communism, however.
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Spoken like someone who thinks the purpose of the left lane is to allow someone to exceed the legal speed limit. The left lane is for passing traffic not traveling the legal speed limit.
Someone traveling the legal speed limit is not an obstacle, they are a re
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Everyone assumes the speed limit will be exceeded by 5 - 10 mph, including those who set it. Its main purpose is to generate municipal funding through what is essentially a random tax, and to ensure that traffic doesn't go much more than 5 - 10 over the number posted on the side of the road, 'cause that number plus 10 is usually about what's actually safe.
Adhering to the speed limit as though it's set by God is not virtuous, it's just annoying. Please move over for people that want to get past you. If th
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I think GP was referring to the arsefark doing 20 under in the left lane. YOU know who YOU are.
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Where did GP mention the speed limit?
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Somebody doing the legal speed limit in the left lane is very fucking clearly not using the left lane for it's intended purpose, passing. Exceeding the legal speed limit during passing isn't only legal damn near anywhere that had driving laws, it's the responsible thing to do. Fuck, in some states travelling the speed limit in the left lane is explicitly against the fucking law.
The root of the problems being described here are fucking idiots such as yourself, who lack a mature understanding of how to hand
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Citation?
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Of course there's a citation. He said it's against the law.
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Exceeding the legal speed limit during passing isn't only legal...in some states travelling the speed limit in the left lane is explicitly against the fucking law.
Some states allow exceeding the posted speed limit while passing, when on a road which has only a single lane in the direction you are traveling (and by some I mean Washington). In no state is it "against the fucking law" to travel the posted speed limit, in any lane. Yes, some states require that the left lanes only be used to pass vehicles in the right lanes, but this does not mean you have to, or are even legally allowed to, speed to do it. If the car in the right lane is doing the speed limit, then y
Re:awful, awful awful awful (Score:4, Insightful)
That's convenient except for the fact that there are lots of legal reasons to exceed the speed limit and it is not for you to decide if other drivers are being prudent. That is why we have police patrolling streets. There is no legal reason for you to be in the left lane as you stated yourself, it is for passing. If you are not passing then you should not be in said lane performing a rolling road block.
While yes, poor impulse control is a huge issue it is often caused by people that shouldn't be on the road to begin with. When someone is so scared to drive that they can't maintain speed then they shouldn't be on the road at all. They force people to pass them and clog up road ways when they fail to merge properly. Every time I see someone stop and wait for an opening I know I get a little more mad.
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Yes, part of the problem is that the speed limits for the lanes are the same. But the left lane is for passing. If you're not overtaking the traffic to the right, you shouldn't be in it. Even if the traffic in the right lane is at or exceeding the limit. If you feel you can't legally drive fast enough to pass the cars in the right lane...you should be in the right lane, let other jokers risk traffic violations.
And, btw, it is also against the law in many states to match speeds with traffic in the manner
Train systems (Score:2)
"the real reason for progressivesâ(TM) passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americansâ(TM) individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."
Not quite calling trains Communism, but in the same league.
The quote is from George Will,http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/high-speed-to-insolvency.html
TAEBAGGOR'S FTW! (Score:2)
Trains and buses are generally referred to as public transport. Public = state run. State run = communist.
And if you allow socialized transport, it's the thin end of the wedge - they'll soon be socializing everything.
Plus public transport can be s
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That's a new one to me. I have heard complaints that many train systems would be uneconomical, in the sense that they'd never survive without some kind of subsidy.
What transit systems do we have that exist without subsidies?
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there is no way a @#$ robot can judge what to do about oncoming accidents, like a pedestrian, a deer, a squirrel, a semi jackknifing, an ambulance passing, a crash ahead of you, a gigantic pothole, a box full of dishes that fell off a truck, a big tree branch, a patch of black ice, a tire blowing out, a semi weaving in a strong wind, etc etc etc.
A bunch of your example are redundant, object in lane will suffice.
If the computer maintains safe following distances and brakes when there is sudden deceleration ahead or an object ahead then it will probably do better than many drivers I've seen on the road. If it has sufficient sensors to be situationally aware, ie is it safe to change lanes, and is able to change lanes to avoid an object then it will probably do better than most of the drivers out there. Keep in mind that the sensors may have better
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How will the computer know what kind of surface I am on [...] so it can break accordingly.
Ah, a WinCE-based system, I see.
Re:awful, awful awful awful (Score:5, Insightful)
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atmk07Otu9U Skip to 2:10 to see where the ABC reporter makes a move like she's going to run out in front of the car. The thing slams on the brakes.
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TFA even mentions one of these avoiding a deer: "You could see the cars avoiding things like a deer that dashed in front of one or another making it carefully around a small hillside road, as a large truck came toward it."
There was also a story here a year ago [slashdot.org] about Stanford's efforts in this area with a computer-controlled car doing a 180 spin into a tight parking space. "That means Junior could have an entire language of extreme driving maneuvers it could unleash when called upon ... itâ(TM)s also a
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you go through the church parking lot so as to not be a rubbernecker.
...which may be illegal (depending on your jurisdiction), and doesn't account for the fact that a robot has no interest in staring at carnage. It can't be a rubbernecker, regardless of its lack of a neck.
The other situations you describe can be handled easily. When something goes wrong, the car says "oh shit" and alerts the person inside, who can assume manual control as needed. I'm a roboticist myself. We do this routinely. It's not hard for a sensor to notice a tire's missing. It's not hard to notice that
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pulling over for a fire truck that is trying to get down the road?
Not very difficult, as that isn't exactly an unforeseen situation, just add code that detects fire tracks and moves the car to the side.
what if the car is going up an icy road, and then it starts sliding backwards because it couldnt make it?
It detects the icy road early on and behaves properly, unlike a human driver who will have his car spin out of control. Ever seen those Youtube videos of dozens of car piling up on an icy road? A little radio communication between robotic cars could easily avoid that.
how about your wheel falls off?
Robot brings the car to a stop, thanks to better reaction time and sensor information, probably a lot better
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Emergency vehicles emit strobe which a computer could easily interpret and then pull over to allow them to get by. This is current technology. Most of the issues you've pointed out are problems on modern cars which have slip sensors and basic rules like pull over on application exception would be valid under the majority of unforeseen circumstances. Additionally, most drivers I've encountered do not know how to handle four-way stops when traffic lights are out, let alone who has right of way under most circ
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the solution... is to build more trains
Trains don't come to my front door, which is rather necessary when I'm carrying a load of groceries to feed my household. Trains don't go to my friend's front door, who's effectively wheelchair-bound. Trains don't go from my grandmother's house to the post office, where she has her mailbox. Trains require tracks, which require a bigger initial investment than roads, and simply can't reach withing reasonable walking distance of everywhere people need to go. Then there's the noise, the difficulty in meeting t
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Does your car come right into your kitchen? Lamest thing I ever heard.
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Trains don't come to my front door, which is rather necessary when I'm carrying a load of groceries to feed my household.
Maybe part of the problem is Americans' apparent cultural need to carry "loads" of things and/or the terrible urban planning that necessitates that behavior. If American communities were laid out sensibly, you could take a short walk to the grocery store every day and carry back the small bag of goods you needed for the day. Since communities are laid out retardedly, you have to climb int
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It's also not that our communities are laid out poorly, is that yours were laid out before America even came into existence and you haven't had the good sense to update your communities since then.
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there is no way a @#$ robot can judge what to do about oncoming accidents, like a pedestrian, a deer, a squirrel, a semi jackknifing, an ambulance passing, a crash ahead of you, a gigantic pothole, a box full of dishes that fell off a truck, a big tree branch, a patch of black ice, a tire blowing out, a semi weaving in a strong wind, etc etc etc.
I highly suspect that majority of accidents on the roads happen due to human recklessness and/or inattentiveness, not because of any of the above.
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there is no way a @#$ robot can judge what to do about oncoming accidents, like a pedestrian, a deer, a squirrel, a semi jackknifing, an ambulance passing, a crash ahead of you, a gigantic pothole, a box full of dishes that fell off a truck, a big tree branch, a patch of black ice, a tire blowing out, a semi weaving in a strong wind, etc etc etc.
I'm pretty sure a computer can do all of those things. Detecting a pedestrian, a crash ahead of you, a semi jackknifing, weaving in a strong wind, a deer, tree branch, box full of dishes, a squirrel, or even a gigantic pothole is all just basic "There's an object of roughly x size ahead of me moving at roughly y speed" though "roughly" for the computer will probably be a lot more accurate than for a human. Then it's just a matter of "if our current direction places this car into that object, will we crash",
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So add 3 independent computers so they can vote on each decision. It's not like computer power is expensive today.
Re:On US 101? Irresponsible (Score:5, Informative)
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Ahh yes, "fix it with a law". That's right, there's no amount of danger or risk that a good ol' Form 544813 written by a bureaucrat can't mitigate.
Re:On US 101? Irresponsible (Score:4, Interesting)
google has deep pockets (Score:2)
google has deep pockets.
so you get hit google pays you alot to shut up.
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Last time google accidentally tried to sidestep a law, they landed themselves in a very big and very public pile of shit. It cost them a lot too, and not just money.
This is no longer "just" privacy issue. Here they are playing with people's lives. A car packs a serious amount of energy when in motion on a road, and it doesn't matter how good of a software or a driver watching software perform is - there are LAWS that specifically require extreme measures for such testing. Reason being that human testing whi
The nut behind the wheel (Score:2)
And then they let Italians and Belgians drive them.
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I heartily agree. If there's one thing this world needs more of, it's permits.
Re:NOT AMAZING (Score:2)
You may be have a name with "ubuntu" in it...but what you did was far from "humanity to others"
What is seen cannot be unseen.
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Did they sign up to be surrounded by aggressive, intoxicated and distracted drivers?
I know I didn't. Where do I ask for a refund?
It's a sad day for Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda etc etc (Score:3)
Or rather, their employees. Self driving cars are the death of the car industry as it currently stands. There is only 1 reason we need our own cars.
1. Taxis are expensive.
If you don't have a driver, you can put a taxi on every street corner which means that the customer can order one on his iphone taxi app as he leaves the house/office and it's waiting at the kerb before he gets there. No salary to pay, only running costs & depreciation.
An average taxi can currently make something like 30 journeys per d
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No, this does not compute. I want my own care in order to arrive with all my "stuff", the briefcase, maybe extra coats, the 2 way radio that _I_ want in it, the external cell phone antenna, the laptop in the trunk, etc. I don't want to think of carrying all that stuff along to stuff in a Taxi when I'm going to work, etc. I want it in the garage when I get up at 4:00 AM and decide to go into work early, rather than waiting for a cab to get here from town, 20 miles away. I want _my_ car to have the "maxim
Re: (Score:2)
Taxis are cheap as hell in South Korea, yet plenty of people still drive every day (way too many people for the city actually, but that's a different story). People like cars because cars afford them some privacy. In places like Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo etc etc privacy and quiet time is valued as well. Yes Koreans and Japanese are much more accustomed to being in crowded throngs of people, but I've heard many a Korean or Japanese complain about crowded spaces. There is a reason online shopping grew so quickly
Re:But it's Google... (Score:5, Funny)
Taxi: Welcome to the free automatic Google Taxi. Where do you want to go? ...
Passenger: To the train station.
Taxi: OK. By the way, there's a Starbucks on the way. They currently have a special offer, two coffees for the price of one. Maybe you want to go to there first?
Passenger: No, I just want to go to the train station.
Taxi: If you are interested in train stations, maybe the railway museum would interest you. It's only five minutes from here.
Passenger: I'm not interested in the train station, I just want to get my train.
Taxi: Maybe you are interested in Morton's model railway shop? They have great models, and I can get you there in only ten minutes.
Passenger: I don't want a model train, I want to use the real train!
Taxi: Did you know that just this week, the Railway Academy opened? In the first year they give discount for their locomotive driver courses. I can send you the application form to your phone.
Passenger: I don't want to drive the train, I just want to take the train. And if you don't drive me there soon, I'll miss it.
Taxi: Did you know that you can buy train tickets with 5% discount at train-ticket.com?
Passenger: I already have the train ticket. I just want to get to the fucking train.
Taxi: Oh, you are interested in fucking? There's a whorehouse not far from here