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Transportation

Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time, Says Study (dailymail.co.uk) 233

Posted by msmash from the what-people-think dept.
An anonymous reader writes: People hoping that the driverless cars of the future will give them more free time while travelling may be in for a disappointment. Increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of self-driving cars, but a new study claims that they will have little impact. The study showed that nearly 36 percent of Americans say they would be so apprehensive using a driverless vehicle that they would only watch the road. Meanwhile, UK drivers were even more cautious at 44 per cent. "Currently, in the US, the average occupant of a light-duty vehicle spends about an hour a day traveling -- time that could potentially be put to more productive use," said Michael Sivak, research professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. "Indeed, increased productivity is one of the expected benefits of self-driving vehicles."
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Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time, Says Study More

Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time, Says Study

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  • what a load of shit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:02PM (#52900733)

    What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

    • Re:what a load of shit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:04PM (#52900749)

      What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

      Bingo. Study can be summarized as "X percent of people with no experience with new technology have strong opinions researchers inexplicably value."

      • Re: what a load of shit (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I get car sick. I can't read porn or do anything else besides watch the road. But, the safety features have gotten incredible. Collision avoidance. I was so high one day, I didn't even notice the car in front of me stopping. My truck (2016 highlander) mad an alarming sound and slammed on the brakes. My girlfriends head arose quickly from my lap. The tech really did prevent and accident. When I was younger, I had excellent reflexes when driving. Now in my 80's, my cocaine fueled exploits almost always end i

    • Re:what a load of shit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:11PM (#52900833)

      Autonomous vehicles currently is a new untested technology. So naturally people currently will be more invested to double check for their safety. However as the technology matures and has a long track record then people will be more willing to do other things while the car is driving.

      Heck we have people doing stupid stuff in a 80k Tesla car, which isn't fully Autonomous just because it can keep in the lane.

      • Whatever time saved will be lost in suing Tesla for autopilot failure

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mlts ( 1038732 )

        Right now, we are at the point where a technology is starting to be widely adapted, and people are nervous about it (perhaps rightly so.)

        However, I can list a number of things that can save time:

        1: Being able to use commute time for something else than watching the taillights of the car ahead. You can have a vehicle which can function as a mobile office, or a bedroom, where with longer commutes, use that time for useful things, be it reading, doing some work, or just going back to sleep.

        2: Vehicles can t

    • Its research of the "people on trains that go faster than 20mph will die" kind.

    • Re:what a load of shit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:36PM (#52901107)

      Ding ding ding. Plus, what some people will actually do in a given situation *the first few times* vastly differs from what they will do afterward. Examples:

      When I first flew in a plane I was glued to the window the whole trip. Now I take aisle seats.

      I have a fear of heights and rented an apartment in a high rise on the 11th floor with a small balcony. When I first moved in I didn't even like going out the door onto the balcony because of my fear of heights. The railing looked too low and it didn't "feel" safe. By the time I moved out I would walk out onto the balcony without a second thought and even lean over the edge to look down without concern.

      Nearly everyone who has anxiety about self driving cars will go through the same sort of process. What at first terrifies will quickly become boring when nothing bad happens. Then they will start looking around when they get driven, then they will get bored of that and engage in other diversions - watching video, reading, catching up on paperwork, etc.

      Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient. I lived in a place once where it was a 45 minute drive downtown without traffic and 2 hours during rush hour. It would be entirely reasonable to expect that trip to be less than 75 minutes during rush hour once automation takes over so that guy gets a straight 1.5 hours of his day back.

      • Let's face it, with the state of self driving today there is plenty of reason to be anxious.

        • But we're not talking about today. If we were having this conversation about aircraft in 1912 you could say exactly the same thing.

          Once the tech is mature enough to be widely used it will be as safe or safer than flying is today.

          • Absolutely, but from what I see it's around 40-50 years out.. so not sure if it is work even talking about.

            • I used to think that as well, but the stuff I've seen happen in the last 5 years makes me think it will be here a lot sooner than that. It wasn't that long ago that the DARPA challenge was looking to give a huge cash prize to someone who could build an autonomous vehicle that would do the stuff that the Google self driving car does daily now. Autonomous vehicles are getting way better very quickly. When Amazon announced their drone delivery testing I seriously thought it was some sort of viral markting j

              • To my knowledge they haven't even been tried in the snow yet, without visible lane markings. That's a fairly big challenge on its own, and probably ten times more difficult than anything they have done so far. Also current autonomy doesn't really understand the world around it; for it to be safe it will actually understand what certain objects are. For example, determine the object moving in front is a rabbit and simply avoid it and carry on, or determine the object is a ball (CHILD'S TOY) and anticipate

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by swb ( 14022 )

            But we're not talking about today. If we were having this conversation about aircraft in 1912 you could say exactly the same thing.

            But if we were having a conversation TODAY about getting in a 1912 vintage aircraft, it'd be completely valid to have reservations.

            This is Slashdot, so I almost never read the linkbait, er, TFS, but my guess is if the researchers had qualified their question with something about autonomous car technology being "fully developed" and "as safe as modern jet travel is today" they would have gotten more answers along the lines of read the paper, do work, watch a movie, etc.

            But then they wouldn't have elicited an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient. I lived in a place once where it was a 45 minute drive downtown without traffic and 2 hours during rush hour. It would be entirely reasonable to expect that trip to be less than 75 minutes during rush hour once automation takes over so that guy gets a straight 1.5 hours of his day back.

        I wouldn't bet on that, a lot of people might prefer two hours watching a movie in their private lounge to one hour on the train/bus/tram etc. increasing congestion. Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs. It might actually become worse for human drivers because the rest don't care so much if the streets are crammed.

        • Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs

          This.

          Its the classical problem of improving infrastructure that leads into a city: if the road is crammed and full with cars, everyone will demand that it gets expanded/more lanes, etc. Then, once that's done, people move into the suburbs with the argument that "in a half hour, you are already in the city center". More people start using the road as they moved to the suburbs. The increase will stop where the road is crammed again. The only thing that changed is that everyone now has a garden and doesn't hav

          • You're ignoring two aspects of the SDC though. One is what I alluded to - more automatic cars make for less congestion due to precision. The roadways can easily handle double or triple the volume of cars as they currently are if they were being driven by steely eyed robotic drivers instead of jittery mistake prone humans.

            Secondly, a thing that will actually reduce road use is the increased use of transit. Right now a lot of people don't take the subway, LRT, train or even a bus because they would have to

            • You're ignoring two aspects of the SDC though.

              Agreed, with smart cars streets will be able to handle lots of more traffic, and in situations where you have no pedestrians nor cyclists, you won't even need lights anymore. There will still be a limit though, so my argument from above still applies.

              Or even better, you might not even own a car directly any longer

              I'm not sure whether I'll want that. Some people don't care about keeping something clean when they are not watched and its not theirs, and i don't want to be greeted by puke on the seat I want to sit down on. But probably I won't have much of a choice when car

        • Because the commute is less tedious more people might also move from the city center to the suburbs.

          A major reason for urban sprawl is NIMBYs and BANANAs blocking the construction of high density housing in core cities and inner suburbs. That is driven by politics, not technology.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient.

        That is exactly what will not happen, in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic).

        I know discussing the realities of it is unpopular on ./ but I digress. There will be no autonomous superhighway of cars bumper to bumper doing 150 KPH because autonomous cars do not break the laws of physics. To go at 150 KPH you need to maintain the same distance to stop irrespective of if they are human driven or autonom

        • Re:what a load of shit (Score:4, Insightful)

          by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @04:14PM (#52903395)

          > in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic)

          That's not what causes rush hour traffic. What causes rush hour traffic is 20 cars at a red light each waiting .5 to 1.5 seconds for the car in front to observably start rolling through the light before the next one starts. When the cars can do that in .05 seconds, a lot more will make it through the traffic light.

          On the highway many jams are "phantom" traffic jams caused by idiots spiking brakes and not allowing for proper following distances. Both of which SDCs will eliminate.

          http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one

          You are making a whole raft of incorrect assumptions. 500ms for an automated car to react to a car in front of it braking? Seriously? The cars are already constantly observing through both cameras and radar/lidar all other vehicles around them and tracking their positions. I would be astonished if the car couldn't react in 10ms to a change in one of the other cars' velocities. Hell, my dad's Acura has automatic braking that does better than a human if needed. It observes the car in front through radar and if the meatbag behind the wheel doesn't respond within a sufficient threshold to brake, the car does it for them.

          You say "processing needs to be on-board". It already is. And nobody is even talking about centralized network control of cars. That's going to be a long time off, if ever. Centralized car control would make a really juicy terrorist target if nothing else - "Hey let's have every 4th car cross the centerline and have a head-on at 12:14pm". There will NOT be a "server" for the foreseeable future, if ever. The most you're going to get is cars communicating with each other short range within a couple hundred meters and stating their intentions and possibly negotiating minor alterations to those intentions like 'This vehicle needs to use the turn off in 600m, request clearance for lane change' and the like.

    • What people say they will do in a situation and what people do in a situation rarely have any correlation.

      In this case I think people would do exactly what they say. The first day. Maybe the second. The extraordinarily fearful might last a week or two. The majority would probably find themselves looking in momentary panic when something unexpected happens for the first few months, but even that would pass.

      Personally, I trust math. If you can show me properly-gathered and evaluated statistics that demonstrate that the car drives as well as or better than the average human driver, I'm more than happy to let it

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Reading (or for whatever reason keeping your eyes off the road) is a great way to get car sick.

        If technology isn't solving your problems, you are not using enough:
        1. Use a HUD to project the text you are reading onto the outside view.
        2. Use a text-to-audio converter. These are getting better.
        3. Use your cell phone to return phone calls rather than reading.

        On top of which... who would work? I'd - assuming sickness issues can be resolved - read the news, eat breakfast, and just spend the time waking up.

        That is still a productivity improvement, because if you got this stuff done during your commute, you would arrive at work ready to go, rather than doing this stuff at your desk.

    • Or at least until it becomes commonplace.

      Yeah, I'd be sitting in the driver's seat paying attention for the first few weeks. Then I'd be sitting in the driver's seat reading my phone and glancing up from time-to-time if the car did something. Later, I'd probably be sitting in the backseat and staring at my phone.

  • You don't get a lot of extra free time for productive work when your autonomous car kills you.

    • I haven't seen an extrapolation of human accidents in places that autonomous cars work for an apples to apples comparison. Right now it's hard to say because Autopilot only works in the safest situations, so comparing all human accidents to Autopilot accidents is not an accurate comparison.

  • Motion Sickness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rockmuelle ( 575982 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:07PM (#52900777)

    I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car. Not sure what percentage of the population has the same issue, but I doubt it's insignificant.

    More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity? How about pitch it as a way for people to have more time to relax and recharge? Self driving car, some good music, a comfy chair, and some good scotch for the win.

    -Chris

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cruff ( 171569 )

      I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train.

      I also suffer from motion sickness, but sometimes I can manage to read in the morning on a regional bus route if the bus suspension and the road surface are in good condition and traffic is not stop and go. Later in the day there is no way I can do that. I expect it would be the same in an autonomous vehicle, so I probably wouldn't gain much time, if any.

    • Re:Motion Sickness (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DahGhostfacedFiddlah ( 470393 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:29PM (#52901037)

      Motion sickness can be caused by the dissonance between the what you see (fast movement) and what you feel (no rushing wind, your legs aren't doing any work, etc).

      Autonomous vehicles could eventually allow us to darken the windows, which could prevent motion sickness.

      • Re:Motion Sickness (Score:4, Insightful)

        by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:49PM (#52901231) Homepage

        It's more often the other way around. The dissonance is between what you see (which, when not looking out of the window, is your relatively still surroundings) and what you feel (the car bumping around on the road, turning corners, accelerating and decelerating).

      • That's not true. I suffer from motion sickness, and it has nothing to do with what your body feels (your sense of touch). It results from a discrepancy between motion detected by your inner ear and changes in your position and orientation as perceived by your eyes. Darkening windows is absolutely the worst thing you can do, as it prevents any opportunity to seek relief by visually orienting yourself to the exterior environment. Some of the worst cases of motion sickness I've ever experienced were times when

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rjune ( 123157 )

      Sounds like your only alternative would be an audible book. I prefer reading myself, but some of them are pretty good if they are the right book (light reading) with the right narrator. On the other hand, if your car has good scotch, want to car pool?

    • More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity?

      Exactly. This is codespeak for "now you can do some more work on the way home". Screw that.

    • The act of driving (especially in traffic) is mentally draining. Just being a passenger and looking out the window instead of actively driving will make you more productive in other parts of your life

    • I get motion sick if I try to read anything (book, map, phone, computer) in a moving car or train. I'll get zero productivity gain from a self driving car. Not sure what percentage of the population has the same issue, but I doubt it's insignificant.

      Probably most people under the right circumstances. Some are more prone to it than others. It also depends on the stability of the vehicle, the route being taken, etc. If I try to read intensely in the back seat of a car without looking out on a twisty turny road with a bad suspension I'll certainly get nauseous.

      More importantly, what's with the continued obsession with maximizing productivity?

      That's how you get economic growth. It's one of the dominant reasons wages in the US are higher than wages in Brazil or Russia or other places. People are obsessed with it because it matters a

    • In 5 years : "Study finds that autonomous driving caused an increase in alcohol addiction".

    • Yep. 2 out of 3 family members in my household get motion sickness. My kid can watch movies on an ipad if we are on straight highway, even that can be a problem for my wife. Yet even when I am a passenger I never feel like I want to whip out a laptop or surf the web. I only get online if we need directions or check the weather. Maybe 1-2% of my time as a passenger on a road trip is spent being "productive". I cannot even sleep in a car or airplane, so that possible bonus is out.

      Frankly I see autonomou

  • Useless study (Score:3)

    by Timmy D Programmer ( 704067 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:08PM (#52900795) Journal
    That apprehension will fade fast, and folks will get to enjoy that time more.

  • I expect to be *entertained* not productive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by unfortunateson ( 527551 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:12PM (#52900835) Journal

    Working while traveling isn't high on my list of priorities. Watching an episode on Netflix, playing a VR racing game (admittedly slower on the highway than on the track), whatever.

    And the comfort level will get there. The first generation will only be a little bit better than human reactions. The next version (hopefully a free software upgrade - funded by an auto-manufacturer/insurance alliance) twice as safe, the next version four times as safe, etc.

    If it can't just be software upgrades, it's going to be a long, slow adoption: cars get replaced every 2-10 years - but then they get resold, so the average age of cars on the road is over 11 years.
    (REF: http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com])

    Eventually, insurance lobbies will get the government to require autonomous driving: first on certain highways and city centers, then eventually everywhere. Just like seat belts, air bags, rear-view cameras.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      Google is one of the companies that's big into developing self-driving cars, and where does Google get most of its money? Advertising. Google is specifically pushing self-driving cars because a huge block of people's time is used driving where they would rather you surf the web and click on their ads.

    • Working while traveling isn't high on my list of priorities.

      It's exactly nowhere on my list of priorities. It's not even in the "I'll think about it maybe someday" category.

    • Even though cars from today are significantly safer then cars from 75 years ago they are still allowed on the road, there will always be cars on the road that are not as safe as the cars around it. Insurance lobbies don't care if you crash as long as the rates you pay are in line with your claim history.

  • I see another issue. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:14PM (#52900851)

    Your work day shall begin an hour before you arrive at the office, and end an hour after.

    "What, you didn't read all your daily meeting notes and emails and answer your voice mail while on the way into the office? You slacker! Now you're going to waste an hour of your paid company time catching up. If this happens again, your future here may not be secure."

  • Based on my observations of people traveling public transportation such as the subway or riding in car pools, I suspect that any time saved due to autonomous vehicle use will be spent surfing the web or incessantly checking social media to see if someone, anyone, as offered up a new crumb of intercourse to consume.

    • my thoughts exactly (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fullmetal55 ( 698310 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:34PM (#52901083)

      Most people will just be on their phones, mindlessly surfing/texting, it won't fix anything, and won't increase productivity, I think this is just some talking head trying to push for executive level support of this. What I see this actually being good for is people who are on the road a lot, (plumbers, repairmen, telecom installers, etc.) This is where productivity will be increased, instead of sitting in your truck idling after a job filling out paperwork, you plug in your next appointment and do the paperwork enroute. I also see this being abused by the company, "Why did you plug in Timmy's after your 9:30 appointment?"

  • Sure, whatever (Score:3)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:24PM (#52900973) Homepage

    My mom used to be up in arms about the microwave when we first got it, only to be used when absolutely necessary because it was cooking with radiation and radiation was dangerous. Now I'd say 9 out of 10 things are heated in the micro. With even the slightest bit of statistical evidence in its favor it'll be like riding the bus or taking a taxi in no time. Yes, I too got a control thing but if it's already not me driving then I'm not sure I trust people over computers. They fuck up pretty bad too...

  • Okay, first of all, this is clearly not news... it's from the freaking Daily Mail, as much a newspaper as the National Enquirer. Yeah, of course people *without* self driving cars who've never seen one before would be nervous. Also, people who've never seen a movie say they would have trouble sitting in a dark room for 2 hours. What is going on with Slashdot the last couple weeks? I used to come here for no-bullshit-tech-news, and now we have weird Hillary health posts, the pervious article about "Touch Di

  • BS (Score:3)

    by bigdavex ( 155746 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @12:25PM (#52900993)

    People already fuck around with their phones when they are actually driving the car. They aren't going to be focused on the road at all after they become accustomed.

  • If you have to watch the road then it's not autonomous, it's only an assist.
    • On the other hand, when it is truly autonomous, then people will use the time for something. It's just that we are very far off still.
  • The real time savings will be seen in reduced commute times.
    Less human errors, faster route and accident avoidance computations, increased speed on currently deadlocked roads - will all factor into less actual in the car time which WILL increase productivity.
    Morning commutes from Everett to Seattle (30 miles) frequently require 1 - 2 hours per way. Accidents create hour + long traffic jams. Removing people from the equation once the "autonomous" piece is working will greatly alleviate traffic problem
    • There will only be major efficiency gains in commute times once 99% of all people have autonomous cars, and that may never be a financial reality. Manual cars will always be cheaper, so people will always have them.

  • "Currently, in the US, the average occupant of a light-duty vehicle spends about an hour a day traveling -- time that could potentially be put to more productive use,"

    Yeah, how about "fuck you"?

    How about you stop trying to wring every last drop of "productivity" out of us and just let us relax and enjoy the ride? Maybe read a book, watch a movie, or just watch the scenery. Why does every single fucking second have to be spent doing something "productive"?

  • Sure, when it's the new thing, people will be apprehensive and watch the road. Stress levels may actually be higher at this time, similar to being in a car with a young driver at the wheel. But three months in, or less, and I guarantee you that either owners will be confident in the abilities of their self-driving cars, or they'll be demanding changes (or worse). It's one thing when your vigilance actually buys you something – you can warn the inexperienced driver of a hazardous situation. Once people

  • We already have excess capacity. In addition, what is productive? Sending emails explaining the same points you explained in three other emails? Sitting through online meetings where the resolution is to have more meetings? Taking vacuous training courses for the resume?

    Screw productive, I'm sleeping. Just like I do now when I ride the bus.

  • Time put to use? Yes... but how? (Score:3)

    by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Friday September 16, 2016 @01:02PM (#52901361)

    For some it won't make much difference, since they're already using their phones to text/email/work behind the wheel while inching along in heavy traffic.

    For the rest of us, society will have to work out some social mores about how that free time will be used... Do we want our bosses assuming we'll be working DURING rush hour (both ways) as well? "Yeah, you can leave a little early - just get me that update/report/patch by the time you get home."

    Until then, I just hope I don't come across someone fapping to porn on his dash during rush hour 'cause there's no "gunning it" to get away from them. Imagine the back and forth of the crawl on the freeway between lanes - "There's the sick bastard's car again. That dude needs help.. And he thinks that tint is dark enough to cover the.. *gasp* oh dude, it's gay porn?? Gross... *sigh* Yeah, 911? There's a dude jacking off to porn in the Volvo right beside me. Isn't there a law against that? Can you get a cop to... Volvo, yes, Volvo - you know, the safe cars?... What's he look like? Hell, I don't know - Should I ask him to roll the window down to get a better look? Please hurry, though - somebody's getting it in the ass on the dashboard and I'm sick of being stuck wat... No, no! Just on the SCREEN. He's alone - sheesh... Ok, good. Thanks - I don't know how the cop's gonna get to us, though... What do I do in the meantine?... Just get away from the car, huh? Just how do I do that? Have you ever driven I-5 at 530PM? I'm not getting off the freeway - he probably is, though.. Damn it!"

  • Can we just stop linking to anything from Daily Mail on Slashdot. It's a rag. If Daily Mail is the best source that can be found discussing a study, it pretty much means that the study isn't worth discussing here.

    "Study debunks theory that self-driving cars will make people more productive" in big bold letters at the top. No. This study doesn't do that at all.

    You are trying to sensationalize to get views, Daily Mail. This should not be encouraged; not here at least. Slashdot's reader base is smarter t

  • This "study" only applies to the very short term future, as do all autonomous car naysayers' arguments.

    Also, it's not a study. It's a survey. It doesn't "debunk" anything, as the article claims. Typical Daily Fail, err, fail.

    a new study claims that they will have little impact

    Yes, that's the best thing about autonomous cars :)

  • I spend my commute time listening to audiobooks. In fact my commute has become my primary method of consuming novels and i rarely find time to read printed or ebooks outside of that. So even if i wanted to spend my commute doing something else while an AI drove i'd end up having to reschedule some other non-driving time to make up for the "reading" i wasn't getting done during the same period.

    That said though, i don't think the same really applies to people who haven't already found some productive use fo

  • Those of us with a brain will quickly realize that for any auto-pilot approved for the general market, we are far more likely to cause an accident than we would be to save ourselves from one. We might double check it for one or two trips, but we would quickly realize it worked.

    The smart people will get more time to read, talk, book their vacations, etc. We will gain time. (well, not me, I take the subway to work, I already read during my commute.)

    The people not smart enough to make that decision? I got n

  • The study showed that nearly 36 percent of Americans say they would be so apprehensive using a driverless vehicle that they would only watch the road.

    Short sighted study. People get used to things. And the generation that has never seen anything but a driverless car will not be about as nervous as a passenger on a commercial jet. Funny how people manage to read, sleep and even have sex on those.

  • People don't watch the road right now while they are driving their shitbox cars. Give them driving assist and they'll be reading or working on something else during their commute, oblivious of traffic.

    Better get used to unskilled driving. Once autopilots became a thing in aircraft, piloting skills began to deteriorate to the point that handling exceptions is a recognized problem. They call it 'flying the magenta line'. Car drivers will go through the same thing. You might actually have your hands on the wh

  • They asked the wrong generation. It might be 10 years before self driving cars are ubiquitous, so that means kids who are 12-18 today will be the ones mostly benefiting from the technology (they'll bee 22-28 by then). Some small percentage of them may even choose to buy/lease a self driving car instead of getting a drivers license.

  • So let me get this straight? I'm meant to pay extra for a self-driving car just so that my employer can get more out of me?

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