Waymo's Completely Driverless Cars Are Now Picking Up Passengers (techcrunch.com) 127
"Congrats! This car is all yours, with no one up front," announces the cheery pop-up notification from Waymo's app. "This ride will be different. With no one else in the car, Waymo will do all the driving. Enjoy this free ride on us!"
TechCrunch got one of the first completely-driverless rides as a journalist, writes long-time Slashdot reader galgon. "It appears per Waymo's annoucement earlier this month that driverless rides really are ramping up in the Chandler, AZ area." From TechCrunch's report: Moments later, an empty Chrysler Pacifica minivan appears and navigates its way to my location near a park in Chandler, the Phoenix suburb where Waymo has been testing its autonomous vehicles since 2016.... Waymo wouldn't share specific numbers on just how many driverless rides it would be giving, only saying that it continues to ramp up its operations. Here's what we do know. There are hundreds of customers in its early rider program, all of whom will have access to this offering. These early riders can't request a fully driverless ride. Instead, they are matched with a driverless car if it's nearby. There are, of course, caveats to this milestone. Waymo is conducting these "completely driverless" rides in a controlled geofenced environment. Early rider program members are people who are selected based on what ZIP code they live in and are required to sign NDAs. And the rides are free, at least for now.
Still, as I buckle my seatbelt and take stock of the empty driver's seat, it's hard not to be struck, at least for a fleeting moment, by the achievement... Seeing an empty driver's seat at 45 miles per hour, or a steering wheel spinning in empty space as it navigates suburban traffic, feels inescapably surreal... There were moments where the self-driving system's driving impressed, like the way it caught an unprotected left turn just as the traffic signal turned yellow or how its acceleration matched surrounding traffic. The vehicle seemed to even have mastered the more human-like driving skill of crawling forward at a stop sign to signal its intent. Only a few typical quirks, like moments of overly cautious traffic spacing and overactive path planning, betrayed the fact that a computer was in control. A more typical rider, specifically one who doesn't regularly practice their version of the driving Turing Test, might not have even noticed them...
Given how fundamentally autonomous mobility could impact our society and cities, it's reassuring to know that one of the technology's leading developers is taking the time to understand and adapt to them.
The article also notes that "developing the technologies and protocols that allow a driverless Waymo to detect and pull over for emergency response vehicles and even allow emergency services to take over control was a complex task that required extensive testing and collaboration with local authorities."
The original submission also points out that the first video of a completely driver-less Waymo car has now surfaced on YouTube. "Waymo has produced several videos over the years without safety drivers but actual driverless operations have been very minimal and never photographed in the wild."
Until now...
TechCrunch got one of the first completely-driverless rides as a journalist, writes long-time Slashdot reader galgon. "It appears per Waymo's annoucement earlier this month that driverless rides really are ramping up in the Chandler, AZ area." From TechCrunch's report: Moments later, an empty Chrysler Pacifica minivan appears and navigates its way to my location near a park in Chandler, the Phoenix suburb where Waymo has been testing its autonomous vehicles since 2016.... Waymo wouldn't share specific numbers on just how many driverless rides it would be giving, only saying that it continues to ramp up its operations. Here's what we do know. There are hundreds of customers in its early rider program, all of whom will have access to this offering. These early riders can't request a fully driverless ride. Instead, they are matched with a driverless car if it's nearby. There are, of course, caveats to this milestone. Waymo is conducting these "completely driverless" rides in a controlled geofenced environment. Early rider program members are people who are selected based on what ZIP code they live in and are required to sign NDAs. And the rides are free, at least for now.
Still, as I buckle my seatbelt and take stock of the empty driver's seat, it's hard not to be struck, at least for a fleeting moment, by the achievement... Seeing an empty driver's seat at 45 miles per hour, or a steering wheel spinning in empty space as it navigates suburban traffic, feels inescapably surreal... There were moments where the self-driving system's driving impressed, like the way it caught an unprotected left turn just as the traffic signal turned yellow or how its acceleration matched surrounding traffic. The vehicle seemed to even have mastered the more human-like driving skill of crawling forward at a stop sign to signal its intent. Only a few typical quirks, like moments of overly cautious traffic spacing and overactive path planning, betrayed the fact that a computer was in control. A more typical rider, specifically one who doesn't regularly practice their version of the driving Turing Test, might not have even noticed them...
Given how fundamentally autonomous mobility could impact our society and cities, it's reassuring to know that one of the technology's leading developers is taking the time to understand and adapt to them.
The article also notes that "developing the technologies and protocols that allow a driverless Waymo to detect and pull over for emergency response vehicles and even allow emergency services to take over control was a complex task that required extensive testing and collaboration with local authorities."
The original submission also points out that the first video of a completely driver-less Waymo car has now surfaced on YouTube. "Waymo has produced several videos over the years without safety drivers but actual driverless operations have been very minimal and never photographed in the wild."
Until now...
Rm9sbG93ZXJz (Score:2)
Try the sushi [wikipedia.org]!
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It took me a long time to decide whether to click on that link or not, despite Slashdot and my own eyes confirming it was going to Wikipedia.
For others confused, it's a page about an X-Files episode.
Road rage (Score:2)
In that YouTube video, the filming car was driving recklessly by driving on the wrong side of the street in order to film the Waymo car. The Waymo car should have detected it as a road rage situation or, at a minimum, an aggressive driver situation, and waited for the filming car to proceed through the intersection before proceeding with the left turn. As it is, the Waymo's left turn created a conflict point (potential collision).
Which brings up another question: are Waymo cars able to call the police?
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are Waymo cars able to call the police?
I would expect them to be able to but I haven't seen any news about that as a feature. I would be very surprised if anyone running a fleet of driverless cars didn't have an operations center that could be called in the event of flagged conditions. And of course the police could be called from there.
What a driverless car brings to the party is a pretty detailed and hard-to-impeach log of what happened at any given time.
Re: Road rage (Score:2)
i am sure any log which shows the self-driving car at fault won't be accidentally lost/deleted/redacted.
Fun times, when nobody will own his stuff anymore. (Score:2)
And everything will be pay-per-use under some big company posing as "merely a platform" but actually merely pushing monopolistic single-provider lock-in.
And dumb lazy people will "prefer" to pay a little bit right now, rather than invest and save money in the long run.
Just like all products caught in a quality race to the bottom and price race to the top.
Until those who aren't retarded can't afford to buy the thing anymore either "cause nobody does that anymore, and the market is too small, so the prices ar
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Re: Fun times, when nobody will own his stuff any (Score:2)
No confidence (Score:2)
I will ride in one ONLY (Score:2)
When they license and rename them Johnny Cabs.
I can't wait... (Score:2)
...for these things to make their debut in central London.
I foresee a whole new market for the the betting industry...
Uh oh! (Score:2)
How are you feeling Woz?
https://www.nbcnews.com/busine... [nbcnews.com]
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These are limited to one town that is well-mapped, and which they are monitoring for street changes, etc. It isn't actually going to work in general now suddenly because of this. This isn't anything new. It goes slow in one town.
Emergency service collaboration? (Score:2)
I'm curious what that consisted of? I mean, one of the big challenges with self-driving vehicles has been getting a system that can accurately respond to the sound of a siren and/or flashing lights of emergency vehicles and safely get out of their way. Tesla is still struggling with that problem.
The obvious work-around has always been getting emergency vehicles to agree to put some kind of transponder on all of them that the self-driving vehicles can immediately pick up on and react to. Things like sirens
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What I'm wondering is why IEEE or the like are not already in on this. Having a transponder for emergency vehicles is a no-brainer. Hell, it'd be useful even without self-driving vehicles. The EV's transponder could communicate with the city's traffic light network... sending it's location and destination... to clear the way of any human-driven vehicle whose driver doesn't flagrantly run red lights. And since adjacent police, fire, and ambulance departments routinely assist each other; an IEEE standard
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This is already A Thing
Because "a variety of methods" is used, hilarity ensues.
If only some FEDERAL agency had declared that ONE SPECIFIC METHOD (eg 900MHz radio) would be used, then it'd be a NO BRAINER to make Autonomous Vehicles play nicely with Emergency Services.
NDA's = rider at risk for 3rd party victim deaths? (Score:2)
NDA's = rider at risk for 3rd party victim deaths?
What happens when... (Score:2)
I wonder what happens when someone grabs the wheel of this self-driving car.
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I guess people will have to die (Score:2)
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People do die every day in driving accidents already. It's not clear to me that there will be more deaths, even with everything you pointed out. Some will feel really wrong, where a car randomly plows through a pedestrian, but only because the explanation will be a software bug instead of a drunk driver.
These cars are never drunk, tired, distracted, never in a hurry, aggressive, or joyriding, have excellent vision in bad weather, see through other cars... they have many advantages over human drivers, as wel
Now Picking Up Passengers (Score:2)
Oh, you want to be let out now? Well now, THAT'LL cost you. And don't bother trying to bribe the driver, either -- we own him body and tire.
Comment (Score:2)
Hope they don't just outsource the "AI" to folks overseas. Have you seen how they drive?!
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Self-driving cars have already killed six people [wikipedia.org].
Most people didn't care. The world continued to turn.
Meanwhile, human-driven cars kill 3000 per day.
Re:Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:5, Interesting)
The highest death rates occur in countries that don't have the infrastructure you would typically find in, say, Western Europe, nor the rigorous enforcement of vehicle maintenance standards and driving permits. They're also the places where autonomous vehicles are least likely to operate successfully.
It's quite possible that the mere replacement of conventional power units with electric traction will save more lives in the immediate vicinity of roads by virtue of reduced air pollution than casualties on the road itself may be fall through automation - we'll probably only ever know that in retrospect.
The self-driving vehicle industry exists only because it represents an economic opportunity to take control of a very significant market. Any human benefits that accrue are merely incidental, though may be used for marketing purposes.
Re:Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:5, Insightful)
None of those are what most people would call a "self driving car". The Tesla ones are all level 2 autonomy, really just driver assistance systems. The Uber crash was level 3, self driving in limited conditions and requiring a driver at all times.
The only accident Waymo has had was a 2 MPH crash into the side of a bus when the car failed to correctly anticipate the bus' actions.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
Preach, sister! Big Brother Google's autonomous deathbots will save us from ourselves!
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Right after they finish redlining. Interestingly, Waymo says they only provide service in the east valley of Phoenix, which is predominantly white/asian, but nothing for the west valley, which is mostly black/latino. I moved to the South Mountain (also lumped in with South Phoenix) district, which is still mostly black/latino, and waymo stopped offering their services :)
For a company that always talks up a storm about social justice and has a chief diversity officer, they sure don't like diversity.
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And that is just it, The whole fear is deeply irrational (as most fears, really) and it kills people. Because human drivers are really bad on average.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
Autonomous deathbots are totally way more accurate than their human counterparts
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So far, none of them have been caused by Waymo. That arm of the Google / Alphabet complex is rolling out autonomous vehicles carefully.
One is Uber's doing. That led to a nine month shutdown of their autonomous vehicle program.
The other five are misuse of Tesla Autopilot, which doesn't claim to be a full autonomous driving system. Those deaths are regrettable. But we don't know how many lives were saved by Autopilot; it's likely more than five.
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Automated driving will be completely safe only when they no longer face any human drivers on the road.
The hardest part of the driving automation problem is right now.
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when they no longer face any human drivers on the road
And pedestrians. And cyclists.
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Who certified this car as level 5, and what operating area / conditions is that good for?
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
This is level 4, at best. Note the geofencing in use:
Level 4 ("mind off"): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, e.g. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self-driving is supported only in limited spatial areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, e.g. park the car, if the driver does not retake control.
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Yeah, I think level 4 is too high, more like a 3 1/2 what with it being 'geofenced' so it can avoid areas, roads, and situations it can't handle.
I also wonder what speed the car is limited to, and what kind of remote connections are active.
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I'm sure the driverless cars will be on average safer than those with drivers, but still, people will be more willing to accept death from human mistake than from machine mistake. That's just because people on the whole are idiots. :)
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:3)
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Machines can be fixed.
Don't you think the problem is inherently in the design of automobiles and not the driver? Also, public transportation is a current solution to this problem, instead of forcing the idea that people need to have a car to have some kind of status in society. All that matters is the freedom to travel, and public transportation is a safe mode to provide that freedom.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:5, Insightful)
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> What gives you the idea that people buy cars only as
> a status symbol?
Many people certainly do, as evidenced by the legions of pickup trucks you can see very day that are prisinely clean, parked in commuter lots (See your average BART station's garage and lots for many good examples.) all day, and drive around with no cargo in their truck beds. Also, there's the fact that SUVs are a thing that exists.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:4)
Public transportation? And who, pray tell, do you suggest will be driving the bus?
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Public transportation? And who, pray tell, do you suggest will be driving the bus?
Nobody, in the future. Both because of autonomous driving systems, and because buses will be gone. We use buses because you have to hire two humans to operate a vehicle through a typical daily period, and that costs easily as much as $100k/driver. Once you can get an autonomous bus for only $150k or so over the normal purchase price (a full size transit bus typically costs somewhere from $250k-500k depending on features and options) it's actually cheaper than hiring drivers even on just a single-year cost b
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You must have missed the cases of bus drivers falling asleep behind the wheel, or playing on the phones while driving.
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Spoken by someone who either doesn't take public transportation, or deliberately chooses to ignore its glaring drawbacks.
Public transportation is peachy keen provided you don't mind (a) taking much longer to get to your destination, (b)
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Public transportation is peachy keen provided you don't mind (a) taking much longer to get to your destination, (b) having to walk half a mile or more to get back and forth to your home (sometimes in bad weather), or (c) dealing with the occasional crazy person, or someone who harrasses you while the driver does nothing to stop it (especially bad for women traveling alone).
The funny thing is that it would take me a lot longer to get around with a car if I had to look for parking spots etc., the longest distance I have to walk is maybe a hundred meters most of the time, and crazy people are apparently exceedingly rare on our public transport, since I can't recall any. You must be living in a lousy place.
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Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
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Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
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People don't just want "freedom", they want convenience and safety. I've ridden buses and subways all my life, and they are a VERY poor substitute for a private vehicle
Public transit is a poor substitute for your car, because even if you can drive to your starting station and find parking there, you still have to get from the destination station to point B. But what if there were no more personal cars at all? You take a self-drive vehicle to a transit station and then another self-drive for the local hop to
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It's not necessary for everyone to ride transit. So long as a transit leg is significantly cheaper to ride than the same distance as a self-drive ride and if you don't have to sit on needles or share the bus with thugs, people will include the transit leg in any sort of regular trip.
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If you harass somebody on the bus, they literally stop the bus and wait for the police to come and arrest the perp, while everybody else on the bus berates them for causing a delay.
Not surprisingly, it is a rare occurrence. Especially because the perp will be banned from the bus system afterwards.
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If you harass somebody on the bus, they literally stop the bus and wait for the police to come and arrest the perp
You clearly don't live in the U.S.
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I think he may live in China. That's one society I can think of where the accusation of improper (i.e. "anti-social") behavior can get you banned from a public transportation service without due process of law. In the U.S., lawyers would be lining up to represent the defendant in his civil suit against the city government.
Where I live, it would literally take a physical altercation between passengers for the bus driver to stop and do something about it .... if that.
You need a car to get to the suburbs (Score:2)
Moreover people like big homes, and big homes can't be done in the kind of dense cities that Public Transportation works in.
All this is before we talk about how people go where the work i
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where people want to live.
If it was a place where people wanted to live, there would be enough people living there to support local buses.
Maybe the people are just stupid, and oppose public transit because they hate hippies and can't comprehend the actual question?
You, for example, don't seem to comprehend the correlation between the desirability of a location and the population density.
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If it was a place where people wanted to live, there would be enough people living there to support local buses.
You, for example, don't seem to comprehend the correlation between the desirability of a location and the population density.
There are two things that lead to population density:
1. desirability
2. affordability
If it's (2), and it usually is, then the local (poor) population will not be able to afford to support local buses.
Re: You need a car to get to the suburbs (Score:2)
I grew up in the suburbs. There are definitely more criminals in the suburbs. Urban folks learn early that the law and rules are created so that we can live together. It's the suburban individualists who don't think the law applies to them.
Also, who cares how many criminals you encounter day to day? If you are in a dense area, those criminals can't act on their criminal impulse. Density protects you. So do dollars, but dollar-for-dollar you get more security in a dense area.
That's why serial killers so ofte
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That's why serial killers so often operate in suburban or rural areas. Easy pickings.
But muggers and aggressive panhandlers mostly
operate in urban areas, since the pickings are so much denser.
And there are thousands of muggers for every serial killer.
Re: You need a car to get to the suburbs (Score:2)
I'd rather get mugged 1000 times than get killed by a serial killer once, though.
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If you mean that the flaw in current automobile designs is that they depend on an alert, competent driver, then yes, that's definitely the problem.
Private drivers are bad because licensing is designed so any idiot can get one, given a few tries. Long-haul commercial driving is bad because drivers are incentivized to drive as long and fast as possible.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
Long-haul commercial driving is bad because drivers are incentivized to drive as long and fast as possible.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration effectively put a stop to the former years ago (e-loggibg onduty hours was the nail in the coffin). As for speeding, a CDL-holder who's willing to speed won't be a CDL-holder for much longer.
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And the fact that it requires electronic monitoring to prevent is a good sign that it was rampant before.
By speeding I didn't mean exceeding the posted speed limit (although that happens a lot too). I meant exceeding the safe speed for conditions. That tends to only get prosecuted if you actually crash.
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As for speeding, a CDL-holder who's willing to speed won't be a CDL-holder for much longer.
LOL found the non-driver.
Just for fun, when the bus is on the freeway try standing close enough behind the driver that you can see the speedometer, and glace out the window at the commercial trucks passing the bus. Now glance at the special, lower speed limit for trucks.
When the truck speed is 50 and the regular traffic speed is 60, everybody is still driving 65 to 70. The result is never, never, that the trucks are all driving 50. The only single truck you see driving 50 is the one going a short distance w
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Don't you think the problem is inherently in the design of automobiles and not the driver? Also, public transportation is a current solution to this problem, instead of forcing the idea that people need to have a car to have some kind of status in society.
Automobiles are just fine, at least as far as hazards go. The problems are with the driver, and the design of society. We had the technology for self-driving vehicles a century ago, it's called rail. There's any number of ways to handle the automatic speed control, like a third rail for example. But we built out for cars instead and now we're dealing with the obvious consequences.
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Don't you think the problem is inherently in the design of automobiles and not the driver?
No.
The problem is inherently very fallible human beings.
I have avoided many, many accidents in my life by paying attention to what was happening a few cars ahead of me, by giving a proper amount of space between my car and others, and by not dicking around and doing anything other than driving. It doesn't seem to me that most drivers can do all of these things. At least regularly on the road, I rarely see anyone doing all 3.
A driverless car does these things. And the more of them we have, the safer the road
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Let me know when the next bus leaves for the mountain trail head down a dirt road that I feel like hiking next.
For that matter, even though my town has bus service, it would take at least an hour and a half to complete grocery shopping by bus compared to a half hour by car... with a much longer distance of carrying bags uncomfortably, and at a higher cost per trip.
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The difference is in the litigation. While you likely do reduce the number of incidences in which criminal charges would be brought, you now have a giant whale for the lawyers to go after. All of these companies will be one mishap away from being sued out of existence.
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Actually, big companies don't get sued out of existence.
It's rare, but that's literally what happened to Johns-Manville. It was on a roll and making money at the time, too.
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The difference is in the litigation. While you likely do reduce the number of incidences in which criminal charges would be brought, you now have a giant whale for the lawyers to go after. All of these companies will be one mishap away from being sued out of existence.
OK, kid, now go look up "liability insurance."
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And you should figure out that it covers medical and property damage, not pain and suffering or anything else that comes out of a personal lawsuit against the company.
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There are plenty of tools/options available that would greatly reduce this. Even my daughter's focus shows an led on the mirror if a car is in the blindspot. We should be more focused on improving driving safety options and less on getting rid of drivers completely.
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Yes, people will be more willing to accept death from human mistake than from machine mistake. But on the other hand, people will be much more willing to accept the risk of their car's computer causing the death of another person than being responsible for death or even minor damages themselves. If it's the software company that gets sued for every accident, drivers will embrace it.
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If it's the software company that gets sued for every accident, drivers will embrace it.
Most likely, the owner of the car will take out insurance, and the insurance company will pay all the damages, just like they do now. Only in the case of gross negligence the car manufacturer will they get sued, just like they are now.
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That's just because people on the whole are idiots. :)
Indeed. And this is not the only place where the stupidity of the average person is killing people.
Re: Waiting for the first deaths to occur, now (Score:2)
Everyone who disagrees with my naive optimism is a blithering idiot!
Why, YES, Mr. Bond... you too will die! (Score:2)
(via video from the dashboard console)
It's a pity, Mr. Bond...
You see, Miss Moneypenny was so careless... so careless... getting into a car without checking to see if it was truly empty...(chuckle) She put up quite the fight, that girl...
And her assistant.. poor girl. She had no idea when she was delivered to an InCel's doorstep. He was SOOO happy to actually see a REAL girl. I imagine she's stayed there ever since - perhaps not by her own choice.
And Q... despite his jacket full of gadgets, even HE c
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Re: I'd send the car back (Score:2)
In Soviet Euro-peon Union, autonomous deathbot cancels you!
Re:I'd send the car back (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess you don't use modern phones either since they steal operator jobs.
Actually... (Score:2)
...it's the autonomous telephone exchange, not the telephone, responsible for that.
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Correct. Our phones steal everyone else's job. So far this morning my phone has stolen the jobs of a bank teller, a newspaper seller and a personal secretary.
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...it's the autonomous telephone exchange, not the telephone, responsible for that.
Right! Using the mobile phone is stealing a couriers job.
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Guess you don't use modern phones either since they steal operator jobs.
Exactly!
Switching to electronic switching.. initially step-by-step and crossbar, also enabled phone phreaking.
also it blacklisted buggy whip makers, since nobody using electronic switching was able to call one.
Re: I'd send the car back (Score:2)
I AM a disemployed switchboard operator, you insensitive clod!
"Steals someone's job" ... (Score:2)
Who the hell *wants* a job where you do something so mind-numbingly under-challenging that a very primitive (compared to a lifeform) machine can do it?
It steals someone's MONEY. That is what this is about.
If the car was owned by a former taxi driver, who would rent it out, he would still have the same income, but could work on his dream instead, or just enjoy the wealth.
But as it is, the wealth goes to a cancer of fatcat leeches again. Despite us actual workers having done all the work to get them there.
TH
s/affort/afford/; s/Then when/When/ (Score:2)
Dear Slashdot, please add a preview feature.
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Are you new here? There is a preview feature [imgur.com] :)
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f the car was owned by a former taxi driver, who would rent it out, he would still have the same income, but could work on his dream instead, or just enjoy the wealth.
There's nothing stopping the former taxi owner from investing his earnings in Alphabet (which owns Waymo) and owning a share of all of the autonomous vehicles.
Then when we don't get the money of our labor, how will we affort paying those products in the first place?
People get new jobs and do more productive things with their labor. If this were really a problem, civilization would have collapsed a decades ago with the advent of the computer and all of the jobs it obsoleted. Not only was this not a problem, but we even added a large number of women to the workforce over that same time as well which suggests that
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There's nothing stopping the former taxi owner from investing his earnings in Alphabet (which owns Waymo) and owning a share of all of the autonomous vehicles.
Yes there is. Waymo does not make enough profit to pay every former taxi driver a decent salary, on top of their regular expenses. The whole point of making things cheaper is that there will be less money involved in the total operation than before. And the money that is made, already goes somewhere else.
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Except that it doesn't work that way. Alphabet doesn't even pay a dividend that you can count on. You'd have to rely on growth of the share price. And big companies till a large part of their profits into R&D and other things. As a result, it would take millions of dollars in Alphabet shares to turn enough of an annual profit to live on reliab
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Not a problem. By then you'll already haven been charged for the ride.
"Protest" to your heart's content. Google just makes that much more money.
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it steals someone's job.
Based on that logic your food sourcing must be REALLY limited in the modern world. All those tractors and whatnot, you know. In fact, you could take this reasoning to a logical conclusion and only ride by rickshaw I guess? Do you refuse to let the garbage service that uses the robotic arm pick up your trash? All those automatic traffic signals eliminate the job of a traffic cop ...