5 Reasons Why We Will Never Have Driverless Cars...time To Stop Dreaming?

[ToraToraTora]

http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/why-well-never-have-driverless-cars-1356917969
Only no 1 and maybe 2 are possibly solvable. This is a US based article but the issues are the same everywhere. We would do better to work on safety and training generally.

[woofgang]

But that is one man's views....and not an unbiased man either.

[woofgang]

PS of all the things I dream of, driverless cars aint among them!

[ToraToraTora]

He makes a lot of valid points, There are many articles out there. For example, should driverless cars be programmed using the asimov rules? if so how should they resolve conflicts? I should we run over 1 person to avoid killing more by a collision?

[bhg481]

They can be programmed by humans to make the same decisions that humans would make; the difference being that they can make them more quickly.

[jim360]

Never is too long a time. I can accept that things will take a long time to change if they ever will, but in part this is a generational thing and in part it's because the technology isn't ready yet. When it is, then we'll find it harder to resist something that will, in the long run, be many times safer than just better-trained humans can be.

[tonyav]

Quite a few car manufacturers are gearing up for driverless cars.
http://www.driverless-future.com/?page_id=384

[Zacs-Master]

Exactly Jim. This will happen. And a lot sooner than people think. Google's fleet has travelled 140,000 miles without incident:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car
The main driving force (pun intended) will be economy and safety. Irrespective of the 'will it kill one person to save five' arguments, the number of road deaths will be vastly reduced.

[ToraToraTora]

"They can be programmed by humans to make the same decisions that humans would make; the difference being that they can make them more quickly." - no they can't, see here for example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11350524/Driverless-cars-may-never-be-safer-than-a-human.html
machine will never have human judgement the whole thing is down to linear programming.
Howevere the main point hat everyone seems to ignore is that even if the tech problems are overcome to an acceptable level, they will need to integrate into the legal system and also the insurance situation will need to be resolved. Ain't gonna happen.

[tonyav]

Then why are some car manufacturers even bothering to make them !.

[jim360]

Again, legal issues are not insurmountable. And besides which, if they are genuinely safe as all that, then almost by definition there would be fewer occasions on which any possible legal issues would come up!

Nope -- the naysayers have an important role to play in making sure that this change, when it comes, does so in the safest and most sensible way possible, but those against driverless cars are like Canute ordering back the tide.

[ToraToraTora]

gawd knows, they made diesels didn't they? Probably if they think they can sell them to google to play silly bu66ers with eh?

[tonyav]

IEEE predicts up to 75% of vehicles will be autonomous in 2040

Expert members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) have determined that driverless vehicles will be the most viable form of intelligent transportation. They estimate that up to 75% of all vehicles will be autonomous by 2040.
(Source: IEEE, 2012-09-05)

[jim360]

Even a car in itself is a technological step that was resisted at the time. Imagine the advantages of having an intelligent vehicle capable of making its own judgements about collision risks and adjusting accordingly, independent of the person in nominal charge. A horse, in other words.

It's a wonder cars even got off the ground, given the onus they put on humans to pay attention constantly, which we are evidently incapable of doing.

[tonyav]

Mabe a man with a Red flag will have to walk in front of the driverless cars, Jim.

[Zacs-Master]

It's a good job there are visionaries in this world. If everyone thought like you TTT we'd still be walking everywhere. If you showed an Elizabethan a Dreamliner and told him what it did he'd probably go instantly insane.

“1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Arthur C. Clarke

[ToraToraTora]

not all colisions are aviodable. Tyre burst at 70 for example, car sidways, even computers won't be able to react quick enough. Bang whose fault? who pays the damage? will all the other driverless cars be able to avoid the stricken car and the nearby traffic including the left hook polish truck with dodgy tyres and brakes and the driver half pi55ed? I work in IT and I've seen and done a lot of sophisticated programming but we have yet to achieve "idiot proof" because nature is always making better "idiots".

Many cars have driverless features but full door to door driverless functionality is a long long way off, the legal issues are even longer off.

[douglas9401]

Monorail!

[jim360]

Indeed -- but there is evidently a difference between "a long way off" and "never". I can't say I'll be holding my breath waiting, but I don't see how anyone can so confidently dismiss it either.

Legal issues? Meh, lawyers can make anything an issue if they put their minds to it.
Technological issues? Surmountable -- especially once a certain critical mass of driverless cars is on the road so that there are fewer unknowns to be worried about.

The only thing standing in the way of driverless cars, really, is whether or not enough people want them.

[ToraToraTora]

I want one!

[ToraToraTora]

I want to be able to take my car down the pub, get blotto and have it drive me home whilst I kip on the back seat, without being legally responsible for any death and destruction it causes. That's all!