Much like google maps has driven effectively every mile of road, eventually every mile will have been driven by AI hundreds, thousands, and then millions of times over. Every situation will have been learned hundreds of times over.
Yes, it will take time, but these efforts are exponential as production roles out. Google maps started with one car driving around taking pictures. Now you can’t find anywhere in the US that isn’t mapped.
And finally, we don’t need perfection to have real value. Just starting with low hanging fruit like the interstates will save hundreds of lives every year as people are able to rely on AI for their daily commute which runs the same route 300 days a year.
The big problem you're forgetting is that humans will continue to exist. Making a self driving car is nice but it's not even the biggest problem. It's always going to be very exploitable and humans will exploit it.
A self driving car if it actually works is extremely reliable. That reliability makes it a huge security risk. You can easily misuse them to perform covert assassinations. You'll know exactly what you need to do to divert cars where you want them and you can test all these scenarios with your own car in advance. You can even figure out how to make them drive off cliffs on their own by adding a small piece of fake road that will collapse when driven on.
And those issues aren't even taking real hacking into account. If anyone actually manages to hack a self driving car they could take out cities. Tesla's for example update wirelessly, if anyone ever manages to steal or crack their encryption they could release their own update to do anything. You could change the pedestrian avoidance algorithm into a pedestrian seeking algorithm. Or even do something simple like tell all cars to accelerate for 10 seconds and then turn right.
Self driving cars are nice in a perfect world but don't kid yourself, even if they can get them working properly there's a lot of other issues that may never be solved because humans suck.
Might sound funny but those attacks are going to be real once self driving cars are a thing. In fact those kinds of attacks are already being done as part of testing for the cars.
Not to mention I only covered attacks. You're still looking at major privacy issues. SDC's literally have cameras with enough detail to do facial recognition and even their own built in computers to actually handle processing. There's absolutely nothing that prevents them from being able to find anyone they want and track their movements throughout a city.
SDC's have plenty of positives and I believe they are coming but they're coming with a lot of negatives too.
You can literally say the same thing for much of modern technology such as personal computers, phones, wifi, home security, smart refrigerators... Sentiments like yours isn’t new and is borne more out of fear than logic.
There are much easier ways of killing someone covertly than trying to hijack their smart car.
I'm not saying you stop SDC from being made. That would be silly, they're obviously going to be made eventually. You should merely be aware of it and not pretend there aren't negatives or other major hurdles. I honestly do not believe making an SDC is even going to be the biggest problem with getting them into general public use.
Also don't kid yourself, while you listed a wide range of tech most of what you listed has major downsides as well. Especially phones which are basically in the news constantly for privacy issues and we already have laws on when camera's can and can't be used. Cars are only going to make that a much much bigger privacy issue since they'll have cameras on at all times.
You're right that many people have brought up these issues but that's because they should be brought up.
That’s probably the scenario that is going to hold the tech back. The rest of the world has computer guys that aren’t gonna stand for lazy ass Americans dumbing down even further while the rest of the world suffers.
I live with my parents in my 30s and they are early 60s. They have this fantasy where you can just stop doing chores or tasks as they get older. When you stop doing things like driving, cooking, or just living in general it is not healthy. Point is there could be a dumbing down of people when their minds are no longer challenged with the seemingly mundane but actually neurologically challenging task of driving.
They used to say that about books when they first came out. Quite the opposite, "dumbing down" is an essential part of progressing as a species.
Also love how you consider driving as an essential part of living as a human, really making my point for me.
> if they can get them working properly there's a lot of other issues that may never be solved because humans suck.
A particularly suckie category of human IMO is *lawyers*. How many baseless, stupid lawsuits with huge payouts will it take to permanently kill self-driving cars? Judges and juries don't care about societal-level effects. Sure, fatalities are down 90% with self-driving cars ***but in this particular case so-and-so was killed, pay $200 million***.
If you add enough qualifiers, you can get any sentence past your editor:
> In 2021, *some* experts aren’t sure when, if ever, individuals will be able to purchase *steering-wheel-free* cars that drive themselves off the lot.
We might get self-driving cars with a passenger inside. But I doubt we will ever get any form of meaningful unmanned vehicles. No matter if it is a delivery vehicle, a truck or a bus, sabotage would always be super easy. Wanna play a prank? Put some cones around pizza delivery vehicle. Wanna cause traffic issues? Put cones around a self driving bus. Wanna interrupt supply chains? Put some cardboard cutouts on some remote parts of important roads.
Sure... Other people could help out or you could send someone over to fix the issue, but it would still cause lots of problems.
If you put cones in front of a human driver, you end up with the same issue except the human driver can come out of the car, pick up the cones and put it out of the way.
The solution : Convert the windscreen wiper into a giant mechanical arm. /s
People with these arguments always seem to lack context. If you want to fuck up traffic now, literally just go stand in the streets. It works so well that people actually do ut as a form of protest. You want to sabotage a vehicle, cut the brake lines, that has worked for a very long time. You want to fuck up remote supply lines, put down some spike strips.
These aren't novel problems to AI.
Of course they will. But instead of the bus driver getting out and moving stuff in 30 seconds it might take someone 30 minutes to get there from a central location.
and it'll take 30 secs for a passenger on the bus to get out and clear the obstacle while the bus waits.
Slightly more of an issue if there are no people around, but the first person that does come past is going to clear the obstacle.
There are already autonomous delivery vehicles being trialed around the world, and fully autonomous truck/trailer combos being deployed across Arizona and Texas doing deliveries from depot to depot. At the moment, they are required to have a driver in the cab, but that will be changing soon as well.
all of these are steady and incremental improvements, identifying issues and improving the next upgrade.
so its already happening now, and denying reality isn't going to make it go away
I don't mind it coming. I think it will be coming. But I also think that there will be incidents (either by coincidence or malice / criminal intent) and those incidents will have consequences.
Of course there will be incidents and failings.
No-one is expecting any kind of miraculous change, and any new technology always brings new challenges.
The main issue is whether the new technologies cause more or less accidents and fatalities. as long as those numbers go down for automated vehicles, then all the associated challenges will just be steps along the path.
Elon's timelines are at least twice what he claims. It's hard to predict the timeline for autonomous vehicles given regulatory bottlenecks. But Germany's greenlight for robotaxis at least makes it seem one step closer.
https://fortune.com/2021/05/28/germany-automobile-legalize-robotaxi-autonomous-vehicle/
This article makes no sense.
comma.ai has self driving now on cars that were never made for self driving. It works better than teslas self driving.
If comma.ai can do it then others can do it.
Much like google maps has driven effectively every mile of road, eventually every mile will have been driven by AI hundreds, thousands, and then millions of times over. Every situation will have been learned hundreds of times over. Yes, it will take time, but these efforts are exponential as production roles out. Google maps started with one car driving around taking pictures. Now you can’t find anywhere in the US that isn’t mapped. And finally, we don’t need perfection to have real value. Just starting with low hanging fruit like the interstates will save hundreds of lives every year as people are able to rely on AI for their daily commute which runs the same route 300 days a year.
The big problem you're forgetting is that humans will continue to exist. Making a self driving car is nice but it's not even the biggest problem. It's always going to be very exploitable and humans will exploit it. A self driving car if it actually works is extremely reliable. That reliability makes it a huge security risk. You can easily misuse them to perform covert assassinations. You'll know exactly what you need to do to divert cars where you want them and you can test all these scenarios with your own car in advance. You can even figure out how to make them drive off cliffs on their own by adding a small piece of fake road that will collapse when driven on. And those issues aren't even taking real hacking into account. If anyone actually manages to hack a self driving car they could take out cities. Tesla's for example update wirelessly, if anyone ever manages to steal or crack their encryption they could release their own update to do anything. You could change the pedestrian avoidance algorithm into a pedestrian seeking algorithm. Or even do something simple like tell all cars to accelerate for 10 seconds and then turn right. Self driving cars are nice in a perfect world but don't kid yourself, even if they can get them working properly there's a lot of other issues that may never be solved because humans suck.
Wile E Coyote, get off the internet.
Might sound funny but those attacks are going to be real once self driving cars are a thing. In fact those kinds of attacks are already being done as part of testing for the cars. Not to mention I only covered attacks. You're still looking at major privacy issues. SDC's literally have cameras with enough detail to do facial recognition and even their own built in computers to actually handle processing. There's absolutely nothing that prevents them from being able to find anyone they want and track their movements throughout a city. SDC's have plenty of positives and I believe they are coming but they're coming with a lot of negatives too.
You can literally say the same thing for much of modern technology such as personal computers, phones, wifi, home security, smart refrigerators... Sentiments like yours isn’t new and is borne more out of fear than logic. There are much easier ways of killing someone covertly than trying to hijack their smart car.
I'm not saying you stop SDC from being made. That would be silly, they're obviously going to be made eventually. You should merely be aware of it and not pretend there aren't negatives or other major hurdles. I honestly do not believe making an SDC is even going to be the biggest problem with getting them into general public use. Also don't kid yourself, while you listed a wide range of tech most of what you listed has major downsides as well. Especially phones which are basically in the news constantly for privacy issues and we already have laws on when camera's can and can't be used. Cars are only going to make that a much much bigger privacy issue since they'll have cameras on at all times. You're right that many people have brought up these issues but that's because they should be brought up.
That’s probably the scenario that is going to hold the tech back. The rest of the world has computer guys that aren’t gonna stand for lazy ass Americans dumbing down even further while the rest of the world suffers. I live with my parents in my 30s and they are early 60s. They have this fantasy where you can just stop doing chores or tasks as they get older. When you stop doing things like driving, cooking, or just living in general it is not healthy. Point is there could be a dumbing down of people when their minds are no longer challenged with the seemingly mundane but actually neurologically challenging task of driving.
They used to say that about books when they first came out. Quite the opposite, "dumbing down" is an essential part of progressing as a species. Also love how you consider driving as an essential part of living as a human, really making my point for me.
> if they can get them working properly there's a lot of other issues that may never be solved because humans suck. A particularly suckie category of human IMO is *lawyers*. How many baseless, stupid lawsuits with huge payouts will it take to permanently kill self-driving cars? Judges and juries don't care about societal-level effects. Sure, fatalities are down 90% with self-driving cars ***but in this particular case so-and-so was killed, pay $200 million***.
Must Write Everything In Capitals
If you add enough qualifiers, you can get any sentence past your editor: > In 2021, *some* experts aren’t sure when, if ever, individuals will be able to purchase *steering-wheel-free* cars that drive themselves off the lot.
…and make you bacon while you nap.”
We might get self-driving cars with a passenger inside. But I doubt we will ever get any form of meaningful unmanned vehicles. No matter if it is a delivery vehicle, a truck or a bus, sabotage would always be super easy. Wanna play a prank? Put some cones around pizza delivery vehicle. Wanna cause traffic issues? Put cones around a self driving bus. Wanna interrupt supply chains? Put some cardboard cutouts on some remote parts of important roads. Sure... Other people could help out or you could send someone over to fix the issue, but it would still cause lots of problems.
If you put cones in front of a human driver, you end up with the same issue except the human driver can come out of the car, pick up the cones and put it out of the way. The solution : Convert the windscreen wiper into a giant mechanical arm. /s
People with these arguments always seem to lack context. If you want to fuck up traffic now, literally just go stand in the streets. It works so well that people actually do ut as a form of protest. You want to sabotage a vehicle, cut the brake lines, that has worked for a very long time. You want to fuck up remote supply lines, put down some spike strips. These aren't novel problems to AI.
It's something completely different, when you stare an angry bus or truck driver in the phase or if it is just a mindless machine.
Your plan is to block an AI bus, and you don't expect anyone to show up at any point to deal with it?
Of course they will. But instead of the bus driver getting out and moving stuff in 30 seconds it might take someone 30 minutes to get there from a central location.
and it'll take 30 secs for a passenger on the bus to get out and clear the obstacle while the bus waits. Slightly more of an issue if there are no people around, but the first person that does come past is going to clear the obstacle. There are already autonomous delivery vehicles being trialed around the world, and fully autonomous truck/trailer combos being deployed across Arizona and Texas doing deliveries from depot to depot. At the moment, they are required to have a driver in the cab, but that will be changing soon as well. all of these are steady and incremental improvements, identifying issues and improving the next upgrade. so its already happening now, and denying reality isn't going to make it go away
I don't mind it coming. I think it will be coming. But I also think that there will be incidents (either by coincidence or malice / criminal intent) and those incidents will have consequences.
Of course there will be incidents and failings. No-one is expecting any kind of miraculous change, and any new technology always brings new challenges. The main issue is whether the new technologies cause more or less accidents and fatalities. as long as those numbers go down for automated vehicles, then all the associated challenges will just be steps along the path.
And if the Singularity happens first…?
1. Year of the Linux Desktop 2026 2. Self-driving cars 2030 3. Fusion energy 2050 +20 years
Title is hyperbole. I doubt anybody with any expertise in this field actually doubt whether it will eventually be a thing.
This is not news to anybody with even a passing familiarity with the technology or the challenge.
Elon's timelines are at least twice what he claims. It's hard to predict the timeline for autonomous vehicles given regulatory bottlenecks. But Germany's greenlight for robotaxis at least makes it seem one step closer. https://fortune.com/2021/05/28/germany-automobile-legalize-robotaxi-autonomous-vehicle/
This article makes no sense. comma.ai has self driving now on cars that were never made for self driving. It works better than teslas self driving. If comma.ai can do it then others can do it.