Will you like a "driverless car"?

That's up to the politicians, and they can be more unpredictable than road conditions.

All of the driverless concept-cars that I've heard about (except Google's) are optionally autonomous. They still have conventional controls and can be driven by humans if necessary or desired. Presumably an individual without a driver's license would be allowed to be a passenger in such a car, but couldn't take the controls.

But current law governing testing of autonomous vehicles (they are all considered experimental) on public roads requires that they have conventional controls and 'safety drivers' behind the wheel, ready to take over if the computer chokes. When autonomous cars finally go on the market that might still be the legal regime in some places, so they will still have to have a licensed driver aboard.

Interestingly, plans for production versions of Google's little pod-car don't include any steering wheel or pedals, so they can't be manually driven at all. (The test versions still have conventional controls.) Everyone aboard these cars would be a passenger, so there probably won't be any driver's license required for these vehicles.

 

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ahh.. ok.. thanks.. i now understand.

 

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At first, driverless cars would probably be treated like any other option. The person in charge of the vehicle would be responsible, just as you're now responsible for deciding when to use cruise control, turn signals, etc. If there was an accident, the human could be held liable for failing to disengage the automatic driver.

 

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The young engineer who was the original project leader of the Google driverless car is an acquaintance. Anthony earned our team's respect as the creator of Ghostrider, the driverless autonomous motorcycle entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005. Although his entry didn't qualify for this race, he learned as the rest of us did exactly what it takes to bring about the vision of a driverless car. After the race, he briefly joined our team for the follow-up race, the Urban Challenge. He shared some of his ideas about what later became the first practical driverless car, the prototype Prius that Anthony tested himself all over San Francisco for a year with only one relatively minor traffic mishap.

Generally speaking, human drivers make more mistakes per mile than driverless cars do. The real benefit to folks who, for whatever reason, are unable to drive is hard to overvalue. Military personnel who are wounded while driving is only one obvious example, and Alexander the Great's legendary horse was the inspiration for this particular DARPA program.

Yes. This was a great idea whose time had come. Way to go, Anthony!

 

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Ox Head?

 

Stupid advice imho,,I prefer new,when I can afford it.
I bought 08 Silverado pu brand new and in all these years the biggest expense to fix was tiny air bag sensor about two inches big cost 160$,
(Not counting fuel tires etc..of course)
Im guessing different makes may be less reliable,,but buying used,is ok if you like fixi g things

 

I doubt we will see driverless car any time soon
Computer can never replace human driver,,theres too many variables on the roads to leave it to AI,,

 

Driverless train is already there, because train track is independent .

 

You misunderstood.
The model you bought was introduced in autumn 2006.
What the mechanic had in mind wasn't buy used, but rather buy after the mistakes created by introducing a new model had been found by the beta testers,(those who bought in the 1st year of production) and corrected at the factory. Sometimes, it ain't just a mechanical mistake introduced with a new model, but equally important is the retooling of the workforce.

 

They already have. Computers can drive cars across deserts, through cities and along highways. They already have a better track record than human drivers. Google's cars, for example, have now logged over a million miles. During that time there were 14 accidents - all due to human drivers sideswiping or rear-ending the driverless car. None were the result of the car's autopilot.

 

Intelligence is part of the problem. Human intelligence craves constant stimulation, which leads to distracted driving. A car's autopilot reacts only to the pertinent stimuli that it needs to perform its task. Cruising down an empty highway, it's perfectly content to do nothing but wait for something to happen, whereas a human is likely to get bored and do something which will put him in the ditch.

 

I think Scorpius is referring to the fact that there are too many pertinent stimuli variables the could present, to be reliant on AI.

 

That may be true. But so far all the data we have indicates that the AI is better at managing those variables than a human driver.

 

I'll believe that when an ai wins the grandprix, or even the indi500.

 

I have seen enough crazy drivers in my life time. Just the other day, I witnessed a car blow threw a red light at 65 miles per hour, had the timing been a little different, people would have died. I've seen several recent accidents where people have refused to yield at intersections and caused collisions. I have seen other recent instances of people driving without headlights at or after dusk and nearly causing an accident. Humans are terrible drivers. Some people just should never to be in the driver's seat. And then there are the drunk drivers.

I have no doubt automated vehicles will save many lives. My fear is the fools who think they can drive and insist upon driving will not use these cars (.e.g. hormonal teens).

 

<--- was a rural teen..........pedal on the metal was the norm.

Once when driving the stepvan in a chicago freeway heading north from the south side, I saw a 225 accelerating down an entrance ramp which shared a lane with an off ramp, while a couple cars were exiting in the shared lane---------I knew "an accident" was gonna happen, and hit the gas and left turn signal at the same time, and moved to the far left lane----as the collision happened and spun cars into more collisions covering the 3 right hand lanes, I sailed past unscathed.
Could an ai see and understand all of that and extrapolate to aggressive throttle down accident avoidance?
Would an ai take that sort of aggressive action?

 

They said the same thing about chess.

 

We solved that problem long ago, they are called trains. Fewer variables.

 

Those kinds of scenarios are the reason that i do not want a driverless car. At least not yet. I know that they cannot have all of the information needed, (location and speed of all other vehicles within a certain radius, for example) and I doubt that they could compute the best course of action if they did have all of the data. I can imagine traffic conditions becoming worse in the beginning phases of this technology.

 

Yes. Indeed, it can do a better determination of the odds of the resulting accident than a human could, since it can accurately measure closing speeds.

If safe to do so - yes, it could.