quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
I'd like to see the programmers version of my dad's 1994 Chevy 1500 that he has used on the cattle farm he manages. Ruts, groundhog holes, and other mysterious sink holes that pop up over the course of a winter. Hills get steeper due to erosion. Rocks that weren't sticking out of the ground now do, again because of erosion. How much is the government going to pay the boss man to bulldoze the place flat so that a little bit of unnecessary tech can "help" the population make it safely up the road while becoming evermore lazy?

As to the non-ownership of these cars: Taxi's work....in cities, where there is nearly instant turnover. Out here where I live, I might see 1-2 taxi's a month, and that's because some drunkard needs to make it to court. Lots of folks still live outside of major metropolitan areas where the concept of a Taxi is downright idiotic.

Also, who cleans up the mess after a drunk shits himself or pukes all over the back seat? Is this new car supposed to be self cleaning like an oven or dishwasher, because I have been in a taxi once before and that thing was RIPE! How about all the other DNA that gets left behind?

This shit is a wet dream for those that spend hours commuting instead of sleeping in. For the rest of the country, it sounds like a stoner somewhere on the left coast needs yet another iDevice to help them live their lives!

quote:

Originally posted by Spokane228:
Aside from that, I find it interesting that the best a lot of you guys can do is come up with the 1%, or .1%, or .01% scenarios of failure based on tech that isn't remotely in wide use. You had to reach for a road only 50 year locals could drive in the rainy season.

Reminds me of the arguments the Anti's use against CCW.

I find it interesting that you are using the same argument that lefties do regarding getting rid of the Electoral College. If only for those damn rednecks and hillbillies out in the middle of the nowhere, nobody cares about, then we could have our way!!!

This is just good old American capitalism at work. The same market and tech forces that made Amazon one of the biggest companies in the world will do the same here. Tesla is an overvalued company that will probably go bankrupt. A conglomerate of the big 3 automakers and Google/Apple? That's something different. Uber became a 60 billion dollar company as a ride sharing app. That's small potatoes compared to what's coming. It will take longer in parts of the country, but not as long as people think. Based on how disruptive technology is, it's a demographic certainty.

I'm old enough to remember when Amazon just sold books.

Concept and theory are great. But once you have a human be part of the SW development, then I have very little faith, at least for my lifetime (of which little is probably left ).

A top, TOP high tech company can't even upgrade phone software without issue. And we think we have the due diligence to drive cars?

We'll be on the right track when these things can drive in Russia. Not some sunny artificial course in lying Commiefornia.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I can see it now- the press out on some test track for an unveiling of driverless vehicles. The CEO of some new company stands in the middle of the track, feet set in a wide stance, closed fists on hips, telegraphing his supreme confidence.
In the background, dust rises and several sleek vehicles rapidly emerge from the cloud, hurtling towards the CEO.


Here they come!! ffffffffffFFFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOMM!!!!!!!

Ooopsie, oh, the CEO has gotten run over several times. Back to the drawing board.

It's very simple- all machines can malfunction, but we're talking about autonomous machines carrying people at high speeds, on roads with other autonomous machines carrying people at high speeds.

I almost wish we had a crystal ball, so that all you guys who are so certain that this technology is at hand could see the mountain of accidents that these machines will cause. When these machines end up killing humans (and they already have) on a larger scale, maybe you'll begin to understand how this is really not a good idea at all.

Fallible machines designed, programmed and built by even more fallible humans. What could go wrong? Well, you could die, for starters.

Now, please do carry on with those sarcastic remarks about we dinosaurs who are saying 'be careful'.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I can see it now- the press out on some test track for an unveiling of driverless vehicles. The CEO of some new company stands in the middle of the track, feet set in a wide stance, closed fists on hips, telegraphing his supreme confidence.
In the background, dust rises and several sleek vehicles rapidly emerge from the cloud, hurtling towards the CEO.


Here they come!! ffffffffffFFFFFFFFOOOOOOOOOOMM!!!!!!!

Ooopsie, oh, the CEO has gotten run over several times. Back to the drawing board.

His last name didn’t happen to be Yeager did it?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
It's very simple- all machines can malfunction, but we're talking about autonomous machines carrying people at high speeds, on roads with other autonomous machines carrying people at high speeds.

I almost wish we had a crystal ball, so that all you guys who are so certain that this technology is at hand could see the mountain of accidents that these machines will cause. When these machines end up killing humans (and they already have) on a larger scale, maybe you'll begin to understand how this is really not a good idea at all.

Fallible machines designed, programmed and built by even more fallible humans. What could go wrong? Well, you could die, for starters.

Now, please do carry on with those sarcastic remarks about we dinoaurs who are saying 'be careful'.

Completely agree. Well said. The problem is not necessarily limited to technology but the rigor in which fallible humans apply and develop the technology. I've seen no evidence that we (consumer companies) have the necessary rigor in due diligence to make sure these will handle daily driving. That rigor also seems to be diminishing with time as new generations take the helm. It's a rush to do something, not do something right.

We just no longer have the cultural discipline to do something like this unless there are big changes in priority to do it right.

Extremely high reliability, bug free, robust exception handling -- yea, these are not competencies demonstrated by any high tech company today.

There's no car on the market that is currently sold as fully autonomous so when some idiot gets killed in a Tesla thinking it is it's not the technologies fault it's his fault. It says right in the manual that it's assistive technology not fully autonomous.

You're not going to see cars come out fully autonomous without the need for steering wheels or pedals for quite a while.

What you will see, since it's already happening, is further and further automation with each generation of cars so people can experience it for themselves and get comfortable with a slow ramp up towards full automation.

Once it takes you to and from work or wherever hundreds of times without incident even the most white knuckle of drivers will begin to realize what it's all about. It's only a matter of time and I wouldn't doubt insurance companies cranking up your rates if you want to drive yourself.

I personally hate the idea for the most part because I am a car enthusiast and always buy fun to drive cars because it's enjoyable to me. What this will do is take the joy away from us and basically turn your car into a taxi. You might as well get an interior that's like a sofa at that point.

Humans are flawed, yes they are.
Humans invent and make machines.
Machines can be flawed also.

It is amusing when people get off on new technology for the sake of itself, how it is/will be perfect and make life better for all of mankind. Just because it is "high tech". I still think much of the "high tech" shit in our lives don't work properly, that companies just slap fixes and patches on this crap while it speeds along, and we as a society just accepts it, as long as "tech support" is kickass as they claim.

The problem is that companies will introduce products well before they are ready for prime time. And they won't necessarily give us options.

Case in point: all the shifts to made in PRC products. I'd happily buy and pay extra for made in USA, Europe or Japan. I just don't even have the choice now.

Companies will take short cuts in quality to bring a new product to market. When people start to die here, I hope the mgmt of these companies are criminally held liable.

Yep, people will die, and the more I think about it, the more I like my odds of dying at the hands of autonomous vehicles than the idiots on the road right now.

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Yep, people will die, and the more I think about it, the more I like my odds of dying at the hands of autonomous vehicles than the idiots on the road right now.

Some of those idiots are probably programming these cars

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Yep, people will die, and the more I think about it, the more I like my odds of dying at the hands of autonomous vehicles than the idiots on the road right now.

Sacrifice freedom for a bit of safety...

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Yep, people will die, and the more I think about it, the more I like my odds of dying at the hands of autonomous vehicles than the idiots on the road right now.

Sacrifice freedom for a bit of safety...

"Sacrifice freedom"? Yeah, man, that's deep.

quote:

Originally posted by Spokane228:

quote:

Originally posted by Jus228:
Tell me how a computer can navigate my local dirt roads during mud season when the locals with 50 years of first hand experience can barely do it.

Oh... I don't know. Maybe fix the road.

Seriously? You do know that our infrastructure is crumbling and no one is serious about fixing it? There is no money to keep the roads in their current condition, let alone improve them. I drive on roads with grass growing between the cracks. Bridges sit closed completely because there is no money to fix them.

If technology is so advanced that cars are a handful of years from being autonomous, why do we still have two pilots in an airplane cockpit? Flying has way fewer variables with which to contend than an automobile. At the least, why aren't airplanes automated with perhaps a single pilot backup, or ground control as backup? For that matter, why do we still have engineers in the cab of locomotives? A train driver doesn't even need to steer, just obey signals and control slack in/slack out. If full autonomy is so close, it seems like these other vehicles would be easier to do first.

I believe the answer is found in examples like United fight 232, where a DC-10 lost all hydrolic assist and was flown only through throttle control and the adaptive efforts of an experienced flight crew. When a machine fails, it has limited options to recover due to the fault. I think this is why we still want two pilots in a cockpit, and why driverless cars are farther off than some believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
Yep, people will die, and the more I think about it, the more I like my odds of dying at the hands of autonomous vehicles than the idiots on the road right now.

Sacrifice freedom for a bit of safety...

"Sacrifice freedom"? Yeah, man, that's deep.

Well, roll your eyes all you want, but inevitably the government comes in and starts mandated this garbage, and I ultimately am forced to adapt to it.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
Humans are flawed, yes they are.
Humans invent and make machines.
Machines can be flawed also.

It is amusing when people get off on new technology for the sake of itself, how it is/will be perfect and make life better for all of mankind. Just because it is "high tech". I still think much of the "high tech" shit in our lives don't work properly, that companies just slap fixes and patches on this crap while it speeds along, and we as a society just accepts it, as long as "tech support" is kickass as they claim.

I find it even more amusing when people try and deny the obvious because the reality is a scary place for them.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Machines break, even the learning ones.

Very true. That is all stuff they are working through and will obviously need to make safe.

If the car looses a camera or sensor, it will need to slowly pull over. For example, before a Tesla runs out of battery and leaves you dead in the middle of the lane, it pulls itself off of the road and then starts its shutdown sequence.

Stuff breaks now, we won't be able to stop it.

People will die in vehicles...whether autonomous or maned. It's a fact of transportation. The question is, which will have higher mortality rates?

As for holding the CEO's of companies like Tesla liable (let alone criminally liable)...come the F on guys. Are you kidding me? This from the same group who screams "foul!" when someone wants to sue a gun manufacturer over a shooting death? It's the same thing. Misuse of a product doesn't mean we should sue the manufacturer. If you want Tesla sued, then you have to agree to gun manufacturers being sued.

All I'm simply saying is that I recently got in a car in my driveway, punched in the address to my office and the damn thing drove me to my office, found itself a parking spot and parked!

I honestly didn't even know that tech was on the road and existed.

The iPhone is 10 years old this year. Look what it's done to the phone industry. My position is that in 10 years, the Tesla will have a similar impact the iPhone had. If that seems impossible, ok, but I'd bet most people saying "never" in here, like me a few months ago, never knew that the technology was already on the road.

It's crazy, it was amazing to experience, scary as hell, but amazing! Let it soak in, it freaking drove me to work! It's not an idea, a concept or a dream. It already exists in commercially available cars. I think it will spread like wildfire over the next decade.

quote:

Originally posted by Spokane228:
How much of what you saw in that video could have been done ten years ago? You don't think they'll have figured it out ten years from now?

How long has automatic braking been out? Collision Avoidance systems have been used for what, at least 10 years?
This Saturday I talked to a friend that said his Escalade slammed on it's brakes for no reason.
No cars around, no pedestrians, on an empty road it just hit the binders because it felt like it had to for some still unknown reason.

Will the autocar just stop if it "sees" a fo' real dust storm? THAT is a death sentence.
When I drive in the snow, my truck looks like shit...and I'm driving cross country and not about to stop and wash it, just so it can look the same 100 miles later. How will sensors cope with 1800 miles of winter road grime on them?
I will cry if I live long enough for mandated "Demolition Man" cars. Give me the old 442...

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:

As for holding the CEO's of companies like Tesla liable (let alone criminally liable)...come the F on guys. Are you kidding me? This from the same group who screams "foul!" when someone wants to sue a gun manufacturer over a shooting death? It's the same thing. Misuse of a product doesn't mean we should sue the manufacturer. If you want Tesla sued, then you have to agree to gun manufacturers being sued.

No. Not the same. These companies are rushing immature products out to market that will kill people. We're talking about negligence.

Not the same as a gun that's doing what it's designed to do albeit abused by malevolent intentions.