Couldn't be any worse than my wife's driving

Driverless cars is a concept that should not be pursued,or encouraged.

Machines will replace the Humans.

Dumb for so many reasons.

I've been an engineer for decades and understand the concepts being used. Both hardware
and software. Its far too complex of a problem and no matter how many safe guards
are put in, there will be situations that cannot be predicated. It will NEVER be safe
or reliable on a wide basis. Sensors can fail and the more there are the more likely it is they will fail.
The consequences would be nasty and expensive.

The core problem of transportation goes back decades to the way our cities and towns were laid out
and interconnected. People who have been to Europe and used their rail system will
appreciate how it should have been done.

My $.02 anyway.

No need, hope it never happens.

I like being in control so I would much prefer to drive.
I think it might be great for people who get drunk and then get behind the wheel or the person who has to read the paper or put their makeup on while they are driving.

If everyone used autonomous vehicles, the overall total of automobile accidents and deaths would almost certainly go way down.
However it is scary to think about your individual safety in an autonomous vehicle. When you’re driving, you are the one to decide how to respond in an emergency situation.
The programming decisions that would have to be made in an emergency situation are scary. Especially not knowing what those are. For example; would your car decide to drive off a cliff in an effort to save others? Would it decide to hit an old person over a young person?

Will it ever be completely safe? Not likely. Elevators kill people as well.

Can it be safer than the results we have now with humans driving ourselves and all that carnage? I'm open to that being the case. An 80% drop in fatalities would be huge, but also still leave us with a lot of autonomous cars killing people.

What happens at a four way stop sign when two cars come to an intersection and the car with a driver to the right is a fraction of a second later than the driverless car, and the driver is to the right and believes they got there at the same time? The driver, being to the right and thinking they got there at the same time, will probably go and then that will be up to the programmers of the driverless cars on how to avoid a problem caused by the driverless car not having human reasoning, common sense, and intelligence. There are so many variables and scenarios that are going to have to be dealt with for driverless cars. I personally am not looking forward to the transition period and kind of hope it does not happen until I am gone, but I know that it likely will be sooner than I would want.

I don't see how you stop hackers. The randomware industry would go through the roof. Imagine how much money they could get out of people if they hacked their car going 80mph down the road.
Or what terrorists could do with them. No more need for suicide bombers
I'll never trust them.

Completely driverless for all roads? No--the roads and situations that can happen on the roads are far too variable and complex. Navigation still isn't 100% reliable.

Driverless for highways only? I could see that happening. There's a lot less unexpected behavior on highway roads.

The main problem are town and city roads. Not all the roads are laid out very well or clearly marked. I've been in some cities where the roads don't make sense and some of the drivers just ignore the rules of the road. Then on top of that, there are construction zones that crop up everywhere that further alter regular traffic patterns.

For example, there is one city road in eastern PA where GPS devices go completely bonkers and direct you to perform a half dozen lane changes for no reason. I've driven on it, as well as a few other people I know, and they have all said the same thing. It's been an issue for a few years, and as far as I'm aware, hasn't been corrected. I've reported the issue to the manufacturer of my GPS device at least once.

In another example, in my town, there is currently a construction project where they are in the process of replacing all the traffic lights at a major intersection by removing older style traffic lights hanging from wires, and adding new ones to large metal posts sticking out over the roads. Every day, the traffic pattern changes and different lanes get closed as the workmen work on different areas of the intersection. I'm thinking it would be difficult for an autonomous car to navigate something like this on the fly without a lot of pre-planning.

Yeah, there's certainly that issue that too. However, I don't think it's very widespread at the moment--I don't recall seeing any big headlines about this, other than some whitehat hackers with proof-of-concept stuff.

I'll never drive one

That is because driverless cars are extremely rare now. But enough profit opportunities. If it becomes more common hacking will be wide spread. Even if not with Ransom ware it would be other types. Like putting porn on the screen in a car full of kids.

It will never happen. Software has come a long way but far from being truly intelligent. There is simply no way to design a system to recognize and respond to every type of road condition in all types of weather with road full of other drivers of questionable driving skills. There is no room for error. It's not like the system can work 99% and be acceptable. Any accident involving a driverless car would be swarming with lawyers. For liability, manufacturers will always require a driver to be behind the wheel monitoring the system. Might as well just be driving. Even if manufacturers claimed 100%, would you trust putting your kids in the backseat without a driver and sending them 200 miles away? Never.

And how do you design the software for when the car comes around a bend and a child is standing in the middle of the road and another car is coming in the opposite direction? Choices are hit the child, drive into the other car, or veer off the road into a heavily forested section, or maybe off a cliff??
Or you stop at a light and someone tries to car jack you. What does the computer tell the car to do? Or another car full of pissed off teens takes offense at "your" driving and tries to run you off the road? Do you want a machine making any of those decisions for you? I will personally NEVER ride in a driverless car!

I'm still waiting for Microsoft to quit breaking something in Windows with every update. So count me out for now.

rode in a new tesla the other day, yeah it drives itself. im and engineer for the railroad and in the last year they have made trains just about drive themselves.

If Google street view has a picture of your house, then a driverless car has already driven on your street

To comply with the current laws, there is a person sitting behind the wheel, but he is not driving the car

1) School age seems reasonable, there are plenty of places in the world you see kids off to school on public transit.

2) They will buy a self driving car and work less as it does the job for them.

3) The same way it does now

4) I hardly actual drive my car on the highway now, I just let it do its thing.

5) I do not live my life in fear and have never spent a second worrying about this in another facet of my life. It is just so overly complicated a scenario, satire of a cartoon villain evil plot.

I am ambivalent. My personal opinion is that the majority of the safety improvements that will supposedly come with full autonomy can also be largely realized with the semi-autonomous safety and driver-assist systems currently on the market (lane-keeping assist, brake assist, blind spot monitoring, "smart" cruise controls, etc.).

Hypothetically speaking, autonomous driving has some distinct advantages in certain circumstances (such as congested city centers) but in no way is it a viable replacement for all manual driving. This is especially true in geographically diverse and large countries like the U.S. and Canada.

Then there are the nontrivial psychological factors, namely the fact that we are creatures who have an innate drive to maintain our sense of personal autonomy and control, and for people accustomed and conditioned to doing their own driving the idea of ceding control to a computer (with all the foibles that potentially entails) generates an intolerable level of anxiety. Read between the lines, and you'll see that the majority of the negative responses just on this thread boil-down to some form of apprehension at the thought of surrendering control. In my opinion, the implication is that it will require fundamental changes to the human psyche, probably at an evolutionary level, before this type of autonomy will find widespread acceptance (and it almost certainly won't be accomplished with heavy-handed authoritarianism and mandates).

Here's what I have always said. Its never gonna happen. The reason: Lawyers. Eventually there will be a tragic death and it will be blamed on the driverless car. The lawyers will sue anybody and everybody involved into oblivion. It will kill the industry.

You could argue all day about the overall statistics, about how human drivers kill others all the time, and how safe the driverless car is overall, etc. It won't matter. When the right case comes around and a young child is killed, or a whole family, and there is any inkling that the driverless car was at fault, they will lose.

Heck, there are plenty that have been killed already, mostly in those Teslas. Those Teslas do doubt will drive themselves, but you aren't "supposed" to do that. But of course, people do it all the time. I always make a game when I am on the freeways, whenever I go by a Tesla, I look over and see if the driver has their hands on the wheel. I would say, somewhere around half the time, they don't. This is easiest in the Bay Area, where there are tons of them driving around.

Tesla so far has avoided the lawsuits, based on the fact that they have specifically said to the owners "you are supposed to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention". Then Musk winks and says hey we have a new and improved self driving mode. Whether this is fair or not, you decide. The Joshua Brown crash was a total fail of the system and he was wiped out into oblivion. But, no lawsuit, as it was deemed his fault for not paying attention and letting the car drive itself.

There are just too many possible shortcomings that will require ever-increasing levels of AI and computing power to resolve, some of which have been mentioned. The fog, the rain, the dust, the unplanned construction detours, and so on. And the hacking? If it can done, some griefer somewhere will do it.

As far as I'm aware, the google street view cars are not autonomous driving cars--they're just standard cars with a 360 view camera stuck on top.

They are a little jenky now for sure. I test drove a Telsa and the dude with couldn't get the auto to engage which didn't seem to safe to me
As I've always said, they are a fantastic idea if the can drive me home when I'm drunk, other than that I have no use for them personally. BUT, if they allow idiots on the highway to fucking move into the right lane so I can pass I'm all for it. The question is if it does not, how will the car react when I pass them ion the right 2 inches away and then pull 4 inches in front of them?

The sooner the better, yall drive like shit. Seriously. I also think that insurance companies will raise rates so high for people who keep driving that it will not be worth it to drive.

A few years back there were across the country a number of accidents where the driver failed to stop. And got in trouble for it.

Scientists started digging into it because of the number of them and specific areas.

They started suspecting something like weakly interacting massive particles from outer space. The kind they try to monitor in the depths of iron mines. The search for dark matter.

Now what if a bunch of driverless cars were moving and get hit with something like that and causes multiple accidents all over all at once ?

If it may have effected a car with a driver. What would it do to driverless cars ?

LTG : )

That's how they started, but now....

I talked to a driver last year and he showed me his oddball "wammo" car that drives itself. He is in the car behind the wheel only to comply with some local laws. They have newer 3D cameras on them too

$13 bucks a hour to get driven around town.

It wouldn;t do anything at first, but you could use your phone to report it stolen and it could auto drive to the police station.

Kinda hard to wave a non human car on , unless there is a button on your steering wheel to send one??

The old men in this thread will remember a few decades ago when everyone was in a panic "What if the anti lock brakes fail????", "What if they suddenly all lock up all over the country at the same time????", "I can pump the brakes better than any computer can!!!!", "I want to control my recovery from a spin, not a computer!!!"

Nowadays nobody gives it a second thought. They don't even teach brake pumping in drivers ed.

No way do I trust my Tesla on autopilot during a Michigan winter especially w/ low visibility. Partial automatic yes, fully, I doubt will ever see the day. I Robot movie same thing, he had to take control several times.

It will happen. Just a question of when. One the bots are better than us humans it’s all going to flip..... picture paying more insurance if you choose to drive yourself.

Having an elderly mom at the moment, I really wish she could just jump in a car and have it drive her over to my home.

Personally I love driving... but once it exists convenience is going to drive many people to use.

I do think we still have another 10plus years before it gets there

...and the reason why everyone is in the ditch when there's a 1" of snow on the ground. I still use this technique even with ABS along with rev match downshifts in the snow to slow down. But I realize hardly anyone drives a manual either.

I don't know guys, we all own around 40K worth of pinball machines I'm sure we can find some extra insurance coin

Any car that I own that has a stick, is a car I would never take out in the snow, lol

How many people know how to turn into a skid and get out of it?

Well with the ratio of FWD/AWD compared to RWD I sure hope people do not think they should steer into a skid.

Ok just an anecdotal example, a couple years ago I had a faulty speed sensor in my front driver side tire trigger ABS, and the jeep just jerked me over into the oncoming lane. Luckily there were no cars in the lane at that moment. I immediately pulled over and popped out the fuse that powers ABS. I did reinsert it when roads got icy (and after getting a new speed sensor)

The same number of people that know not to text/talk on a cell phone while driving. Driverless is a Long way off but full self driving (with driver attention) is now. The key to every concern and issue will still be the Driver in my opinion. Love our Tesla and as long as you simply follow the rules it performs amazingly. Would I send the car out on its own? Heck no. Would I trust it fully to drive me to work, heck yes. Do it every day.

How many floor it and go "wheeee" ?

LTG : )

I have thought about this a lot, and here is something that relates to it, somehow, I think. This is something I think about every time I hop in the car and go somewhere.

If you take a 200 foot view from above and analyze it, the current system simply should not work. It defies all logic that for the most part, yet it does work. Yes, every day all over the place there are mishaps, crashes, people hurt, people killed. But when you look at the total number of cars and the total miles being driven, for the most part it works. Every day you go out and go somewhere and come back unscathed, it worked.

But how it can possibly work gnaws at me every time I get in the car. Whenever I meet random people that are part of the overall general population, I always find that at least about a third of them, if not more, are marginally sane, if sane at all. After a few minutes of conversation, it becomes apparent that this person is existing in some other plane, where logic is right out the window. They seem completely oblivious and incoherent. Sometimes I wonder how on earth they can even exist in society, and have a means to support themselves, and be able to deal with all the trials of everyday life. Now, when you get in your car, you are surrounded by a random mix of all the people in the population. Some are truly out of it. Some no doubt are on drugs, alcohol, etc. A fair number are talking on their phones are texting. And here you are, especially on the freeway, going 60-80 miles an hour in a two ton projectile, and surrounded by dozens of others, and most of the time, the spacing between the cars is just a few feet, nowhere near enough to allow for a defensive maneuver if something goes wrong. I am amazed that it all goes along without constant crashing all over the place.

Somehow, apparently, peoples' brains get wired to be able to handle all of the inputs and outputs for driving a car at speed on a crowded road, and make the necessary adjustments, and be able to avoid problems most of the time. Its not trivial to do this, from a mechanistic point of view. But it works. For driverless to take over, the AI has to equal the processing power of the human brain. Maybe its doable some day?

Having worked in the autonomous automotive industry for a few years, no way in hell would I trust fully self-driving cars until we build out infrastructure to support it. Optical and radar sensors only get you so far. We really need sensors built into the roads or lamp posts that can give vehicles better positional tracking and intercommunication, alomg with more robust hazard detection and reporting. Ford is developing their V2V system to allow cars to talk to each other, last I heard (2 yrs ago).

Not to disagree but lamp posts and curbs are the simplest problem and one that in my opinion they have done spot on perfect. Its the Human variable that is unpredictable. Driver and pedestrian. Sadly Ford is a million miles from Tesla at this point.

Driverless cars are as useful as playerless pinball

I knew someone who used to do that as a side job. I recall you can sign up for as many or as little of routes as you want. I can't recall if it was hourly or based on quantity of content. I remember it was a lot of hard drive turn around where Google would mail him disk drives, then drive around recording on them, then mail them back. I'm sure since then everything can be uploaded to the cloud.

Think of how stupid the average person is. Now realize half of the population is dummer than that. -George Carlin.

Luckily, it typicall only requires one person paying attention to avoid an accident. It's when 2 oblivious drivers meet that accidents occur (with plenty of exceprions, of course).

For computers to beat humans, they just have to beat one part of our brain, namely the part that lets us understand the relative motion of objects/hazards. The actual vehicle handling is probably more math and control loops than AI. And we just have eyes. Cars have both cameras (lots of them) and radar (to "see" in low visibility conditions). I think computers are at the point where they are typically faster than us at visial image processing, yet not quite as relibale when given "outlier" data that it hasnt been well trained on.

Edit:

Now realize half of the population is dummer than that

"dummer". D'oh! I'm one of the 'below average' ones apparantly.

For commercial driving it's also better to have a "technician" onboard just in case something goes wrong. If/when it does it's also useful for lawyers and insurance companies to point a finger at an individual rather than a large corporation or vehicle manufacturer. Lot less liability for everyone.

Makes me think about freight trains and airplanes. A lot of the transportation is done by a computer/autopilot but still need to someone around for the finer things.