When I think of self-driving vehicles I think of electric vehicles, a peloton probably results in minimal cost savings.
To show the problem of a Peloton, I’ll leave you this image:
There’s a peloton of a dozen cars in the slow lane. I’m in the middle lane, and I realize my off ramp is coming up. I have a huge wall of vehicles to my right. I turn on my turn signal. No one notices because a computer is driving, and no ones eyes are on the road. What do I do? Do I accelerate or brake aggressively to attempt to get around the wall of vehicles... BOOM I didn’t make it.
Until all vehicles are self-driving the peloton idea is a disaster waiting to happen. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have self driving motorcycles... It would kind of defeat the purpose.
Why are electric vehicles any more or less likely to get a benefit from reducing drag?
Why would the peloton be in the slow lane?
Why wouldn't the cars notice your turn signal (especially with newer cars that will no doubt transmit a turn signal alert for consumption by edrivers) and politely open a space for you?
Why does every advancement of automobile technology, especially concerning EVs, include the whole self-driving aspect? Two totally different things.
While I love the sound of ICEs and such, I'm quite happy for someone to build a compelling EV I might own some day. But, I'll do everything in my power to steer clear (pun intended) of anything autonomous (both in terms of the car I buy, as well as trying to keep those hazards off the road!).
That said, autonomous cars following one another sounds like a great idea, so long as you can get the first one to drive off a cliff.
Yes, well, the one concern I have is that down the road (pun intended) we may be required to use autonomous vehicles and will no longer be permitted to drive our own cars.
Ask yourself what happens when 80% of the vehicles on the road are autonomous yet 80% of reported accidents are caused by vehicles with active drivers.
I'm sure the avid horse enthusiasts a century ago had the same concerns about losing access to the roads. Oh well, sucks to be them.
randominternetperson said: I'm sure the avid horse enthusiasts a century ago had the same concerns about losing access to the roads. Oh well, sucks to be them.
The average horse enthusiast wasn't being sold a bill of goods (sci-fi) by greedy taxi/transit services.
Works great until one car in the line blows a tire.
Or a deer run out infront this f the lead car! It is that time of the year.
The the reality is there are numerous emergency’s that pop up while driving that makes drafting a car on the open road very dangerous. I suspect that Apple would get significant resistance from the insurance companies.
The big problem with self driving cars right now is that we really don’t have AI hardware to create an AI with suitable “intelligence” to react as best as possible to every thing they may see on the road. The car crash that killed a woman’s few months back is a perfect example, the software punted one second before running the woman over. The car didn’t have the intelligence to swerve. Even a woman driver would have attempted avoidance.
At the current rent rate of tech progression it will be decades before we have AI systems that are better than some of the poorer drivers out there.
Okay, so one of you genuis-steins tell me when I will be able to walk into a car dealership, buy a self-driving car, get in it and tell it to take me home. Ten years? Fifteen years? Twenty years? I’m 68, how old will I be before I can do this? Will I still be alive because this doesn’t look like it will be happening any time soon? Personally I don’t think the public will accept driverless automobiles and it will be uphill battle. Modern airplanes can fly themselves but most people would not board a plane knowing there was no human pilot in the cockpit.
When I think of self-driving vehicles I think of electric vehicles, a peloton probably results in minimal cost savings.
To show the problem of aPeloton, I’ll leave you this image:
There’s a peloton of a dozen cars in the slow lane. I’m in the middle lane, and I realize my off ramp is coming up. I have a huge wall of vehicles to my right. I turn on my turn signal. No one notices because a computer is driving, and no ones eyes are on the road. What do I do? Do I accelerate or brake aggressively to attempt to get around the wall of vehicles... BOOM I didn’t make it.
Until all vehicles are self-driving the peloton idea is a disaster waiting to happen. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have self driving motorcycles... It would kind of defeat the purpose.
I'd imagine, In such a situation cars would be talking to each other so your car would be flaged as unknown by the mesh so would make allowaneces for you.
As the train gets near exits it might need to drop cars out pick new ones up so is going to be expecting change to happen maybe even spreading out to allow for it.
You could easily have a phone with your GPS also talking to the mesh when relivant like a few miles out from the exit, so before you've even thought of it the train has moved out of your way.
But why aren't you being situationally aware and planning for your exit with enough time to exit safetly?
When I think of self-driving vehicles I think of electric vehicles, a peloton probably results in minimal cost savings.
To show the problem of a Peloton, I’ll leave you this image:
There’s a peloton of a dozen cars in the slow lane. I’m in the middle lane, and I realize my off ramp is coming up. I have a huge wall of vehicles to my right. I turn on my turn signal. No one notices because a computer is driving, and no ones eyes are on the road. What do I do? Do I accelerate or brake aggressively to attempt to get around the wall of vehicles... BOOM I didn’t make it.
Until all vehicles are self-driving the peloton idea is a disaster waiting to happen. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have self driving motorcycles... It would kind of defeat the purpose.
It’s not obvious that a peloton would only assemble in the faster lanes or car pool lane? Of course it would not assemble in a slow lane or approaching an on or off ramp. Problem so easily solved.
JWSC said: A Rush fan! Red Barchetta indeed! ߚ禬t;/div>
Very true that autonomous navigation has yet to be proven. But I think for single vehicles in a mixed environment we are not far from a safe and reliable solution in metro areas and on the highways.
With regard to infrastructure, I have to believe that efficiencies will be gained with the elimination of stoplights (ignoring the perils to pedestrians but, nobody walks in LA anyway), and the transformation of the interstate system which will provide much faster intercity commutes.
In the long run it will be interesting to see what emergent properties and behaviors develop with massive systemwide implementation of autonomous navigation. You can run simulations all you want. But until it’s deployed on the road at scale I don’t think anyone can predict what will emerge with any confidence.
The problem is the unknown or the unique. AI isn't magic, nor is it actually thinking. It's a database (added to by the program) with sophisticated search logic. The idea (sci-fi aside), is that as the database of situations grows (collected from not just one car, but many), enough situations will eventually be covered, such that the mistakes made by AI will be lower than human mistakes (which are many and growing... though note that in USA, fatalities are about 1 in 100M miles driven, which AI cars only have a fraction of in total... i.e. statistically, AI vehicles shouldn't even be approaching 1 fatality yet!)
But, just think for a moment about all the vectors involved in 'situations' in the real world. They are basically trying to map a fractal. They will ever only cover some small percentage. Humans have the ability to think and be creative, machines don't. The machine may well be highly superior in terms of awareness and input, but if you don't know what to do with that awareness and input, it doesn't matter much.
I'm excited about AI and sensors and such in terms of what it might be able to ASSIST we humans with. The rest, IMO, is sci-fi based on false assumptions. Unfortunately, what is driving this huge push has little to do with safety. It, as usual, is about $$$. And, I really fear what calamities will be caused by this greed-driven push to force us all into the box. And, unfortunately, I have little confidence others in related industries (i.e.: insurance, governments, etc.) have any better understanding of the flaws than the general public being suckered in by the hype and headlines.
It’s an intractable multi variant problem, for sure, but it’s also solvable, initially by over emphasizing safety. And by solvable I’m not saying we will soon get to zero error, zero fatalities, zero adverse incidents; I’m saying we will get to fewer fatalities and incidents than the numbers that exist with today’s fully human-piloted vehicles. I’ll agree that driving comes with all sorts of edge cases, but it’s a problem that’s easier to solve than some others, like piloting a plane or a ship, as evidenced by how relatively little practice, and really no formal training, is required in order to acquire a driver’s license. A 16 year old human is quite capable; it’s not for lack of skill that many find themselves wrapped around a tree or otherwise involved in a wreck; it’s willful lack of judgement. And that is unrelated to the level of difficulty of the act of successfully driving a vehicle on public roads.
wizard69 said: Or a deer run out infront this f the lead car! It is that time of the year.
The the reality is there are numerous emergency’s that pop up while driving that makes drafting a car on the open road very dangerous. I suspect that Apple would get significant resistance from the insurance companies.
Or a moose, or a bear, if you really want trouble. I suppose most of the people working on these projects haven't ever seen one. They aren't too common in downtown San Fran or Silicon valley from my experience living there. These people live and operate in a bubble.
Or, they maybe think the magic of AI and speed of the sensors, computers, and reaction time would allow them to all stop safely. Who knows... it's all kind of pie-in-the-sky stuff going on here at this point.
The big problem with self driving cars right now is that we really don’t have AI hardware to create an AI with suitable “intelligence” to react as best as possible to every thing they may see on the road. The car crash that killed a woman’s few months back is a perfect example, the software punted one second before running the woman over. The car didn’t have the intelligence to swerve. Even a woman driver would have attempted avoidance.
At the current rent rate of tech progression it will be decades before we have AI systems that are better than some of the poorer drivers out there.
Well, there isn't such a thing. It's sci-fi fantasy. They will do what the software has been programmed to do, or based on the data in the database says to do based on another situation deemed close enough.
Though, to be fair, if you're talking about the Uber 'accident,' that one was Uber's fault. They disabled a bunch of the safety systems, so the car wouldn't drive like a 1st day drivers-ed student on crack (which wouldn't probably make the city officials as happy to have them around). The software/sensors did actually detect the woman in time, and the car likely would have stopped in that situation if it were re-run. Also, a human driver would have easily avoided that accident if they weren't watching TV (or texting, or drunk, or stoned, etc.).
And, that's the thing that pisses me off most about all this automated car stuff. If governments really cared about saving lives, there is a lot we could do through laws and societal influence. Vehicle safety has improved like crazy, yet our culture has been declining, negating those improvements. Just like when I was growing up and drunk-driving was almost accepted... and we've gone a long way to fix that... we need to do the same with other stuff like texting, etc. And, we could do a ***LOT*** more in terms of driver training, screening, and removal of driving privileges for those who can't handle the responsibility. How low would the fatality rate be if that were the case?
Okay, so one of you genuis-steins tell me when I will be able to walk into a car dealership, buy a self-driving car, get in it and tell it to take me home. Ten years? Fifteen years? Twenty years? I’m 68, how old will I be before I can do this? Will I still be alive because this doesn’t look like it will be happening any time soon? Personally I don’t think the public will accept driverless automobiles and it will be uphill battle. Modern airplanes can fly themselves but most people would not board a plane knowing there was no human pilot in the cockpit.
Yeah, I'm one of those people. And, they don't really fly themselves other than in routine operation. And, flying is way, way easier than driving.
But, to more directly answer your question, I'd say 20 years plus. We'll first see them implemented in very controlled situations along uber-mapped routes. Maybe like a shuttle service from campus to campus, or along some bus-like route. I think even that is a mistake, but no doubt, there is a lot of $$$ pushing this idiocy through. Full AI, hop in and drive me somewhere stuff is a long way off.
lolliver said: Might want to let the insurance companies know that "woman drivers" aren't as good or safe as their male counterparts. /s
They already know. While it was a silly over-generalization to make in our hyper-sensitive culture, insurance companies very much DO charge different rates based on all sorts of things, like sex, age, etc. As a really broad generalization and lots of driving experience, I might sympathize with it a bit. More women I've run across pay less attention to their vehicle or advancing their driving capabilities than men. But, I've also known way more overconfident male drivers who do some really risky stupid stuff. Which is worse, who knows? And, that of course, excludes the ladies that used to kick my butt at the SCCA events.
However what scares me is that more and more of society seem to be ditching attentive driving, driver training, basic civility, etc. At least that aspect of the push for AI cars is valid. Unless we do something to reverse the trend of the idiocy of our culture, we're going to have to come up with some solution. I just don't think AI is it. Take their drivers licenses away and make them take taxis or busses.
When I think of self-driving vehicles I think of electric vehicles, a peloton probably results in minimal cost savings.
To show the problem of a Peloton, I’ll leave you this image:
There’s a peloton of a dozen cars in the slow lane. I’m in the middle lane, and I realize my off ramp is coming up. I have a huge wall of vehicles to my right. I turn on my turn signal. No one notices because a computer is driving, and no ones eyes are on the road. What do I do? Do I accelerate or brake aggressively to attempt to get around the wall of vehicles... BOOM I didn’t make it.
Until all vehicles are self-driving the peloton idea is a disaster waiting to happen. Somehow I don’t think we’ll have self driving motorcycles... It would kind of defeat the purpose.
You're presuming that autonomous vehicles drive blind. They already have much better vision than humans and watch far more things, including turn signals. Yes, autonomous cars developed by people with your understanding (or mine) would be inferior, and never make it to market. Thankfully, neither you nor I are designing the cars.
Why does every advancement of automobile technology, especially concerning EVs, include the whole self-driving aspect? Two totally different things.
While I love the sound of ICEs and such, I'm quite happy for someone to build a compelling EV I might own some day. But, I'll do everything in my power to steer clear (pun intended) of anything autonomous (both in terms of the car I buy, as well as trying to keep those hazards off the road!).
That said, autonomous cars following one another sounds like a great idea, so long as you can get the first one to drive off a cliff.
When the actuarial data shows autonomous cars superior to human driven cars (and that day will come, it's just a matter of when), you can profess your disdain for them to your insurance agent, as he hands you your premium increase for going it on your own.
radarthekat said: It’s an intractable multi variant problem, for sure, but it’s also solvable, initially by over emphasizing safety. And by solvable I’m not saying we will soon get to zero error, zero fatalities, zero adverse incidents; I’m saying we will get to fewer fatalities and incidents than the numbers that exist with today’s fully human-piloted vehicles. I’ll agree that driving comes with all sorts of edge cases, but it’s a problem that’s easier to solve than some others, like piloting a plane or a ship, as evidenced by how relatively little practice, and really no formal training, is required in order to acquire a driver’s license. A 16 year old human is quite capable; it’s not for lack of skill that many find themselves wrapped around a tree or otherwise involved in a wreck; it’s willful lack of judgement. And that is unrelated to the level of difficulty of the act of successfully driving a vehicle on public roads.
That has yet to be proven... it's conjecture at the moment. And, driving a car is far harder than flying a plane on the whole, or I'd imagine boating (though each have their difficult moments).
The small amount of training (and especially on-going training, checking, etc.) isn't evidence... its a lack of responsibility.
bsimpsen said: You're presuming that autonomous vehicles drive blind. They already have much better vision than humans and watch far more things, including turn signals.
That's why they run red lights, drive into the sides of semi tractor trailers, and big cement barriers dividing freeways?
bsimpsen said: When the actuarial data shows autonomous cars superior to human driven cars (and that day will come, it's just a matter of when), you can profess your disdain for them to your insurance agent, as he hands you your premium increase for going it on your own.
Fortunately, I'll hopefully be dead before then. But, I do worry for my son.
So far, at least the meager start of AI vehicles has shown them to be far, far less safe than the average human driver. AI cars have only driven a fraction the number of miles of the amount of human driven miles for a fatality to occur, and we already have at least 2 deaths I'm aware of that were totally the car's fault. And, under ideal conditions, at that.
Very true that autonomous navigation has yet to be proven. But I think for single vehicles in a mixed environment we are not far from a safe and reliable solution in metro areas and on the highways.
With regard to infrastructure, I have to believe that efficiencies will be gained with the elimination of stoplights (ignoring the perils to pedestrians but, nobody walks in LA anyway), and the transformation of the interstate system which will provide much faster intercity commutes.
In the long run it will be interesting to see what emergent properties and behaviors develop with massive systemwide implementation of autonomous navigation. You can run simulations all you want. But until it’s deployed on the road at scale I don’t think anyone can predict what will emerge with any confidence.
The problem is the unknown or the unique. AI isn't magic, nor is it actually thinking. It's a database (added to by the program) with sophisticated search logic. The idea (sci-fi aside), is that as the database of situations grows (collected from not just one car, but many), enough situations will eventually be covered, such that the mistakes made by AI will be lower than human mistakes (which are many and growing... though note that in USA, fatalities are about 1 in 100M miles driven, which AI cars only have a fraction of in total... i.e. statistically, AI vehicles shouldn't even be approaching 1 fatality yet!)
But, just think for a moment about all the vectors involved in 'situations' in the real world. They are basically trying to map a fractal. They will ever only cover some small percentage. Humans have the ability to think and be creative, machines don't. The machine may well be highly superior in terms of awareness and input, but if you don't know what to do with that awareness and input, it doesn't matter much.
I'm excited about AI and sensors and such in terms of what it might be able to ASSIST we humans with. The rest, IMO, is sci-fi based on false assumptions. Unfortunately, what is driving this huge push has little to do with safety. It, as usual, is about $$$. And, I really fear what calamities will be caused by this greed-driven push to force us all into the box. And, unfortunately, I have little confidence others in related industries (i.e.: insurance, governments, etc.) have any better understanding of the flaws than the general public being suckered in by the hype and headlines.
If you've ever studied cognitive psychology, you'd know that humans behind the wheel are not doing a lot of thinking. There just isn't time for it. So, it's not necessary for computers to "think", just to drive better than we do.
Your 1 in 100million miles argument ignores the fact that no single human has ever driven anywhere near that many miles. Meanwhile, by sharing their collective experience, ALL autonomous cars could have the ability to pull from the aggregate. That's an advantage no human can hope to match.
Your false assumptions about how autonomous vehicles work makes it hard for me to share your concerns.
Why has Tesla not spoken of a Morphie Juice Pack arrangement for its vehicles? Even a small motorcycle style trailer with a battery pack that could double or triple the miles or even recharge itself some how.
So Peloton is a self-driving vehicle systems. I take that is what Apple gonna sell directly to customers instead of car manufacturer. Plop the device in, and it turns your 'normal average standard' car into 'self-driving' car. Future.
wizard69 said: Or a deer run out infront this f the lead car! It is that time of the year.
The the reality is there are numerous emergency’s that pop up while driving that makes drafting a car on the open road very dangerous. I suspect that Apple would get significant resistance from the insurance companies.
Or a moose, or a bear, if you really want trouble. I suppose most of the people working on these projects haven't ever seen one. They aren't too common in downtown San Fran or Silicon valley from my experience living there. These people live and operate in a bubble.
Hmm except that’s just some bullshit you made up. Despite your hand-wringing, Apple is staffed with incredibly smart, thoughtful people of diverse backgrounds with offices all over the country and world. They aren’t just sitting in a circle in Cupertino, and it’s incredibly naive and outright stupid to suggest they are.
Comments
Why would the peloton be in the slow lane?
Why wouldn't the cars notice your turn signal (especially with newer cars that will no doubt transmit a turn signal alert for consumption by edrivers) and politely open a space for you?
The the reality is there are numerous emergency’s that pop up while driving that makes drafting a car on the open road very dangerous. I suspect that Apple would get significant resistance from the insurance companies.
At the current rent rate of tech progression it will be decades before we have AI systems that are better than some of the poorer drivers out there.
Individual cars join up with "trains" that are gong the same route.
Trains have privileges over individual vehicles, and bigger trains have higher privileges.
Not sure where the auto equivalent of "spam" (human driven), "cookies", or "advertising" is in all this; hopefully at the very bottom, or not at all.
Seems there is an entire industry that knows your backwards, sexists and arrogant opinion isn't worth the 5 seconds it took you to type it out.
Or, they maybe think the magic of AI and speed of the sensors, computers, and reaction time would allow them to all stop safely. Who knows... it's all kind of pie-in-the-sky stuff going on here at this point.
Well, there isn't such a thing. It's sci-fi fantasy. They will do what the software has been programmed to do, or based on the data in the database says to do based on another situation deemed close enough.
Though, to be fair, if you're talking about the Uber 'accident,' that one was Uber's fault. They disabled a bunch of the safety systems, so the car wouldn't drive like a 1st day drivers-ed student on crack (which wouldn't probably make the city officials as happy to have them around). The software/sensors did actually detect the woman in time, and the car likely would have stopped in that situation if it were re-run. Also, a human driver would have easily avoided that accident if they weren't watching TV (or texting, or drunk, or stoned, etc.).
And, that's the thing that pisses me off most about all this automated car stuff. If governments really cared about saving lives, there is a lot we could do through laws and societal influence. Vehicle safety has improved like crazy, yet our culture has been declining, negating those improvements. Just like when I was growing up and drunk-driving was almost accepted... and we've gone a long way to fix that... we need to do the same with other stuff like texting, etc. And, we could do a ***LOT*** more in terms of driver training, screening, and removal of driving privileges for those who can't handle the responsibility. How low would the fatality rate be if that were the case?
Yeah, I'm one of those people. And, they don't really fly themselves other than in routine operation. And, flying is way, way easier than driving.
But, to more directly answer your question, I'd say 20 years plus. We'll first see them implemented in very controlled situations along uber-mapped routes. Maybe like a shuttle service from campus to campus, or along some bus-like route. I think even that is a mistake, but no doubt, there is a lot of $$$ pushing this idiocy through. Full AI, hop in and drive me somewhere stuff is a long way off.
They already know. While it was a silly over-generalization to make in our hyper-sensitive culture, insurance companies very much DO charge different rates based on all sorts of things, like sex, age, etc. As a really broad generalization and lots of driving experience, I might sympathize with it a bit. More women I've run across pay less attention to their vehicle or advancing their driving capabilities than men. But, I've also known way more overconfident male drivers who do some really risky stupid stuff. Which is worse, who knows? And, that of course, excludes the ladies that used to kick my butt at the SCCA events.
However what scares me is that more and more of society seem to be ditching attentive driving, driver training, basic civility, etc. At least that aspect of the push for AI cars is valid. Unless we do something to reverse the trend of the idiocy of our culture, we're going to have to come up with some solution. I just don't think AI is it. Take their drivers licenses away and make them take taxis or busses.
When the actuarial data shows autonomous cars superior to human driven cars (and that day will come, it's just a matter of when), you can profess your disdain for them to your insurance agent, as he hands you your premium increase for going it on your own.
The small amount of training (and especially on-going training, checking, etc.) isn't evidence... its a lack of responsibility.
Fortunately, I'll hopefully be dead before then. But, I do worry for my son.
So far, at least the meager start of AI vehicles has shown them to be far, far less safe than the average human driver. AI cars have only driven a fraction the number of miles of the amount of human driven miles for a fatality to occur, and we already have at least 2 deaths I'm aware of that were totally the car's fault. And, under ideal conditions, at that.
Your 1 in 100million miles argument ignores the fact that no single human has ever driven anywhere near that many miles. Meanwhile, by sharing their collective experience, ALL autonomous cars could have the ability to pull from the aggregate. That's an advantage no human can hope to match.
Your false assumptions about how autonomous vehicles work makes it hard for me to share your concerns.