I think there are lots of ways in which a transition to a significant driverless share of travel can go wrong, but I agree with you that a big part of its potential is the fact that _they actually follow the rules_ and I think really leaning into that has huge potential for benefits. If we started actually operating as a society that thinks vehicles are subject to laws, and cracking down on those who don't comply, we have so much potential for improving things for everyone.
I do think there are some cases where changes are needed to make sure some negative outcomes aren't made more painful by the transition, such as having some sort of weight-based Vehicle Miles Traveled tax, to disincentivize driverless cars just cruising looking for fares, but again these are all things that are good for us anyway, this might just make a better path to actually implementing them.
I generally agree with your analysis at a technical level but I want to offer a challenge to your thinking when the issue is considered more broadly, and this will give me a chance to gather my thoughts on this interesting issue. Especially in recent years we are seeing the ways in which governments and private corporations are colluding to restrict the constitutional freedoms of individuals that speak out against them. Mark Zuckerberg is now openly admitting his own collusion (finally..) and there are so many other examples of governments using big tech to pressure, punish or manipulate citizens, such as the seizing of assets by GoFundMe protest contributors in Canada, or now the wave of arrests in the EU for those that don't comply. So there is overwhelming evidence that these same systems and tools of power would be brought to bear on transport owned, operated, and controlled by these same companies in bed with these same governments. Demonetized or banned on youtube? Now you're banned on your autonomous transport account, Waymo, subsidiary of Google. Liked a comment on facebook about a protest? The government puts in a request with the same installed FBI agents to prevent your travel anywhere near a protest site - "Destination not available". It's a despot's wet dream to have a population that doesn't own its own means of transport while controlling every aspect of it remotely. Just like with free speech, claims will be made under the banner of increased "safety" or "defending democracy" to justify broad uses of new powers. Your argument is that autonomous driving takes the emotional decisions off the road, and when looked at in a daily sense especially for teenagers it would be right. But at the same time it transfers decision making to software run by tech companies who are themselves staffed by humans that make emotional decisions - except now as we saw with the Twitter files these decisions could be hidden from public view and subject to pressure from top levels of government, while impacting millions with the touch of a button, rather than just the two people that happen to be on the road in any given moment. It's not obvious to me this is a tradeoff worth taking, or an experiment worth running.
As is so often the case in our deranged culture, we create problems at one level (urban planning, failure to instill strong morals in young people) and then try to fix those problems with an inordinately high level of technology (autonomous driving) at a much higher cost, both financially and almost certainly socially. Like, we can just build a safe street and accept a small risk, or, we can build a stupidly dangerous street and add $1 trillion in tech (and likely dystopia) on top of that to "fix" our original design problem. Of course, the tech companies and the blue team in our government absolutely love any option that vastly expands their powers as we see over and over again.
"There are no solutions, only trade-offs." -Thomas Sowell
I'm reacting specifically to the technology and how it could help. There are absolutely negative outcomes, and government control is a biggie. There's also no reason to assume big corporate tech companies like Google will be the sole providers of this tech. Or that all big corporate tech companies would allow outside control (other than hacking, which can't ever be fully prevented). The last few years of Twitter's evolution is reason to second-guess the inevitability of government intervention & control.
That Sowell quote is so important. Nothing will be a total fix.
I once read that Apple and Google were developing autonomous cars to "free up " driver's time to allow foe more digital consumption and shopping. Scoffed at the idea, but now wonder. My 5 hours in a car this weekend; yours tomorrow - it adds up.
" Bored " hours, but hours I have ( had? )to myself or those with whom I travel.
I think there are lots of ways in which a transition to a significant driverless share of travel can go wrong, but I agree with you that a big part of its potential is the fact that _they actually follow the rules_ and I think really leaning into that has huge potential for benefits. If we started actually operating as a society that thinks vehicles are subject to laws, and cracking down on those who don't comply, we have so much potential for improving things for everyone.
I do think there are some cases where changes are needed to make sure some negative outcomes aren't made more painful by the transition, such as having some sort of weight-based Vehicle Miles Traveled tax, to disincentivize driverless cars just cruising looking for fares, but again these are all things that are good for us anyway, this might just make a better path to actually implementing them.
I generally agree with your analysis at a technical level but I want to offer a challenge to your thinking when the issue is considered more broadly, and this will give me a chance to gather my thoughts on this interesting issue. Especially in recent years we are seeing the ways in which governments and private corporations are colluding to restrict the constitutional freedoms of individuals that speak out against them. Mark Zuckerberg is now openly admitting his own collusion (finally..) and there are so many other examples of governments using big tech to pressure, punish or manipulate citizens, such as the seizing of assets by GoFundMe protest contributors in Canada, or now the wave of arrests in the EU for those that don't comply. So there is overwhelming evidence that these same systems and tools of power would be brought to bear on transport owned, operated, and controlled by these same companies in bed with these same governments. Demonetized or banned on youtube? Now you're banned on your autonomous transport account, Waymo, subsidiary of Google. Liked a comment on facebook about a protest? The government puts in a request with the same installed FBI agents to prevent your travel anywhere near a protest site - "Destination not available". It's a despot's wet dream to have a population that doesn't own its own means of transport while controlling every aspect of it remotely. Just like with free speech, claims will be made under the banner of increased "safety" or "defending democracy" to justify broad uses of new powers. Your argument is that autonomous driving takes the emotional decisions off the road, and when looked at in a daily sense especially for teenagers it would be right. But at the same time it transfers decision making to software run by tech companies who are themselves staffed by humans that make emotional decisions - except now as we saw with the Twitter files these decisions could be hidden from public view and subject to pressure from top levels of government, while impacting millions with the touch of a button, rather than just the two people that happen to be on the road in any given moment. It's not obvious to me this is a tradeoff worth taking, or an experiment worth running.
As is so often the case in our deranged culture, we create problems at one level (urban planning, failure to instill strong morals in young people) and then try to fix those problems with an inordinately high level of technology (autonomous driving) at a much higher cost, both financially and almost certainly socially. Like, we can just build a safe street and accept a small risk, or, we can build a stupidly dangerous street and add $1 trillion in tech (and likely dystopia) on top of that to "fix" our original design problem. Of course, the tech companies and the blue team in our government absolutely love any option that vastly expands their powers as we see over and over again.
"There are no solutions, only trade-offs." -Thomas Sowell
I'm reacting specifically to the technology and how it could help. There are absolutely negative outcomes, and government control is a biggie. There's also no reason to assume big corporate tech companies like Google will be the sole providers of this tech. Or that all big corporate tech companies would allow outside control (other than hacking, which can't ever be fully prevented). The last few years of Twitter's evolution is reason to second-guess the inevitability of government intervention & control.
That Sowell quote is so important. Nothing will be a total fix.
I once read that Apple and Google were developing autonomous cars to "free up " driver's time to allow foe more digital consumption and shopping. Scoffed at the idea, but now wonder. My 5 hours in a car this weekend; yours tomorrow - it adds up.
" Bored " hours, but hours I have ( had? )to myself or those with whom I travel.
I highly recommend Paris Marx's book "Road to Nowhere" debunking autonomous vehicles. Here is my review https://authory.com/LloydAlter/Road-to-Nowhere-Shows-How-Silicon-Valley-Gets-Cities-and-Transportation-Wrong-ae321ed68ca8947b1be9fa45a7eceb7ab