Finally there are many social aspects which should be considered when it comes to driverless cars
Trust
"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window" - Steve Wozniak
Many people does not trust computers for crucial tasks and driving car is one of them, but here on the other hand I would raise another question – can we trust humans to drive cars J?
Unemployment
Nowadays transportation provides many jobs which would disappear in case of automation. Because of this many people may oppose the idea of driverless cars despite the fact that it would be great improvement of life quality for everyone and history proved that people who opposed technical progress were wrong.
Many people are used to drive their cars which they can consider some sort of entertainment and element of personal freedom and independence. They might be unwilling to give up that for comfort and safety.
There are many legal issues concerning driverless cars but I would like to mention two of them which I consider the most important.
As we all know today in order to drive the car driver license is required, but what if there is no driver?
Legal responsibility
"I wasn't speeding, Officer. My car was."
Imagine a situation where driverless car causes an accident, who should be held responsible in such case?
Questions
What is the hardest problem to solve in your opinion? Is it social or technical?
Do you think people employed in transport will protest this just like the Luddites who were destroying machines which "stole" their jobs in XIX century?
If you are a driver would you give up control over your car for comfort and safety?
Both the same. Technical is that navigation systems are not good enough yet and social – e.g. as you mentioned the situation when the driverless car causes an accident, who should be punished for that? Maybe computer would be a judge? ;)
ReplyDeleteI’m afraid everyone in the near future will get relieved by machines so protests, demonstrations and other manifestation are unavoidable.
I’m a driver and all I want to say is “get out of here you stupid, mechanical monsters and don’t ever appear here anymore. Stupid monsters!”. Where would have gone enjoyment of driving if machines had taken control over our cars? Let’s remind Honda’s catch phrase – “First Man, then Machine”
It's a tough situation with social aspects of driveless cars. I'd like to have a car that drives by himself, but current state of those technologies doesn't seem to be good enough to even imagine how this would look like in the future. It's a little like with robots. We see that they're getting better and better, but no one knows if they will start to be self aware at certain point of their evolution or maybe there's a wall that we can't get round.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm trying to say is that at least I seem to think that the only thing that has to change is the progress of those technologies. Nonetheless I'm not sure if there's something that can't be done.
I really don't know what to write about this topic ;)
I think that the hardest problem to solve is the cost of building infrastructure for this kind of transport. Not only the will be a need to prepare roads but there also must to be build special centres for managing traffic, employing hundreds of people.
ReplyDelete"What is the hardest problem to solve in your opinion? Is it social or technical?"
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion - social. I can't imagine person who buys car for auto-drive function.
"Do you think people employed in transport will protest this just like the Luddites who were destroying machines which "stole" their jobs in XIX century?"
People protest always, no matter if it's tree cutting, highway building or in-vitro procedures. There always are does who just don't like it.
"If you are a driver would you give up control over your car for comfort and safety?"
I don't think so.
I think the biggest problem would be the legal responsibilities. But as I commented before if there would be seperate lanes for manual drivers and for the computer controled cars and some security means to avoid manual drivers to enter the computer controled lanes it would be possible to totaly eliminate car crushes on the automated lanes by letting the computers to control the traffic in global as one body, where every car has his place in the system and interacts with the nearest cars. Yet again to achieve this manual riders could not be present within this computer system and would only be possible after spending a whole lot of money on infrastructure rebuilds.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the hardest problem to solve in your opinion? Is it social or technical?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion social and legal aspect.
Do you think people employed in transport will protest this just like the Luddites who were destroying machines which "stole" their jobs in XIX century?
I don't know but I think they should.
If you are a driver would you give up control over your car for comfort and safety?
Definitely not! I don't see any safety and pleasure or comfort.
Obviously a technical aspect. By a success in this field I mean that the whole solution including software will be reliable enough to convince people of possibilites.
ReplyDeleteCome on - we all know that it won't happen tommorow. There will be a transition period when former drivers will be able to find new jobs.
Not very often because I love driving, but to be able to read news or watch something it would be realy nice.
What is the hardest problem to solve in your opinion? Is it social or technical?
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced that both. People need to accept it and technology must further developed
Do you think people employed in transport will protest this just like the Luddites who were destroying machines which "stole" their jobs in XIX century?
I believe that people and machines will have to work together. However, the human factory is the human factory and we can't get rid of it in 100%
If you are a driver would you give up control over your car for comfort and safety?
Full control never but some part of it maybe