Self-Driving Cars

Would You Buy A Self-Driving Car?

  • Yes

    Votes: 51 14.2%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 44 12.2%
  • No

    Votes: 265 73.6%

  • Total voters
    360
What happens when self driving computers (not the car, it's the computer) in their long learning process end up with billions of lines of code? Wouldn't there be conflicts and conundrums with this amount of Shear complexity? Is this the likely result? I know computers can fly and land airliners. Do the approach, flair and land themselves, hold the centerline etc, with only a few things the pilot must do (other than considerable setup and input) such as apply reverse thrust. Is this act more or less difficult for a computer to do than the myriad of different conditions that a car might encounter in its entire life? Will there be point when it will it become necessary to abandon the binary system altogether, the And - Or - Not -Nor- Nand thing and build an actual brain?
 
Would you mind making such an argument? I realize it's easy to be impressed by modern technology cuz of smart phones and computer generated special effects in movies.

FWIW my view of technology comes from having worked in manufacturing since CNC machines were a novelty and watching cybernetic systems perform fairly sophisticated operations reliably day in and day out (versus commuting on the freeway and seeing fender-benders or worse every day).

What happens when self driving computers (not the car, it's the computer) in their long learning process end up with billions of lines of code? Wouldn't there be conflicts and conundrums with this amount of Shear complexity? Is this the likely result? I know computers can fly and land airliners. Do the approach, flair and land themselves, hold the centerline etc, with only a few things the pilot must do (other than considerable setup and input) such as apply reverse thrust. Is this act more or less difficult for a computer to do than the myriad of different conditions that a car might encounter in its entire life? Will there be point when it will it become necessary to abandon the binary system altogether, the And - Or - Not -Nor- Nand thing and build an actual brain?

As far as building a brain, I’m going to have to (Shock, Horror!) agree with Loopstick and say that several hundred million years of evolution can’t be just duplicated in a lab. I think the solution is not in making the computer more complicated, it’s in parsing out driving into simple enough components that decisions can be made on a finite number of nested if/then statements.
 
As far as building a brain, I’m going to have to (Shock, Horror!) agree with Loopstick and say that several hundred million years of evolution can’t be just duplicated in a lab. I think the solution is not in making the computer more complicated, it’s in parsing out driving into simple enough components that decisions can be made on a finite number of nested if/then statements.
I could see this, but it would be the roadway itself that would need to be more controlled in order to have less complex driverless computers. Highways that keep all the variables to a minimum. Currently a road may have occasional spots of black ice on a slight north face. A driverless car must recognize this. Now throw in two other scenarios. A dog suddenly jumps out in front of the car from the right, and at the same time a child approaches out from the left. The car is unable to stop for either, but can make a choice on which to hit. Does it recognize the dog or the kid and does it make the correct choice? The dog being of less value.. This while may prove difficult for a human, I would venture the dog would easily be the one sacraficed with a real person behind the wheel. Not sure about the computer, particularly a less complex one.
FWIW my view of technology comes from having worked in manufacturing since CNC machines were a novelty and watching cybernetic systems perform fairly sophisticated operations reliably day in and day out (versus commuting on the freeway and seeing fender-benders or worse every day).
Probably so.. Having computers run CNC is a far far cry from all the unforeseen circumstances that await a driverless car. Would you agree?
 
Now throw in two other scenarios. A dog suddenly jumps out in front of the car from the right, and at the same time a child approaches out from the left. The car is unable to stop for either, but can make a choice on which to hit. Does it recognize the dog or the kid and does it make the correct choice? The dog being of less value.. This while may prove difficult for a human, I would venture the dog would easily be the one sacraficed with a real person behind the wheel. Not sure about the computer, particularly a less complex one.
Wow !!

Trolley problem

To me the simple problem is that everybody in Michigan knows not to drive over puddles in the Spring cuz beneath the surface of that puddle is a deep chuckhole that will shred your tires and bend your wheels. But to a self-driving car it appears to be an innocent shallow little puddle - assuming it notices the puddle at all. You can have the car "learn" about what Michiganders already know through a neural net - but you don't want to be in the car while it learns those things. :D
Wikipedia said:
Modern neural network projects typically work with a few thousand to a few million neural units and millions of connections, which is still several orders of magnitude less complex than the human brain and closer to the computing power of a worm.
 
No way, its not really my thing, after all, why did i take my driver's license?
I really hope it doesn't become a mainstream thing when it catches on, i would prefer it to be a niche thing, for people too rich for their own good.
 
I want one so bad. I think the whole word should be forced to use them. Think about it: No rat racing, no drunk driving, no old ladies. If there's an accident it's the manufacturer's insurance responsibility. No more car insurance! I have to drive to the thrift store now (looking for a computer LCD, I'd love to have my car drive me there while I keep reading on the web.
 
If they force me into buying a self driver I am going to send it off alone on day trips in order to practice up. If it can get 10kmiles without any harm done I may relax a bit. However I am quite concerned over machines taking over our lives and once accomplished, what will we do with ourselves? At some point what will be left of our mental and physical abilities, will we know how to pour piss out of a boot without the instructions written on the heel?
 
I wouldn't worry about it. The only people pushing this are Silicon Valley types who have no clue about the auto industry and cuz they no longer make silicon stuff (moved to China) they gotta get their hands into something else. Many of the developer comments posted to defend the technology in news stories about accidents come from individuals who obviously didn't grow up in a car culture. The fact that they openly refer to what they're doing as "beta testing" indicates a complete disconnect from reality. My guess is if they ever roll these things out in any great number it will be such a huge clusterf* that the whole concept will be shelved.
 
Im probably looking into this too much, but Im just not sure why such hate? The technology will get there. Whats crazier, imagining most people in self driving cars 30 years (or whenever) from now? Or imaging our world today, 30 years ago? These things are gonna avoid potential accidents in the first place by being the ultimate defensive driver. But yeah people are gonna die, just not nearly as many IMHO. Regards and please dont take this the wrong way. I really do like what you (and others) have to say (some is over my head but I think I get the general idea), I just dont agree with all of it. Id like to defend my point of view with specifics, but Im just going off of gut feeling (and working full time as well as full time student). Peace!
I'm not hating or taking anything the wrong way. If you happen to be an engineering student then you're already in the process of developing insights that will help you to separate hype and wishful thinking from cold reality. Our world today is really not that much different from the world 30 years ago so let's not pat ourselves on the back too much for things like cell phones and the internet. There have been great advances in associated technologies like video compression but they don't directly advance the progress of artificial perception / intelligence.

When these cars drive off the edge at Pikes Peak or perform equivalent feats of spectacular stupidity it will be (in their "minds") for perfectly logical reasons. The "save lives" argument boils down to a trade-off between fewer drunks dying and more innocent people dying. If these cars "save" 4000 drunks and kill 3000 good drivers then that's not my idea of a "greater good". You didn't really solve the problem - you just altered it in a rather dubious manner.
 
I'm not hating or taking anything the wrong way. If you happen to be an engineering student then you're already in the process of developing insights that will help you to separate hype and wishful thinking from cold reality. Our world today is really not that much different from the world 30 years ago so let's not pat ourselves on the back too much for things like cell phones and the internet. There have been great advances in associated technologies like video compression but they don't directly advance the progress of artificial perception / intelligence.

When these cars drive off the edge at Pikes Peak or perform equivalent feats of spectacular stupidity it will be (in their "minds") for perfectly logical reasons. The "save lives" argument boils down to a trade-off between fewer drunks dying and more innocent people dying. If these cars "save" 4000 drunks and kill 3000 good drivers then that's not my idea of a "greater good". You didn't really solve the problem - you just altered it in a rather dubious manner.
Totally agree, plus these cars strip away my own defensive driving skills and place them in a complex series of algorithms that don't necessarily have that much interest in my own best interests. Last thing I need is a computer sacrificing my life in order to lessen the chance of a bus being ran off the road or otherwise placed in some sort of calculated danger, in an effort to better protect the lives of the many over the few on some icy patch..
 
What i'm really looking forward to is self-driving farm equipment, like the combines on the movie "Interstellar".
Its almost a reality as well, Case has a tractor prototype without any human input on the machine itself, controlled only via the apps on your tablet or cellphone.
I REALLY hope this one catches up, since i work on this area and i know the difficulties regarding the handling of heavy machinery by inexperienced employes.
 
And it will be much safer when we can get all those workers off the machines and into their homes where nothing can happen to them. :(
 
And it will be much safer when we can get all those workers off the machines and into their homes where nothing can happen to them. :(
If the transition happens too fast we are going to lose a lot of irreplaceable jobs on many areas, this transition is not going to be pretty...
 



Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.​
 
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.
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It doesn't bother me if we disagree - it's a forum. These vehicles are gonna make mistakes that nobody in their right mind would even come close to making. In any system in which a society is forced to abdicate personal responsibility to some collective authority the people who will obviously benefit are those who have little sense of personal responsibility (drunks, idiots), and those who will suffer are those who do exercise normal degrees of personal responsibility (typical drivers). The machine doesn't care - it has no sense of self-preservation - no altruistic concerns about other machines / humans. The machine is always right as long as it follows its programmed instruction set.

The machine is gonna do what it's gonna do - with colossal deficiencies in the important area of visual perception. Here are some "mishaps" that were posted earlier -

Post 33

Post 72

What IIRC Google typically reports is that their record of "at-fault" accidents is very impressive. The problem is that the machine has no sense or understanding about driver behavior and their machines stop suddenly in traffic and get rear ended a lot. Something your 16 year old kid won't do after a few hours of practice / instruction. It could be argued that if all vehicles were self-driving that these rear-end collisions could be avoided. The rosiest view I have of the future for these vehicles is that in certain metropolitan areas they will come under the control of some network and act as quasi public transportation.
 
Have to vote maybe. For all the reasons stated, I don't think the technology is quite there yet. (Or not if people are also driving!) However, if the day quoted above ever comes, it might just be the solution.

Ford plans to have several models by the year 2021. Read it in an industry trade magazine. These models are designed with no steering wheels and no pedals for acceleration or braking. That and more is coming in the very near future.
 
It will likely be here faster than anyone realizes, and it likely will come with bugs to work out. Problems arising from something this complex cannot be fully corrected before implementation begins
 
It's not a matter of fixing bugs. A bug is an error in the implementation of a suitable design. There's just not gonna be a suitable design until there's been huge breakthroughs in machine visual perception. You can have the vehicle festooned with sensors like the quills on a porcupine but if the "brain" can't form and process a true motion image then this "brain" is gonna be missing a lot of important visual cues and making a lot of stupid mistakes.

I'd put a billion times more trust in a burro taking me along some switchback than a "smart" vehicle with a hodge podge of sensors and code that's basically a layered rat's nest of conditional instructions. There have been no breakthroughs here AFAIK. They're just extending existing capability into an area for which it is unsuited. The good news is that if and when they roll these out they'll be toys for status seekers. Guys who would otherwise buy a small plane in their retirement and crash it.
 
I would want the manufacturer of the car to supply the insurance, if it is still needed. If my car is involved in an accident, it will not be my fault.

So there is malfunction and a self driving car runs a stop light and causes an accident, I should not be held accountable, no driving controls on the car.

To me reliability will be an additional issue, if not when new all though that is not a given, when the car is a few years old. With our current technology tow truck companies stay busy towing and hauling cars to the shop. I replaced the alternator on my mini van yesterday because it failed (pieces and parts of cars do fail), just a 10 minute job, but how many redundant systems will the self driving car have to have, for fail safe in all situations.

And look at vehicle recalls and how long and how many failures it takes to get a manufacturer to issue a recall. We know from experience how difficult it is to find an issue with the software that is currently used in our cars. Even if there is a fault, it may be very difficult to reproduce.

Lets say I have a farm out in the country on a gravel road. It happens to have 3 driveways and several equipment/machine sheds in addition to my 4 car garage. How do I tell it where to park? Maybe I could use my smart phone or tablet, but then it would not be completely self driving.

Currently at least part of the sensor array is LIDAR based. This is an optical system. So what happens here in the snow belt when dirt, mud and slush is splashed on this sensor? Will it be self cleaning?

And as long as I am being picky...

In the county where I grew up and it is still this way, if a speed limit sign is knocked down by a snow plow or an accident, it may take the city or county days or longer to replace the sign. How will the car determine the speed limit as it comes into town? Maybe the car can have a data base of all of the speed limit zones in every location in the United States. Maybe the car could access a master data base, but who is going to collect all of this data and who will pay for it?

And if the speed limit signs are for a school zone, a car could come blasting into the school zone rather fast and the list goes on.

I am with Loopstick, I do not believe that this is ready for prime time in all situations.

I know my post has gotten rather long, but just one more thing.

Maybe a manufacturer can't make their system work well enough to pass what ever eventual certification is required and they program their car to pass the test but not necessarily to work correctly on the highway. Okay no manufacturer or division of a manufacturer would every do that.


Oh, wait...

Can we all say Volkswagen?
 
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