Originally Posted by jeffbrig

I'm a software engineer. I work on mission critical communication products. Stuff that has to be work 99.99999999% of the time. Drop a voice call and someone potentially dies. Now, there's a big difference in quality between consumer grade cell phones (and the networks they operate on) and what we make for first responders.

That said....software can only be as good as you specify it, and have the ability to test it. With cars, driving, and a mix of autonomous and boneheaded live drivers, there is NO way to foresee all possible scenarios. The best you could possibly hope to do is come up with some magic AI that can somehow evaluate predictive outcomes and make guesses at how to deal with a driving emergency. But the algorithm is only as good as what the developers think to put in it. How do you deal with white out conditions in a severe thunderstorm? What about a *gasp* tornado ahead? What if an earthquake hits as you're approaching a bridge, or double decker highway? How about pavement shifts in construction zones? What if the lane stripes are faded or missing? How about 2 guys with handheld Slow/Stop signs directing traffic around a closed lane on a 2 lane backroad? What about a police cruiser with lights and siren blazing going through an intersection while the light is red? What about a crossing guard in a school zone without traffic lights? I could go all day, and developers would have to figure out how to add checks to account for every possible scenario. I just don't think it can realistically be done.

A self-driving car with either have to do everything so slowly that it can safely go full stop anytime it gets confused as a fail-safe. Or, someone is going to die. Just a question of when. Imagine an autonomous car gets into an accident with a driven car. Say the live driver blows a red light and gets T-boned and dies. How in the hell is the autonomous car manufacturer going to avoid liability? How do you prove who was at fault? How do you know if the autonomous car messed up? How can you prove that it didn't? Can you even trust the sensor data from the car's black box? The manufacturer providing the data isn't exactly a neutral party. I can't understand why any company would open themselves up to the risk.

I get the coolness factor of autonomous vehicles. Heck, my senior project in college was an RC truck that could drive itself and do basic obstacle avoidance while navigating to a waypoint using GPS (trust me, this was impressive stuff in the late 90s). The only way I see autonomous vehicles working is if there's an alternate highway system (think of current HOV/express lanes in many cities), where only autonomous vehicles are used. Make it a smart highway with special markers to communicate with the cars. Cars would be in constant communication with the roadway and each other, and be able to take advantage of small gaps between cars for drafting (fuel milegage), and improving vehicle throughput (more cars per lane). Throw non-autonomous vehicles into that system and it just doesn't work. Oh, and good luck if the system ever goes out.

To (poorly) paraphrase Charlton Heston, you can have my steering wheel when you pry it from my cold, dead hand. (I'll keep the 3rd pedal too, thanks)

/soapbox

Originally Posted by Mr.E.G.

Oh, goddammit. I didn't read the original post all the way through. If I had known he was trolling to promote his blog, I would have never responded.

Originally Posted by ealand0001

It's going to happen. I think over time it will be great. Driving is stupid 99% of the time if you live in or near a big city. There are self driving cars all over 101 here in Bay Area...it's not even kind of a problem. People are bad at math so when the first one malfunctions and someone dies the uproar will be immense, but statistics and technology will win long term. All the anti self driving people can deal with stop and go traffic for hours. I'll just curl up in the back and take a nap.

I've been on a race track more than most. I'll happily drive my car there or on beautiful mountain roads, but in SF I will gladly let a robot drive. Throttle by wire, brake by wire, etc already exist. The tech and ideas to control those via inputs from sensors is well understood...it's not gonna stop. Embrace it. My newest child will probably never have to drive a car, but he will because it's fun in some cases.

Originally Posted by Mr.E.G.

Oh, goddammit. I didn't read the original post all the way through. If I had known he was trolling to promote his blog, I would have never responded.