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Comment by JKCalhoun | Hacker News Reader

I sort of find the idea of self-driving cars as ... selfish?

Don't want to drive, take the bus.

The idea that we all need our personal chariots (and now robotic chauffeurs) seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility.

And, yes, I am guilty of owning a car myself and feel guilt about it. But for some reason the self-driving bit just seems to take it to another level for me. Maybe too there's an air of elitism about it since we are in fact talking about cars that cost what most people make in an entire year.

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Self-driving cars is not just about not wanting to drive.

It's also about enabling Uber-style intelligent carpooling so that you can save energy while still maintaining similar times to driving, especially in places with poor or non-existent public transportation.

It's also about reducing the number of cars in the world. You probably use your car for less than 5% of your life. Most of the time it just sits there taking up space. Why do you need to own it? Imagine a world where you didn't need to own, maintain, or park. We can reclaim parking lots and plant trees, build housing, or other things. We can also reclaim a lot of our time spent in traffic jams or looking for parking and do something more useful with it.

It's also about enabling people who are unfit to drive to have a better quality of life. What if you've had a little to drink? What if you're down with a fever and a headache and can't concentrate on the road? What if you're sleepy? What if you are prone to seizures? What if you're blind, deaf, have poor motor skills? What if you're a visitor to an area without a public transportation system and not confident renting a car and driving?

Nothing I've seen of Elon Musk's behavior (boring tunnels meant primarily for cars in pods, anyone?) suggests that he wants fewer cars on earth. In fact, it would be a pretty bonkers philosophy with which to run the most valuable car company on earth.

To add, back in the old days when I still went into the heart of my local metropolis, Uber and Lyft style carpooling had the opposite effect of "reducing the number of cars". The streets are littered with pee bottles and packed with desperate drivers looking to score a quick buck, making u-turns across traffic while looking at their phones.

>> Why do you need to own it?

Because our primitive brains instinctively want to own things. We can share with family, and with good friends, but not with strangers.

Another thing: car is used not only to drive, but also as a storage space for things that you want to have always with you: a bottle of water, duffel bag with gym clothes, umbrella, etc. With rented car pools you'd have to carry all that with you.

Also, society where no one owns a car or an apartment, where everything is rented, "pooled", would be a totalitarian dystopia - try to misbehave, post a negative comment about government on Facebook and you're banned from a car sharing service as a punishment. Seizing your property is of course also possible, but much harder.

And of course the cars would track everywhere you go, supposedly just to choose which ads to show to their captive audience.

But what if not owning a car meant you saved an additional $400 per month, and reclaimed 1-1.5 more hours per day?

Personally, I think a lot of people would take that trade. I would.

Yes, there are people who like lugging everything but the kitchen sink with them around. For a lot of people in the world though "things you always want to have with you" fits in a handbag or backpack.

> I sort of find the idea of self-driving cars as ... selfish? >Don't want to drive, take the bus.

A big issue with public transport is the “first/last mile” problem. You want to take the light rail to commute 25 miles to work but the station is two miles away from your house and the closest station to your work is over a mile. “Just walk” does not work for everyone, either because of weather (getting soaked by rain or sweating too much in your work clothes), or physical abilities, or time. So are you looking to take the bus to the station and from the station to work? How much time does that add? Do the schedules even line up well? If you buy a bike, is it allowed on the light rail, is there a safe place at your work for it? Do you drive a car and leave it at the station, and what do you do on the other side to get to the office?

Autonomous vehicles can/should be used in conjunction with public transport to solve the first/last mile problem. Hail a small electric autonomous car to take you to the light rail station, and hop into another one at the other end that takes you directly to work. It is still convenient for the individual and it still eliminates 23 miles of vehicle driving in a dense urban environment and removes the need for a parking space in a location that space is likely a premium.

Same with busses. They take forever because they have to stop so often. They have to stop so often because people can’t walk long distances to a more central location for pickup. People in the lowest incomes that, out of necessity, have to use the bus system may commute for multiple hours simply because of these inefficiencies. But if you had small 10 person shuttles servicing a limited area to bring local people to and from their front door to a more central bus location, you could reduce the number of stops a bus makes over a commuter distance by an order of magnitude and turn a 2 hour commute into a 40 minute commute.

> Don't want to drive, take the bus.

Self-driving “cars” include taxis (that's one of the prime motivating use cases), trucks (another big one), and busses (not as frequently talked about, but once the technology is there, it's going to get applied to them, as well.)

It's not just about individually-owned vehicles for people who want to own, but not drive, a personal vehicle.

I feel taxi drivers, truck drivers, deserve jobs.

It seems to be popular to want to automate all the "working class" jobs though.

Speaking in terms of pure economics, improvements to self-driving cars today will eventually lead to mass-market adoption and substantially lower costs for everybody.

Take cell phones for example, they were big, expensive, had only one function, and only available for the rich just about 30 years ago. Now they are cheap, powerful, pocket supercomputers available to mostly everyone.

Another example is farming and supply chain. 100 years ago you were pretty limited to the foods available in the local store, but now you can get anything your heart might desire, be that bananas from Mexico for 69 cents, or Sake from Japan for $20. The world has greatly benefitted from advancements in technology that was once only available to the richest.

Most of the mid-class luxuries we enjoy today, from airlines, to hot tubs, to game consoles and books on Kindle, all of that had to be developed and brought to light, first expensive, and then gradually cheaper and cheaper.

Eventually even the buses will drive themselves, and that will only happen if we invest sufficient energy and resources into making the tech available and improving today.

>I sort of find the idea of self-driving cars as ... selfish?

Well we are selfish creatures. It makes perfect sense, what is the purpose of anything if not for you?

I don't think we'll be satisfied by nothing less than everything, and why should we?

But what if self-driving cars were 10x safer than human-driven cars? Seems like your issue is with the personal vehicle bit, not the self driving bit.

>Don't want to drive, take the bus.

And what if my area has shitty bus service?

Make it better? Move to a better area?

I strongly advise that anyone who pays attention to national politics diversify at least 50% of that energy into local issues.

Moving has a lot of inertia, and might not be possible if nobody is interesting in buying your house, or other area's rent is too high. Your area might have _had_ great service, but has rapidly degraded. There are tons of things outside your control. Having a car is the common answer to gain back some of that.

You'll notice I had a solution ahead of moving.

> But what if self-driving cars were 10x safer than human-driven cars?

But there is no evidence of this, or that they're even as safe as human drivers. In fact, Teslas are involved in more accidents than other luxury cars.

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