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Comment by Natsu | Hacker News Reader

I read that comment as saying that people would get upset about the driverless cars and there would be bad PR for every accident, not that the driverless cars would actually be less safe. They won't be perfect, and every single failure will place the blame on the manufacturer, similar to the difference between public perception of airplane safety vs. car safety. Most people feel safer in cars, because they're in control. But people are safer in airplanes.

Honestly, I predict that people will hate the way driverless cars drive, as well. For many reasons, including liability, such cars will have to drive in a nicer (more defensive) way than most people do.

A driverless car won't tailgate and so it let people in, even if they're "cheating" in heavy traffic. Some people will absolutely hate that, even if it helps traffic flow better.

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Hopefully, people will be too busy surfing the web to notice that their cars are politely improving traffic flow.

> Hopefully, people will be too busy surfing the web to notice that their cars are politely improving traffic flow.

I actually did that while traveling to work this very morning :) No need to dive into the future for that. It's called public transportation.

I drove to work today because my wife ankle was sore. I have a book I've been trying to finish and the 30 minute drive sorta annoyed me. I could have been so much more productive during that time.

I also drive from Canada to Florida multiple times a year. 24 hours wasted but it's better than flying, more freedom to stop and relax, better food and less stress overall and more space to carry stuff. With these cars I'd be in heaven (not literally).

The people complaining will be those who drive their own cars and are paying attention to how the computers drive.

They will complain that the robots are driving so nicely and defensively? That seems unlikely.

No, there will be complaints about how slow they drive because, without a doubt, there will be legislation requiring these cars not exceed the maximum posted speed limit.

True, but it could be mitigated by making the computer automatically take a picture of the plate in front.

The car computer saying "yeah, that just cost him a 50 dollar fine" would be absolutely loved by its users.

And it would force the other drivers to drive by the rules.

To be fair with the airplane example, if something goes wrong in an airplane there is the waiting period as the plane plummets to the ground, whereas a car accident would be over very quickly (unless you started rolling down the side of a tall mountain or something, I guess).

Here's the thing: driverless cars right now presumably are less safe. Last I heard they could follow lines on the road and dodge witches' hats, but they can't deal with unexpected situations.

Human drivers may be crap (though a human driver not actively being an idiot can generally travel many millions of miles between serious accidents) but I think it'll take a lot of R&D before robots can match 'em.

edit: Really? I got modded down for this? Go talk to one of the engineers on the Google driverless car program about how long he thinks it'll be before driverless cars are safer than the median human driver on a busy suburban street.

The thing you're not addressing is that there is a wide range of conditions and activities which all fall under the title of "driving". Would I trust a driverless car with current technology to navigate a busy parking lot? Not a chance. Would I trust it with the 40 mile commute I had, 38 miles of which were 6 lane highway? Probably. Would I trust it to make that same commute at times of low traffic when I'm likely tired myself? Absolutely. Not all driving needs a human's full attention, and the situations where a human doesn't need to pay full attention can be handled better by a computer which is immune to many of the distractions and weaknesses of the human mind. It's all situational and difficult to figure out, but the proper response is to keep plugging away at the parts of the problem you can gain some traction on and take what you can get.

There are cases like the busy parking lot where human control will likely be necessary well into the future, there are cases which can be addressed today, and there are cases which were addressed successfully over 20 years ago. Look up Ernst Dickmanns - he was an early pioneer in this field, and had an autonomous vehicle driving on European highways in traffic in the 80's. It's really easy to say that this is an impossible problem to tackle, but the person who says something can't be done should make damn sure he's not getting in the way of the person doing it.

I did my M.S. on this topic, so although I would not claim to be an expert in the field at Google's level, I do believe strongly in the technology and have given it more than cursory thought. The larger problems are more societal than technological, and as such I really hope that Google makes this happen because they have the societal clout to get people on board with the idea that a computer can, for most of the miles you drive, do a better job of getting you from A to B than you can.

Would I trust a driverless car with current technology to navigate a busy parking lot? Not a chance. Would I trust it with the 40 mile commute I had, 38 miles of which were 6 lane highway? Probably. Would I trust it to make that same commute at times of low traffic when I'm likely tired myself? Absolutely. Not all driving needs a human's full attention, and the situations where a human doesn't need to pay full attention can be handled better by a computer which is immune to many of the distractions and weaknesses of the human mind. It's all situational and difficult to figure out, but the proper response is to keep plugging away at the parts of the problem you can gain some traction on and take what you can get.

Sure, I think we're in complete agreement here. But the idea raised in the article that we're going to see driverless cabs on the Las Vegas Strip? I really don't think so. The day when we can trust a completely driverless car to wander round on its own without hitting anything is a helluva long way off.

In the meantime my main concern is that the hybrid human/computer driver might wind up with the worst features of both. It'd be much like an airliner, which can pretty much fly itself from origin to destination 99% of the time, but needs a carefully trained pilot for the occasions when something goes wrong... except that when an unexpected situation crops up on the road it requires a split-second decision, not the several minutes which airline pilots usually get.

Go ask a biologist how long it'll be until humans evolve 360-degree vision.

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