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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

To me, there are only a few "out there" technologies that have a chance to change everything. 3-D printing is at the top of my list, but that's going to be a while before it really takes off. The others are robotics (also taking a while) and self-driving cars.

If Google can work through not only the technical but the social and legal problems associated with fully auto-drive cars, it could literally change the world overnight. Instead of driving cars being a time sink, it could change into something along the lines of being in a room that goes places. You could sleep, read, play games, or otherwise occupy your time. It would literally give the nation tens of billions of hours in added productivity time. It could make the elderly more independent, eliminate drunk-driving, and a lot more. Very cool stuff.

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The wide ranging impacts will be huge, as well as the unintended consequences. I actually think the first thing to go will be truck drivers. There are some social obstacles for regular cars, but once automated driving has proven itself it's only a matter of time until the shipping/delivery industry says "wait I can have 24/7 drivers that have less accidents per million miles than the ones that can only do 11 hour days?" Just this one case has crazy implications: 3.5 million jobs lost in a short time span, but you can order from amazon at 6pm and have at it your doorstep before you wake up, all of the trucks can drive at exactly optimal fuel efficiency, all businesses that rely on truckers will likely go under, do you need distribution centers when you have cheap, never sleeping drivers? this will take consume enormous amount of energy... and I'm sure you can think of more just for that one case.

Personally I think the biggest impact this will have is the energy usage one. Currently we stress about our abilities to meet future demands, but we aren't stressed enough to really innovate. Automated driving will definitely change that.

I'm willing to bet that, at least in the infancy of the technology, there will be laws that require at least 1 capable driver in the vehicle at all times. This would still probably effect the industry greatly, as they could then hire almost anyone with a license, but 3.5 million jobs wouldn't just drop off the face of the country.

Well just like Emails haven't completely replaced Postal services. You will still need drivers. You will need people to drive Ambulances, Race cars and things like vehicles for banks and other important things.

But when big paradigm shifts like this happen, generally a lot of people end up loosing jobs.

Autonomous racing series - now that will be interesting. I don't think it would look like current motor racing - it is centered around the cult of the driver - but more like an outgrowth of robot wars. We could already have remote controlled race cars where the drivers sat in simulators and drove remotely - but we don't because people want to be in the hot seat.

Driverless racing cars could go incredibly fast - and require real solutions to large computing problems. And this would push development of driverless cars along quickly, just as motor racing pushed along the infant car industry quickly.

I might be wrong, but my intuition is that all the competitors would be near-perfect, and every race would end in a tie, or at least be very close.

I'd imagine that the winner would be the one with the best strategy. My feeling is that with as many variables as you'd see in a race, that it'd be impossible for a single AI to perfectly take all opportunities. And I can imagine some outperforming others in slingshotting or taking curves. Of course, it all depends on the rules of the race.

Plus you can take greater risks when drivers' lives aren't at stake. I imagine it would be a pretty exciting sport, not to mention expensive.

Actually, I think it might end up being cheaper than F1. No celebrity driver to pay millions to and no very-high safety concerns! Although given that most of the human population will probably not relate (or out-rightly reject the idea) to the sport because of the lack of driver, there might be less money in it.

I think your last point is the most relevant. I've spoken to a couple of huge F1 fans about this and they both seem to think it's the most stupid idea they've ever heard. They want less computers and more human control in their F1 cars, not the other way around.

Personally I have a dream of one day seeing an AI car competing against humans in an F1 race, but alas I fear it will never happen.

To quote "The Fast and the Furious"...

"It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile; winning's winning."

One-make or control racing series ostensibly pit equal machinery, with only the drivers brain making the difference. Presumably in an autonomous series, there would be little technical rules to force equivalent vehicles. Thus one car would be optimised for a certain type of track, and one for another. Different teams can come up with different strategies, and there is always the element of chance.

It's near-impossible for a motor race to end in a tie because there is only one optimum racing line, and only one car can occupy it at a time. Just removing the drivers wouldn't be enough to change the results.

Yes, you'd get one team dominating as you do in any motorsport, but the methods to temper this are well known.

Basically it would be like current motorsport but with the element of risk for the driver removed, which would result in higher speeds and greater risks being taken. I think it would be exciting to watch.

It's on its way already to an extent. Apologies for linking to Fox News, but it was the only one with video: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/03/29/vw-stanford-build-...

Well isn't this natural evolution in terms of productivity any race would experience? Lets take for example agriculture, dairy farming, and other animal farms. Compared to something like 300 years back, very few people now work on agriculture and associated tasks. Where did all those people go, they went on to do more productive work.

As there are better ways to harness energy and automate things people will move onto more and more productive work.

Finally we may reach a point where things like space colonies, settlements and other massive space exploration projects will make sense. Because we will have nothing else to do.

I like the theory, trust me, I do. Abundance sounds so good.

But, you're completely ignoring the economic framework we live in.

The problem is the people who own these automated systems accumulate more and more wealth, while the workers who once operated them get poorer and poorer. So 'nothing else to do' = 'living in grinding dystopian poverty', if nothing changes in our current economic system.

It all boils down to education. If former laborers can be efficiently trained for new job opportunities, society wins. If not, society continues to stagnate. Farmers don't become robotics engineers or rocket scientists spontaneously.

It's not quite that simple. There also needs to be demand to create those new job opportunities. I'm all for more people working in highly skilled sectors and getting rid of the need for menial labor. The question is: given how the economy works these days, where is the demand for those highly skilled jobs actually going to come from?

Most things that actually push the boundaries of what we can do - such as 3D printing, space exploration - have very little effective demand going towards them these days. The one exception may be medical research, I'm just not sure about that.

So I agree that society wins if the level of education can be raised and more people work in highly educated sectors. However, this is not going to be some kind of inevitable outcome of the market. The effective demand needs to be there to enable this transition, and there is no automatic market mechanism to make it happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Homerdrive - the truckers already have this! =P

At least the packages that end up on the doorstep still require human delivery. Normalizing addresses and pin pointing the exact location still isn't quite good enough.

But yes, unintended consequences will surely make things interesting. The productive will become more productive, and the 99% will get that much larger...

"At least the packages that end up on the doorstep still require human delivery."

Imagine that you ordered something from Amazon. You could choose from a bunch of different times, perhaps a dozen in a day, when the automated delivery truck would swing by your house. Your phone would make a noise, and you would go outside to grab your packages off the truck. It would be like an Automat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat) on wheels. You would somehow authenticate yourself and then grab your boxes from your assigned slots.

I'm pretty much never home when the UPS guy swings by my apartment and I order enough stuff that I wouldn't want to inconvenience my neighbors two or three times a week asking them to grab it for me.

You could just indicate when you're going to be home and they can drive by at that time.

In Japan, all the delivery services let you indicate a precise 2-hour window when you want the delivery. With automated drivers, this could be feasible in the U.S. as well.

I get all my stuff delivered to a Packstation, which is only a 5min walk away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation

"You would somehow authenticate yourself and then grab your boxes from your assigned slots."

Easy to imagine with a phone, but does HP still support their fingerprint readers? Seems like a gimme.

Or maybe just require the card used at purchase to be swiped in the delivery truck. Then you could ask anyone to stay home and pick up your item, just give them your card.

In fact, one concept with increasing popularity in Germany are Packstations (http://www.dhl.de/en/paket/privatkunden/packstation.html). Basically it's a set of parcel boxes where customers can unlock the one that contains their packet.

Now, instead of hoping that the delivery guy arrives when you are at home, you just give the address of the next Packstation and pick it up at your convenience.

Isn't that pretty much re-inventing the post office, except that you don't ship the item through the postal system? This seems like an indication that we need to fix our postal systems...

If you want to put it that way, it's re-inventing the system of lots of small post-offices. But it's completely automated, so it's financially feasible. And DHL is the parcel carrier of Deutsche Post, the privatized entity that used to be Germany's publicly operated postal system.

I'm not sure that there's anything to fix here, specifically.

USPS is testing this in trial markets right now:

https://tools.usps.com/go/EPLAction!input?WT_z.redirect=www....

Amazon is doing this too with Amazon Lockers: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_l... They're still on a trial run, but they have been rolling out in a couple more cities recently.

That idea is very cool; but I feel it introduces a whole new amount of complexity.

Making a car that drives you (safely) somewhere is the problem Google is working on.

Delivery of packages along a route is a whole other matter; for example I live on a street with a weird t/fork at the end. Vans tend to struggle getting in and out.

The decision making process to effectively get a van to my door probably still one that requires human input :)

You'd be surprised!

The autonomous cars had to solve problems much more difficult than this in the DARPA challenges. Stanley and Junior have been thrust into artificially complicated mazes and come through with no problem.

Heck, here the car can autonomously produce a 'slide park': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_piO849uRdI

Not sure about the truck drivers. I can see the benefits in making all the long-range truck deliveries drive through the night. This could be encouraged by time-of-use road charges for things like interstate highways, for a discount in registration fees or fuel taxes, I guess.

But delivery trucks will still need someone in them to make the deliveries. But what would change is that the delivery person could be doing things in the truck while on the rounds - this could be related or unrelated work.

Generally, if a technology transition releases a lot of productivity, it also drastically lowers cost of whatever is affected (delivered goods, which is everything). This, by rights, should free up a lot of extra money for people, which they can then spend on other things. The other things generally cause more economic activity somewhere else, which should create the new jobs.

But a portion of truck drivers will lose their job, with it never to return.

However, this can't be, nor should it be, stopped.

Delivery men could be automated too. A robot with package safe and some kind of pre-determined passcode could be sufficient. Insurance or onboard sensing to surveil would-be thieves would cover some of the safety issues.

And to avoid even more problems the delivery network could work with post offices to put these safes in place of P/O boxes. Australia Post already does this - you receive a package and they send you an SMS with the code to unlock the safe they've left it in. The delivery truck would just put the packages in the safe totally autonomously.

I think robot delivery men are farther off than automated long haul trucks. Having a robot that can find the front door of an arbitrary residence and get to it from the street is more than a little bit beyond our current capabilities.

The safe idea is interesting, though.

I've been wondering about this, and I think it's totally doable so long as you don't get stuck thinking about a literal "robot delivery man". The model I was considering was more along the lines of 1) park as close as possible to the target address 2) send SMS notifying the recipient that you've arrived. 3) recipient has a 5-10min window to go out to the waiting truck, swipe a card or whatever for ID purposes, and receive the goods.

It's a somewhat different experience to a human knocking on your door, but I'm sure it could be made to work.

Automated delivery vehicles may be able to do better in terms of offering a choice of delivery time, and sending accurate estimates of arrival time. There's considerable scope for doing a better job of delivering to households where there is usually nobody home during "working hours".

Yes, I was doing the typical constrained thinking of trying to apply new technology to an existing format.

What you're essentially describing is a motorised set of po boxes. Which would work brilliantly. For pizza delivery it's a motorised warmer oven with multiple components, probably looking a lot like those little motorised droids that are always zipping around the ankles of actors in Star Wars films.

They are further off but it's a completely unrealistic endeavor at this point in time. With automated vehicles automated delivery men become much more palpable, if not inevitable . As more and more people become comfortable with automation it will only further the other areas where robotics could really make an impact.

Between 'drive this truck 50 mph on city streets through traffic to a destination address' and 'carry this package from the curb to the front door' I'd have thought the first one would be more difficult to solve.

Yeah, in hindsight, the safe/dropbox idea is much more viable and likely to happen.

"if a technology transition releases a lot of productivity, it also drastically lowers cost of whatever is affected (delivered goods, which is everything). This, by rights, should free up a lot of extra money for people"

And here is the problem. What actually happens is the people who control "production" end up with most of this extra money.

What actually happens is the people who control "production" end up with most of this extra money.

This is not true. It's actually a pretty well-understood economic phenomena.

When changes to pricing is forced by changes in upstream costs, as with this example, but also as forced by increased taxes/fees, etc., you can predict who will bear the brunt of the cost (or enjoy the windfall) based on the elasticity of the buyer.

For example, we know that the elasticity for gasoline is very inelastic, because consumption only changes a small amount in response to price changes. This means that an increase in taxes on the petroleum industry will be borne mostly by the consumer, and not the producer.

However, for other industries where consumers are more likely to change their spending habits in relation to price changes, it will be the consumers that are on the winning side.

Well, no. Look up why aluminium is dirt-cheap today.

Not really. You would only end up with one group controlling all the extra money if there was a monopoly and pricing control. Even if you have a handful of shipping companies with the automated delivery technology whatever cost gains there are will soon be passed onto the customers.

Lowered cost of production always results in lowered cost of goods, which either raises quality for the same price, or lowers cost and released cash for other purchases.

I don't really buy this car-centric view. Don't get me wrong, I also like the idea of self-driving cars very much. But I don't think this will change "everything". Instead, I see a smooth transition towards more and more automated driving.

For example, here in Berlin we have a really good public transportation, which becomes more and more automated every year. In particular, short-distance (as well as long-distance) rails are almost fully automated these days, yet there is still a human sitting in the train's driver's cab for safety reasons.

In other cities like Frankfurt, there are even one or two non-human fully automated short-distance rails. Those are used more in the way we use an elevator, they feel less like trains.

Another example are airplanes, which are driven almost automatically these days, where the pilot is only really required for landing and, again, for safety in unexpected situations.

I think that cars are no different in that regard. There will always be some kind of "driver", although that person will have less and less to do with driving, and more with technical observation, safety, etc.

(As a side note, I think that putting so much emphasis on cars over other types of transportation is some kind of "US thingie". Here in Germany, cars are high valued vehicles, too, but they are generally not a symbol of freedom, independence, etc. Maybe I'm wrong in that regard, but that's my personal explaination of that strange car-centric view on transportation, which leads to so much excitement of self-driving cars, disregarding the amazing progresses in all other areas of transportation.)

The main problem with cars in the US is suburban sprawl. A large percentage of the population live in places where a car is required to go anywhere. It's a mess, a disaster of urban planning that's probably impossible to fix.

In Germany, even in the more rural areas, you can typically walk 15-20 minutes to a town with shops, or get a bus even closer than that. That's not so in much of the US. If you don't live in one of the few walkable cities with decent public transit, you're gonna need a car.

>>The main problem with cars in the US is suburban sprawl. A large percentage of the population live in places where a car is required to go anywhere. It's a mess, a disaster of urban planning that's probably impossible to fix.

If you think US urban planning is in a mess, come to India. I bet these self driven cars can't survive for even minutes on any street.

In India, you practically have to chase street dogs, dodge cricket balls, avoid kids playing on the road, find the road in a road of full of potholes, use breath control techniques to escape the stench and lanes are nothing short of mazes which you can't find a way out unless you've lived years in that area.

I am not sure if self driven cars can ever work here.

Sounds like a good research problem/job opportunity.

> Another example are airplanes, which are driven almost automatically these days, where the pilot is only really required for landing and, again, for safety in unexpected situations.

Actually now pilots usually don't land manually unless for training (and so on commercial flights usually only in perfect weather conditions) or when there is some serious problem (like engine not working).

BTW, very big part of recent plane crashes was related to human errors in cases which could be handled by autopilot.

Maybe we should put autopilot failsafes for the cases when humans malfunction (see the Air France crash).

The Air France crash happened when the autopilot bailed out on facing a situation it couldn't handle. (And while you can design an autopilot to handle the specific case of the pitot tubes freezing up, there's no better course of action for the general case of "sensor inputs that make no sense according to the autopilot design"). If you automate more that's going to make pilots worse not better at handling the rare situations the autopilot can't handle.

The pitot tubes unfroze after a few seconds, so the autopilot was perfectly capable of working again, but the pilots didn't re-engage it and kept trying manually, causing the end result...

My one question is "Who the hell decided that averaging stick inputs is a good idea??

Good point. However, I don't think that transportation systems without a human at some point will be accepted by society in the next decade, unless they operate on separate traffic systems (e.g. extra streets, or strictly separated parts of the streets). This may be irrational, but that's another problem.

Yes, this isn't going to happen at once. At first there will be cars still needing some driver control (like planes with autopilot), but as most drivers aren't professional I think laziness will gradually win over fear as people will get used to not having to control car.

So basically what you are saying is you don't believe in the self-driving car? As far as I understand, Google already build a car that is completely self-driving without human intervention, so your point is moot.

You can't compare the car google is building with semi-automated transportation on rails or in highly regulated air space. It is using completely different technology.

Also humans are notoriously bad at supervising technology. I would much rather drive myself, then having to pay attention all the time and step on the break, if my car does something stupid.

> So basically what you are saying is you don't believe in the self-driving car

No, I think they are certainly possible and I'd love to see some.

> You can't compare the car google is building with semi-automated transportation on rails or in highly regulated air space. It is using completely different technology.

This discussion was not about technology but about impact. Comparison with other transportation systems which are much more automated right now gives a better impression of the future than unjustified claims about self-driving cars being totally incomparable to anything else.

I wrote a blog few weeks ago on social impact of self driving cars. Please check it out and suggest other significant changes that are not listed.

http://neurographs.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/social-impact-of...

Drunk-driving alone costs our country immeasurably in terms of human and economic cost. Eliminating the vast majority of infractions would be a real contribution to humanity.

Also, I approve of a future where ordinary people can travel without fear of fabricated botherment by the police. Driving a car has got to be the number one excuse for the USA's police to pull over and antagonize folks on the thinnest imaginable (or no) probable cause.

the scary part will be when they can remotely order a car off the road through remote control with no cause.

While I agree there will likely be remote disabling procedures for emergency/law enforcement reasons, I don't see where you get the "no cause" piece of your slippery slope. It seems it would be much easier to unjustly pull someone over with current human-operated cars; with automated cars, reasons such as "they were weaving" or other gray area justifications will no longer be available to LEOs.

I'm curious now: They need a reason to pull you over in the USA? In Germany it is simply "routine check", which is a perfectly legal reason here.

Yes, there has to be a reason. Of course, it's very easy for an officer to say "He was weaving in traffic", or claiming you were speeding when you were not, or simply lie about you using a turn signal.

I'll bet most people have a story like that. Probably from when they were younger, but not necessarily. And that's not even getting into "driving while black" and the likes.

Don't forget mortality rates for energy creation.

Maybe driving also lowers alcohol consumption?

Cadillac is introducing them very soon...2015 to be exact. http://www.inquisitr.com/227496/cadillac-to-release-self-dri... They cannot match Google's PR but I wonder how the tech matches up. Honda and Toyota are regularly featured in the press for their robots; autoparking and collision warning have been added to cars too

Just wait until we get to the PRINT act: specifically this act will make illegal the Printing of Restricted Intellectual Non-redistributable Technologies.

You think it's illegal to scan edit and print just money? Wait till they make it illegal to print firearm parts.

I already have all the AR-15 parts in STL format.

It's not far until the fucking morons in politics whom have no idea of how information works decide 3D printing is in support for terrorism.

How long then until they realize that only intelligence can be outlawed to thwart this imaginary foe.

Oh, wait, the war on education has been in full effect for decades for this very reason. What is the best weapon against education? Poverty.

Keep them poor, keep them stupid.

And he next level of that weapon? When they start acting up, kill th economy to make the educated poor!

What do you think the 2008 crash was about? "the people have caught on to our lies! Quick! Kill he economy, make them worry about putting food on the table - that will shut them up!!"

Impressive how quickly you escalated from talking sense (although I'm not sure why building a gun should be any more or less legal than buying a gun) to conspiracy theory there.

Building a gun requires a whole new set of hoops to jump through.

It is not legal to manufacture firearms unless you are licensed. The ATF will freak out and confiscate everything if they get wind of you building so much as a zip gun.

Also I assume that if the GP is planning on 3D printing an AR-15 once it's feasible (already illegal), he is planning on manufacturing a fully automatic version. That would be manufacturing a "machine gun" and would bring serious jail time.

That is a slanderous statement.

L send you an email about your slandering me claiming that I am stating such things.

Learc83:

I have no intention of breaking the law. For you to post such slander online is outrageous. Let's hope we do not meet face to face.

My family has been a responsible gun owning family for more than 150 years.

I am appalled and angered that you simply assume that I would seek the most illegal form of weapon should I simply be able to print it.

Shall I assume that you have a propensity for rape if I were to know you were not a virgin?

My point in my original post was that should politicians who are abstracted from the understanding of how information exists will always err on the side on insane restrictions not based in the reality of how that information is actually disseminated or accessed.

You cannot outlaw knowledge, or intelligence.

However, in your case, it appears you can aschew it.

>That is a slanderous statement.

It would be libelous not slanderous, if it was actually defamatory.

Also you'll notice I said if you plan on manufacturing a firearm illegally you'll likely manufacture an automatic version--I never said you would do so.

>Shall I assume that you have a propensity for rape if I were to know you were not a virgin?

Since not being a virgin is not illegal, those are not analogous.

A better analogy would be something like: I assume you have a propensity for rape, if you have previously committed sexual battery.

I am sorry, I took the literal definition of the following:

"* a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report: a slander against his good name*

You published and broadcast on HN that you assumed that I would be manufacturing illegal weapons based on a comment that I had an STL for a part of a gun.

You said that you DO assume that if I am going to 3D print a part, that I would be producing the fully automatic version of a weapon.

This post ignores the fact that the STL I refer to is only a singular part of a device.

Further, your analogy DOES NOT work. As printing a gun part is NOT illegal. So you are saying that having an STL is the same as having previously commited sexual battery???

IT DOES NOT.

My analogy works, yours is broken.

>It is not legal to manufacture firearms unless you are licensed.

This is false. It is legal for non-prohibited persons to manufacture non-NFA firearms without a license, provided you do not do so "for sale or distribution." Your state may impose additional restrictions.

(I believe it is also legal for non-licensed individuals to manufacture non-machinegun NFA items by filing a form 1 and paying the tax, but don't quote me on that.)

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/faq/firearms-technology.html#com...

How impressive how you really haven't been paying attention.

Are you that misinformed that you need me to cite my comment?

Or, do you, like most on HN consider themselves to be well informed and intelligent?

Then how about you do some research, look into the history of a large number of people and their careers:

Do you know how any of the following people came to be in their positions: (clue: you'd need to know what they were doing over the last 45 years)

GHW bush Cheyney Dov zakheim Rumsfeld Ashcroft Tom Ridge

If you know where these guys have come from and what they have been doing (more than just Wikipedia) you'd be a bit closet to understanding some of the things we are dealing with.

Rather than downvote, why don't you ask for information.

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