Everything Google does feeds back, somehow, to data mining.
How does self-driving cars fit in to Google's plans?
ETA: Downvoted for asking a serious question? WTH?
How does self-driving cars fit in to Google's plans?
ETA: Downvoted for asking a serious question? WTH?
You summon a self-driving taxi to take you to Bob's Bistro--known throughout the city for its steaks, and your call is serviced by a car using Google self-driving software. Google knows who you are and knows where you are going.
The car's route planner determines that there is a route that is within 10% of optimal that takes the car past Sam's Steakhouse, and Sam is currently paying for a Google ad campaign targeted at self-driving passengers. The car takes you past Sam's where Sam has a hard-to-miss sign touting reviews that say his steaks are better than Bob's.
Google is clever so the car might even time this so that you'll hit a red light in front of Sam's to give you a better chance of seeing Sam's sign. If the sign is electronic the message you see comparing Sam's to Bob's might even be specifically targeted at you. A moment later when the next cab goes by, carrying a passenger to Carl's Crab Shack, that sign might have a message touting Sam's amazing surf'n'turf compared to Carl's.
Right now, you go to Google when you want to drive more traffic to your website. With self-driving vehicles, you'll go to Google when you want to drive more traffic to your brick and mortar site.
Generally, I'd expect that an automated taxi would operate under rules similar to current taxis - the obligation would be to take the customer to the destination via the most direct route specified, unless otherwise directed.
Taking someone on another route might constitute kidnapping - you're essentially transporting them against their will to somewhere they did not ask to go.
Further, wrt the optimal/most direct route thing:
* the algorithm could be tweaked to "adpresence" en-route fairly easily
* "most direct route" is an ambiguous term. There could be two routes that involve almost same distance in miles, but the slightly longer one is likely to take less time. Which constitutes most direct? It turns into an optimization problem, possibly with no obviously optimal point (particularly when you account for fuzziness needed to deal with unexpected traffic patterns, accidents, etc).
* Finally, the ad-laden route could be a free ride, whereas the "direct" route could be paid. This may or may not get around regulations, but as long as the time delta was not significantly bad, I would choose the ad route.
If you get in a cab and say "take me to $x" it is the cab driver's responsibility to take the best route. However, since metering is distance AND time based, there is a lot of wiggle room in what best route means. It is always an optimisation problem, and relies on imperfect data of the future conditions of the route. Further, in most american cities, there are many routes that are no more or less direct, as a result of the grid system. Therefore the car taking you on the route that goes past paid displays is not kidnapping. It is choosing 1 of n equivalent routes - the one most profitable for the operator, while still meeting the criteria of the user.
Further, even with advanced traffic and condition understanding available to a robotic car, the ability to choose optimal path will probably improve significantly, even when the small fudge factor to go past advertising is accounted for. So what if it is 30s less optimal on your ride to go past the advertised place, when the human cabbie would have chosen a route adding 5 minutes?
Obviously this can vary by municipality, but in most cities drivers are required to take the "most direct" route, rather than the "best" route, if for no other reason than the latter would be so subjective as to be useless for enforcement purposes.
So if you're in a New York taxi (for example), the driver in theory isn't allowed to take you off the most direct route without your permission, even if another path would be faster.
I'm at (1,1) and I want to get to (4,4). Assuming a restrictive interpretation of most direct[1] and no one-way streets factored in[2], there are still two equally direct and valid paths:
(1,1) -> (1,4) -> (4,4)
and
(1,1) -> (4,1) -> (4,4)
Which is most direct? If the cab driver chooses to go with the later because his buddy pays him to go past the billboard at (3,1), what's to stop him? What's wrong with that?
[1] If most direct means "shortest path", then there are many more equivalent routes.
[2] One way streets also offer a nice choice of where to do turns around a block under favorable circumstances. Similarly road construction offers extra choices by detour.
Besides, it would not necessarily even have to redirect you past a different location, it could just stream an advert to the speakers in the car.
It could also be possible that some routes would be subsidized, like you could enter the location of one restaurant and a rival restaurant could offer to cover your fare if you went to them instead.
Another aspect is that you would need an easy way to split the fare amongst multiple passengers, I almost never take a taxi if I am traveling alone.
I'm sure any driverless cab would have the ability to ask to get out, but technically one might argue you're kidnapping someone as soon as you take them off the route they requested for any reason, if if there's an "opt-out"... at the level of an individual cab ride and human driver it's moot, but if you're operating a fleet of thousands of cabs, doing that over millions of rides, it could easily turn into a class-action suit.
Anyone play with the numbers? average web use vs. average AdWords profit vs. typical commute?
- Active internal displays that push ads based on detailed mapping information. - Delivering you to a particular location after you look it up on Google. What's the Price per Delivery (PPD) on AdWords?
Bear in mind that there's a completely alternative model for car ownership; with fully automated vehicles, there's no absolute requirement for people to 'buy' a car - there could be shared metropolitan resources of cars, which would arrive and pick you up 'on demand' (much like a shared taxi service, subsided by subscription)
Also, given that Google would probably know the locations of all the cars at any point in time, they could also get very, very detailed traffic flow information. This they could use to further optimize traffic - i.e. load-balancing traffic through different routes - but also this could potentially be sold to other transit agencies, or even tied to demographic data to suggest where stores should open new premises.
Probably some more ideas/data sources and uses in here that I haven't considered too :)
I'm going to take an optimistic tack and say they're doing this for the PR benefits of being seen as creating new technology that gives people tools they never thought they could have, somewhat like Microsoft has done with the Kinect.
On the other hand cars are a great way of signaling things (like wealth, trendiness etc) and I think people like the idea of having their car.
To the contrary, it makes for the biggest crowdsourcing project ever.
It must be because they have some dire plan to find out where I get my tacos!
/s