Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That said it's not guaranteed that the version we get will be without drawbacks, and imo we should be trying to shape a better version of the future by passing regulations now before unwanted behaviors calcify. Stuff like limiting how many empty miles cars are allowed to drive so that ppl don't just circle their cars around the block to avoid paying for parking, or regulating how long security updates need to be supported to keep insecure cars off the roads.
We regularly fuck over this class of people. The backlash is broader, and my opinion, driven by a combination of taxi economic interests (see: New York, where Hochul and Mamdani have significant taxi-lobby money interests) and genuine but misplaced care for drivers.
Sure. But this isn’t a realistic future given present infrastructure. The actual choice is between manual and self-driving cars.
Locking this future in for good because of "present infrastructure" would be short-sighted.
Are there actually self-driving car services that aren't EV-based? Just that helps with several of those criteria, and they're substantially less dangerous than human-driven vehicles.
Unfortunately for all the improvements in the tech, self-driving is only now roughly at the level that Tesla claimed to have already achieved a decade ago with their "Paint It Black" video, which makes it difficult to say if we ever get benefits significantly beyond "emergency stops for things you didn't personally see":
Smaller parking lots because the car can drop you off at the door and then put itself somewhere without enough room to open doors? Dunno. Situational awareness and fleet communication to safely allow perfect bumpers-in-contact slipstreaming at 120 MPH, keeping down energy costs while also reducing travel times and allowing narrower roads with fewer lanes? Perhaps not. Using WiFi or whatever to directly contact other vehicles on the road, eliminate the need for so much horn honking? Not yet, that's for sure.
And so on.
I'd like self-driving to fix all the problems the sci-fi vision says it could, but even with a million times the experience of a typical human driver, current machine learning clearly just isn't generalising the way I expected it to back in 2009 when I was wowed by the developments and took self-driving cars seriously.
If self-driving does fix as many negatives as possible (and again, I know this is presently an "if"), what remains? I assume one thing would be the commuter belts get even deeper as speeds go up because the long-term historical trend is commute time is constant regardless of speed, but that's the only thing I can think of?
Neither is self driving.
lol perhaps you should do more research then mate. You clearly don't understand the nature of humans and interests.
Electric cars that are much less or at all maintainable by yourself or 3rd parties resulting in easy lock in and higher prices. Heated subscription seats will only be the beginning.
A lot of internet connected sensors, cameras and GPS resulting in complete surveillance of any public space since by design its a moving panopticon with AI. Flock is a joke compared to this.
Remote control from bad and "good" actors that could do _anything_ to _anyone_ at _anytime_. Since all of them are running proprietary software where plausible deniability is by design.
Loss of independent transportation. Once self driving hits critical mass it will become mandated, only for your safety of course. Meaning anybody or any group of people currently not in power could be refused service for any or no reason. Mandated breathalyzer will look like a toy in comparison. Please upload your ID and scan your face to drive. You want to drive to this protest? I don't think so Dave how about I reroute you to the next education facility locks doors. Have you ever seen people use vehicles in a natural disaster, war or other public unrest emergency situation to save lifes? Well in the future you won't since self driving cars are nothing more than a hunk of metal without connection or remote permission.
this is like discussing what will happen when we have UBI or teleporters or mars habitation. It's so far in the future it's funny.
As mentioned elsewhere, there is no such thing as a self-driving car. Waymo just removed the ability for their cars to go on freeways recently. There's no Teslas for rent within 50 miles of my house.
My friend just got a 2026 tesla and he has to take over to stop it from using the wrong lanes on freeways, or going straight in a turn lane.
My wife's driver assist in the subaru tries to kill me every time i use it, me and everyone in the car with me. so i shut it off. maybe there's been an OTA update that fixed it, who knows. All i know is there's a massive class action just waiting against subaru, once their eyesore system kills enough people.
There is no self-driving car, such that, right now, i could order one, and it would show up at my house.
we are 40 years from a fully autonomous, self-driving and self navigating car. and that's being conservative. We'll probably get some intermediate "partial self driving" like we have now with addons like "pre-planned routes" like I-10 or whatever.
My friend drives in Los Angeles with his tesla. I live in Louisiana.
There's no self driving.
my friend may just be hoping he gets to see it, 40 years is a long time for him. me too, but i might see it.
It is a Native Ad. i don't have the clip where the CEO of NPR discusses "underwriting" via ad inserts that "go with the flow."
What bothers me is someone who is correct getting downvoted, merely because it's sarcastic.
Same thing anyone should. Get help.