Driverless Cars

cruizer101

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/2217-sebasitian-thrun-on-googles-driverless-car.html

Its a brief talk about the development of a driverless car and some footage of it driving around dealing with hazards such as pedestrians, car's pulling out etc.

People might find it of some interest, I don't mind driving too much but there are definitly times when I'd love to be able to this.

It really is only matter of time before this technology is deployed, not in next few years or anything. But I'd guess in a few generations they'll look back and think we were mad.

Mr Benevolent

That's amazing. I'm a big fan of the concept.

CSU

I imagine there will be mayhem when and if this technology starts to take a hold, people will get so frustrated at bots doing 59.99 km/h in the 60 zone and not to mention the stupid places and situations the bot's will find themselves in circumstances only human perception and senses could safely navigate.

In my opinion we'll find it very difficult to have both human and bot's together on the road at the same time because of the conflict it will cause - this could even raise the road-death rates.

cruizer101

Well of course they are not going to go above the speed limit, but that shouldn't be an issue as you shouldn't be going above it anyway. Ok I know that is a bit high horse, in places there are ridiculous speed limits which a lot of people would saftly break. But initially anyway they would be able to be overridden by driver.

Where I would see it being great is on motorway journeys, just sit back and do a bit of work or something while its driving you home.

The whole reacting to unusual circumstances is a big issue, they can only react to what they have been programmed to react to.

None the less I think they would seriously reduce road deaths. The main problem I see is one which is highlighted in article, which is that people would be much less forgiving of a death caused by a computer run car, than a human error.

_Nuno_

I work in robotics and I can tell you that it isn't the technological limitations that are holding this making it's way to commercially available vehicles.

The big issue is potential liabilities in case of a accident. Machines are not perfect and who will be responsible when an accident happens? As it is now it is the driver, but if the car drives itself then the company that sold the car will be responsible for any damages resulting from the vehicle operation. There are a lot of things that can go wrong.

CSU

I acknowledge the stats about driver error, what would be interesting to see is the % of those that were avoidable (under normal circumstances of the drivers physical state), if a bot was behind the wheel they'd have no chance.

There are way too many variables in what causes accidents, usually it's a combination of errors. In my honest opinion a bot will never be able to foresee the outcome of any given factor or variable in what causes an accident that a human could not better forsee (under normal circumstances of the drivers physical state).

@nuno

Human drivers are insured, so the logic would be to insure the software in the same way...false claims would be a thing of the past too ey?
I suppose the owner would have to be responsible for the software, you'd have to agree to the limitations of the software and the responsibility would be on the human driver to only use the software within it's intended limitations ie. if you were to use it to drive you home on back roads in a snow storm or the likes - then the driver would have to be responsible...

dr.fuzzenstein

My guess is that people will drive their cars themselves on backroads and sideroads, but on mainroads and motorways it will be computer controlled.
Maybe there will be external, auxiliary systems that help the onboard systems, also mainroads and motorways have a lot less variables than back and side roads.
One idea was to arrange cars into trains based on their destination, that way roads could be utilised much more than they are now.
In a hundred years time people will laugh at the idea of letting millions of people loose on the roads with control over their own cars in a giant, uncontrolled game of bumpercars.
It's going to go the way of eating meat and capitalism based on profit and nothing else.

eth0

Jaysus I'd hate if this thing became common. It wouldn't be long before the safety nuts would try to make it mandatory. I happen to like driving, and so do many other people but the safety crowd might be hard to hold off. If one was only allowed to drive a car on a track or something that wasn't a public road it would be rather boring.

No matter what way I look at it watching a movie or playing a game on a computer will never be as good as going for a tear down a windy road or belting down the autobahn at 160km/h which contrary to popular belief is actually quite safe

Also when the roads are crawling with driverless cars your own job won't be far behind from being automated so you can forget about using it for commuting.

To me driverless cars seem to be aimed at a mostly american problem where there is no public transport worth mentioning. Here even with the brutal public transport we have if I'd rather not drive I'd take the bus

Owen

Slippery road ... first driverless cars, next thing you know we'll all be using the 3 seashells.

Nissan doctor

Ah, the people who won't buy a car without auto wipers and auto lights etc will love this...those who find driving and operating simple functions a chore.

Perhaps public transport would be the first logical step for this stuff. Driverless LUAS type transport.

Where To

It will be interesting to see which will be in common usage first, pilotless passenger planes or driverless cars.

Personally I hope its the former, don't want to lose my job for a while yet

eth0

Nissan doctor wrote: »

Ah, the people who won't buy a car without auto wipers and auto lights etc will love this...those who find driving and operating simple functions a chore.

Perhaps public transport would be the first logical step for this stuff. Driverless LUAS type transport.

Are there really people who refuse to buy a car without these? Most people I know show little interest in this sort of thing and always thought they were little more than a sales pitch

Nissan doctor

eth0 wrote: »

Are there really people who refuse to buy a car without these? Most people I know show little interest in this sort of thing and always thought they were little more than a sales pitch

Oh yes there are. It come up once or twice before here.

mickdw

Nissan doctor wrote: »

Oh yes there are. It come up once or twice before here.

I really love all this stuff in the car. Auto wipers are fantastic. never have to bother with them being too fast or too low when its barely raining. Auto lights are great too, Auto dimming mirrors etc. All so useful. To say they are of no use would to me suggest that maybe you have never used them to the point of being used to them.
Im fussy about this type of stuff. Proper climate control that is smart enough not to blow cold air at you on a winter morning until the engine gets up to temp is also one of those things you dont even notice until you sit in something else.

eth0

mickdw wrote: »

I really love all this stuff in the car. Auto wipers are fantastic. never have to bother with them being too fast or too low when its barely raining. Auto lights are great too, Auto dimming mirrors etc. All so useful. To say they are of no use would to me suggest that maybe you have never used them to the point of being used to them.
Im fussy about this type of stuff. Proper climate control that is smart enough not to blow cold air at you on a winter morning until the engine gets up to temp is also one of those things you dont even notice until you sit in something else.

Never felt any great improvement in my life when i did use such things, the novelty of cruise control wore off after the first week or so and stopped using it. Don't even like things like climate control usually just need a quick blast of hot air and don't want the blower going after that. Its strange I'm a complete nerd, mad about eletronics and all that but I want as little as possible of this shoite in my car

mickdw

eth0 wrote: »

mickdw wrote: »

I really love all this stuff in the car. Auto wipers are fantastic. never have to bother with them being too fast or too low when its barely raining. Auto lights are great too, Auto dimming mirrors etc. All so useful. To say they are of no use would to me suggest that maybe you have never used them to the point of being used to them.
Im fussy about this type of stuff. Proper climate control that is smart enough not to blow cold air at you on a winter morning until the engine gets up to temp is also one of those things you dont even notice until you sit in something else.

Never felt any great improvement in my life when i did use such things, the novelty of cruise control wore off after the first week or so and stopped using it. Don't even like things like climate control usually just need a quick blast of hot air and don't want the blower going after that. Its strange I'm a complete nerd, mad about eletronics and all that but I want as little as possible of this shoite in my car

/
Cruise is not great although radar cruise on a motorway is quite good. I only had a quick sample of the radar cruise as its not in my car but it really works.

meoklmrk91

I think it will be a sad day for drivers when stuff like this becomes commen place. While the functionality is cool I will admit, and could be useful in situations where someone is tired etc. It will take the true joy and fun out of cars. I happen to love driving, I love cars, but I know that once it is proven that these are safer drivers than people themselves Gay Byrne will ride in in his self driving car and tell us what to do yet again.

R.O.R

It's getting closer than people think.

I've driven a car, on the motorway, that will keep itself between the lines, and keep itself a set distance from the car in front - even down to a complete halt.

What more is there to do on a Motorway except enter and exit? Overtake if someone is in front and driving slower, but if all cars were equipped with similar systems then those instaces become fewer.

At the moment, this type of technology is a pretty expensive option, but what starts as expensive options tend to become standard kit within a few years.

Nissan doctor

mickdw wrote: »

I really love all this stuff in the car. Auto wipers are fantastic. never have to bother with them being too fast or too low when its barely raining. Auto lights are great too, Auto dimming mirrors etc. All so useful. To say they are of no use would to me suggest that maybe you have never used them to the point of being used to them.
Im fussy about this type of stuff. Proper climate control that is smart enough not to blow cold air at you on a winter morning until the engine gets up to temp is also one of those things you dont even notice until you sit in something else.

My last car had auto lights, wipers, kerb parking mirrors(when you put it in reverse the mirrors look down so you can see the kerb) auto climate control, front and rear parking camera's and more toys...

After playing with and trying everything, all except the camera's were switched off.