I-Like-To-Bike

It would also be a "good argument" for any would-be robber who gets on board when and where it stops to pick up passengers. Or will your imaginary self driving buses on tracks pick up and discharge its passengers without stopping?

A more realistic scheme than the doozy proposed on this thread would be transporting passengers on self driving flying pigs powered by pixie dust.

Rollfast

Even Pink Floyd's didn't work well when the tether lines broke.

tandempower

If people wanted to rob buses, they could do it now with a driver on board by just getting on at a stop and committing the robbery. There are cameras and ways to notify the police, just as there would be on self-driving buses.

Convenient stores are far more popular for robbery because they have a cash drawer and valuable products to grab. I've never heard of a bus robbery, though train robberies are a popular historical theme.

jon c. 

Which is really more a snark laden screed that any sort of prediction. "Won't live up to the press" is one of those bon mots that can always be declared to be correct.

I predict a autonomous car will be used will be used on a public road in 2019.

Do you think this will happen?

wolfchild

Can we all agree that self-driving cars won't be sold for private ownership and become mainstream for at least few hundred years more.

Maelochs

This threqad has definitley earned its place in the forum where sense is not welcome. Now the argument against self-driving cars is train robbers?

This thread started about where it will end up---there will be no major progress in self-driving cars this year, or likely for the next few. There will be more testing, more small improvements ... and a klot of the tech which will be needed will continue to be developed at places like CREOL, The College of Optics & Photonics at the University of Central Florida, where the next generation of Lidar is being built. of course, it is a long way from production and even farther from cost effectiveness ... but like all other useful tech, it will eventually be commonplace and deemed unremarkable.

Nobody much believed flight would be possible at all 150 years ago---now we hop in jets and fly around the world and our only concern is leg room. 200 years ago it was a big deal to have a telegraph wire connecting cities a few hundred miles apart---now people in America can face-time Australia or Africa or China---in fact, almost Every person in America has ten or fifty times as much computing power in his or her phone as NASA used to reach the moon, and better comms. 150 years ago it was a big deal to watch flash cards in a kinescope---now almost everyone can stream movies anywhere in the world.

I can recall when phone modems were a huge deal, and when they connected computers which spit out perforated paper ribbons which would be carefully folded and stored---that was the "memory disc." Simple programs took all night or two days to run---and the data was transmitted at about the same speed an average typist could achieve. Now I have 100 hours of music on my phone and I can still connect in milliseconds to anywhere in the world--I can even stream video from the freaking International Space Station---the existence of which was a ridiculous science fiction trope fifty years ago.

Seventy years ago a heart transplant was unheard of. In 2001 a surgeon in in New York City removed the gall bladder of a lady in France via an internet-linked surgical robot. So yeah ... i am pretty certain we can work out AVs. it won't happen tomorrow, but the idea that is is impossible is ridiculous.

But hey, sure ... stock up on buggy whips. These fads come and go.

I-Like-To-Bike

"A autonomous car"? "A public road"?
Sounds like a claim so vague as to be meaningless.

If you mean a motor car will be fielded that can be operated without human oversight that can safely transport passengers (at least as safely as is done by human operated cars) capable of reliably operating under typical road, traffic, and weather found on public roads in the U.S.and can transport passengers without human control to the same destinations that cars are presently used for?

Not a chance!

If you mean a promoter's public relations section might release data on a successful test of A million dollar plus prototype that operated without human control/supervision for a relatively limited time on a specifically selected (by the testing operator) route under carefully selected (by the testing operator) weather and traffic conditions, - possibly in 2019.

jon c. 

That's what I thought. Yes or no would have sufficed, but you wouldn't want to go out on a limb.

Rowan

Someone posting this thread seems to be working for one of these self-driving car manufacturing companies.

Maybe this big plan for self-driving cars is the reason why some big-name person wants a wall built all along the US southern border... so the car computer pirates can't make off with the cars so easily.

Maybe the car promoters have to pay for it, because the politics won't.

And check out how busy the pirates have been lately on non-car-related stuff.

Awesome subject and serious question must hover around those who support the concept. Next they will advocate self-flying passenger planes. Oh ,but wait... England's second busiest airport was closed down for all flights because of illegal drones before Christmas as some fools played their stupid game. Not BF members, were they?

Maelochs

As has been noted in other threads on this topic, most commercial planes don't really need pilots ... and the pilots don;'t do much except for takeoff and landing, which the computers could do just as well.

Not so sure about the connection between The Wall and the AV car business .... not so sure the Wall folks can think five or ten years ahead. But as to whether self-driving cars can be made to operate more safely than human-driven cars? No one knows. but we know the humans are pretty lame at driving, and the technologists are pretty good at their game.

We could table the topic for ten years and then see what's up.

wolfchild

There is no pedestrian traffic, no cyclists or any other traffic 20 000 feet up in the air. Sure, a plane can go on auto pilot and not have to worry about hitting anything. Things are very different down here on earth.

wolfchild

I just don't see an off-topic thread on LCF forum being active for 10 years and lasting that long without getting locked...There was a 5 year prediction thread here a while ago and it only lasted for 2 years before getting locked and none of the predictions have come to pass.

I-Like-To-Bike

Correction:
As of today there aren't any companies manufacturing self driving cars.

There are companies testing various components that so far have allowed test cars/vans to perform some of the functions of an autonomous self driving car when operated under limited/restricted weather and traffic condition with human backup and monitoring.

The big question for real vehicle manufacturing concerns, should be - to whom will they sell enough vehicles to make it a worthwhile enterprise? Uber, Lyft, and other so-called "ride share" taxi/car rental companies? Those taxi services now are burning through billions of dollars every year without owning, operating, or maintaining a fleet of vehicles.

Tesla has been unable to manufacture or sell anything close to an autonomous self driving car despite their chief promoter and his fan bois' inflated claims, nor has it been able to deliver on its promises to profitably manufacture a human driven car at any price, let alone at a price the general public is willing to pay.

Google seems to be a special case as it doesn't manufacture anything, but rather is a software company that makes its real money gathering and selling data on as many of its customers as possible.

Google's long term plan in the vehicle business probably is to sell/install enough of their proprietary data gathering software in as many vehicles as possible for the same purpose as Google software in phones and computers - to gather personal information data about the users of its software and sell it to other companies and concerns.

tyrion

Self driving cars started being used on public roads in 2018.

I-Like-To-Bike

On this list, the definition of "self driving cars" is like that of the term "living car free." Expand the definition to fit the preferred agenda. Thus "car-lite" is included for the would-be car free types, and now apparently have "self driving car-lite" for those who want to believe the self driving car has arrived.

wolfchild

They were being tested and experimented with...Not used for personal transportation, or any other commercial use.

tyrion

Waymo began a very limited taxi service last month.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-w...-idUSKBN1O41M2

jon c. 

I believe those who seem to oppose this technology hang their argument on this:

A human driver will be behind the wheel, but only to intervene in case of emergency.

As long as that driver exists, the car is not fully autonomous. I believe such cars will be tested without the driver sometime this year. The detractors of the tech can't bring themselves to say this won't happen because they would likely be wrong. So the spin off into tangents like being attacked by highwaymen.

tyrion

Agree.

I-Like-To-Bike

VERY limited as to weather, location, route and government or unbiased evaluation; and with human oversight on board.

tyrion

Correct.

Walter S

Is that your personal guarantee that this driverless bus operating on public roads won't kill an innocent driver because of defects or limitations in the technology? We've seen not only driverless technology but simple driver assist such as the tesla "enhanced auto-pilot" smack into the side of buildings and other stationary objects and kill people. Will you be the bicycle rider that shares the road with the bus?

I-Like-To-Bike

As is your way, you don't see how any of your "ideas" could be a bad idea, in conjunction with an inability to discern that nobody else takes seriously the irrational and unrealistic (but entertaining) economic, social, and transportation schemes that emanate from your critical thinking sessions and are posted on BF.

I-Like-To-Bike

Probably the only bicycle rider as well as the only person since this proposed driverless bus on a fixed track scheme will only roll in its proponent's dreams.

Maelochs

As far as it goes ... I would ride on the road with a driverless car ... a driverless car couldn't possibly do anything more stupid than I have seen drivers do. To a cyclist, who or what is driving is irrelevant. The cyclist has to realize what a car can and cannot do (rates of acceleration) and position him/herself accordingly.

As for driverless cars not killing anyone ... as far as I can tell, AVs tend to be over-cautious, not excessively reckless. So, human driver error--mostly drivers of other cars--- seems to have been and to be the most likely cause of AV collisions.

As many have noted .. . AVs are not ready for prime time. They are barely ready for the very limited test driving they have been doing. But I don't see anyone here claiming they are ready for general use. This is a nascent technology. Many of the arguments here are like complaining because a baby just learning to crawl is not winning Olympic sprints.

It is funny ... the people who oppose AVs seem to think their position is more rational ...but we arer all arguing about imagination. The tech is new. The argument that something in its earliest stages of development is not yet a finished product is absurd.

Predictions as to whether it will ever work, or will ever be profitable, or when .... all of that is imaginary. None of us are "Right." We have no idea what other technologies are being developed which might suddenly give AVs a boost ... or supplant any need for them. I am sure Alexander Graham Bell didn't think everyone would be having video-conferences with people around the world on their phones. No way he could have predicted wireless tech, computer tech, any of that. So everyone making predictions here, either pro or con, ... we are all just imagining.

However ... looking at t the examples offered up by history--Alexander Graham Bell, for instance?---it is easy to see that numerous technologies could reach a development point at some point to send a technology light-years ahead of what it was in its infancy.

I don't see AVs really Working until every one is in constant, real-time communication with every other---something I don't think is possible right now, at least not with available and affordable commercial equipment. I Imagine that such technology Will exist ... based on the huge technological leaps we have seen in the past. Whether, when that tech is online, there is still a need or desire for AVs ... I cannot predict.

People in the year 1805 were astounded by steam boats. Pretty sure cars and even more so airplanes were not widely imagined. By 1965 space flight was a widely accepted occurrence. In 1875, there were no phones. By 1975, rich people could have satellite phones---something impossible without space flight.

Nowadays, we all have computers in our pockets---as well as video cameras, data recorders, music boxes, still cameras, and electronic gaming devices, and we are linked all around the world. That stuff wasn't even science fiction 200 years ago. So, when people tell me that there are insurmountable issues with AVs ... i think those people are either unimaginative, ill-informed about human history, or heavily biased. But those are just my opinions.

None of us will know if AVs can work in the real world until the do or do not. None of us can know if they will be commercially feasible until they are or are not. Basically we are just arguing which science fiction story is real ... when none of them are.

But ... this is a large part of what humans do. Who needs situation comedies? Just watch the news.