Couple nights back I had dinner with Tech Support II, who was in town for some geek convention or other, and in the course of our (long) evening together, I asked him what car he was currently driving, and was not really surprised when he said “Tesla SUV”.
Of course he would drive a Tesla (because he’s a techie), and of course an SUV (because he has a family).
But along the way something really interesting came up. He’d recently driven the Tesla (with the family) from Florida to Houston (because he’s also a space geek, duh). The interesting part is that by his estimation, he didn’t drive about 90-95% of the 1,600-mile drive at all; he simply left it to the Tesla’s auto-drive program.
When I asked why, he said simply, “Because the Tesla is a better driver than I am.”
The thing about the Tesla self-drive function is that every trip made by every Tesla is recorded and uploaded to their system at headquarters (or wherever they store it). What that means is that Tesla can not only combine all that data into a global “behavioral” database, but they can also create subsets of that to, say, a “Florida-Houston” drive, with all the characteristics of said trip — choke points, places where accidents frequently occur, speed data and so on — all combined to make the next Florida-Houston drive trip all the safer for any Tesla driver because those characteristics are then folded into the Tesla self-drive computer in the car.
All very interesting, especially for an old retired data geek like myself.
But what TS said next is what stopped me in my tracks. When I asked him why he’d elected for the self-drive, he admitted quite simply, “Because the Tesla is a better driver than I am.”
He’s not a bad driver, just so you know; in fact, he’s an excellent driver.
I myself have admitted on these very pages that at age 70, I’m no longer as good a driver as I once was when I was, say, 30 or even when I was 50.
And it makes me think: would I not be better off by delegating the driving to someone (or something) else?
Of course, this isn’t limited to owning a Tesla (because #Duracell car), and in any event in my case this is purely a hypothetical “If I won the lottery dream” because I could afford neither a driver nor a Tesla.
Nevertheless, it’s a different and quite disturbing thought for me, because it goes against a whole bunch of personal philosophies, viz. distrust of electric cars, not being in control of my driving, losing my independence of action, being spied on as I drive — to name but some.
And make no mistake: this would not be an action born of conveeenience, but of safety concerns.
As I said, it’s an interesting thought, even if nothing ever comes of it.
nope still not getting an electric golf cart.
With respect…..I can more easily charge a battery at home with a PV cell ti drive 100 miles than I can brew ethonal or biodiesel for the same. Am I suggesting you give up your ICE powered driver? No way in hell. I’m just saying that MAYBE a battery powered mover makes sense on a “close to home” level. ESPECIALLY if it isn’t hooked into the interwebs. A Golf Cart sounds great if yo just need to go a few miles to the grocery store…as long as it doesn’t let some asshole in an office somewhere take control of the driving, OR track where it’s gone.
1. It’s not about the electric. You can build a ICE car with self-driving as well.
2. They can pry my ICE cars out of my cold, dead hands, but under certain circumstances a “Duracell” car IS a better choice as a second or third car. Specifically if you’re commuting less than 100 miles a day (round trip) alone. A 2 seater electric would be more efficient, and less expensive to maintain than a traditional ICE car over the same distance.
Uh, I don’t think self driving is a good thing
I can see it now
Lie witless news at 11 reporting on a govt dissident who was highly vocal in criticizing the govt was in their self driven electric vehicle when the vehicle took a right turn off of a cliff when it was supposed to take a left turn. What a tragic accident.
No thanks fuck that shit.
Kim,
At 55 I’m not yet really old, but I’m also not young anymore. And I drove professionally on at leat four different continents.
I don’t mind the idea of an electric vehicle, asl long as it’s simply replacing the ower source. Meaning if it’s a samller :fuel tank” ro local/regional driving? Fine. What I DON’T want is an internet connected buys-body interfering with my ride, or tracking it.
THAT said…I’ve been playing around with AI installed on a local (mine) computer. Within their limitations, they don’t seem to be evil at all. Mind you, I’m a full fledged member of the “Orthodox Church of Heinlein”, and thus Mycroft Holmes (of Moon), and Minerva and Athena (from Time Enough) are my first thoughts of an AI….so, yes. Biased. But to me, it’s not that “electric”, or better put “battery” powered cars are bad (as long as the performance envelope meets your needs)….it’s how much can an outside enity screw with your driving? If the AI driving your car is inboard any you know “it”? Fine. If you trust it (your call)…lovely. Like having a paid driver…a chauffer from the inter-war period. But if online……screw that. That’s big brother taking the wheel. Even if he’s talking sweetly today, no knowing how he will be next week. Or who he’ll tell about where you wnet and what you did. In the end, it’s not about the tech, it’s about who controls it.
> it’s how much can an outside enity screw with your driving
https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/
10 years ago.
And yes, this needs to be addressed at the *highest* levels. Literally a federal law prohibiting the ability to “remotely” seize control of a car.
But it won’t be because we live in an era of tyranny.
“….even if nothing ever comes of it.”
From your mouth to God’s ear. Because if anything ever does come, it will be from a progressive, and you can like it or lump it.
.
I would predict that yes, 99% of the time the auto self-drive could be safer. But that 1% of the time it screws up? It would be an EPIC screw up. Not some minor fender bender, or running off the road into a ditch, but full on 50 car pile up with multiple casualties. One glitch and you’ll have an entire stream of cars running 70 mph into a growing pile of death because by the time people sleeping in the driver’s seat realize there’s a problem, they’re already dead.
The weasel out they’ll use is that the driver should always be awake, monitoring, and ready to take over control instantly if he spots any problems. The reality is that the driver will be doing any number of other things once he no longer needs to actually drive.
And if you read any of the darker sci-fi, there’s plenty of examples of people using the self-driving aspect to create more chaos. One more system to disrupt that can lead to massive death.
> I would predict that yes, 99% of the time the auto self-drive could be safer. But that 1% of the time it screws up?
Under the current system each car is autonomously driven, not centrally controlled. This means that each car will–much faster than a human–react to what is happening AND what every car around it is doing.
And yes, over time, this does mean that eventually some weird thing will happen and we will get a pileup.
But it will happen a *lot* less often than with human drivers.
First, yes today’s self-driving cars are autonomously controlled, simply because they are in the minority in traffic. Once they become the majority it will be obvious that linking them together with sky-net makes it more efficient. That day is coming.
Second, the fact that wrecks happen a *lot* less often is the air travel logic. Yes, when a 747 crashes it kills hundreds, but it doesn’t happen that often. Unless, of course, you have dirt on the Clintons. 300 car pile-up outside of Houston, Texas? Well, they did vote red last election, so what do you suspect happened? Unforeseen computer glitch my ass.
Not that I am interested in a Tesla anyway, but that all my driving data is uploaded is one more reason not to. I do not buy cars that do that nor use those insurance apps.
F’em.
Ditto.
I am mid-70s now and retired eight years. Having no job now to report to and living comfortably in a quiet neighborhood and on a very limited income, I have very little reason to do much driving anymore. So, when my niece was in need of transportation for her three grandbabies, I offered her the use of my Toyota to transport the Littles and to get back and forth to her new job.
Pretty decent of me, right? What I didn’t have the heart to tell anyone is that getting out on the roads around here scares the cr*p out of me these days. I am not the same road warrior I was back when I was working as a bank courier, and there are a whole lot more unrestrained crazies out there than there used to be. But the saddest part is that now, even in a nimble, low-powered car like mine, my abilities as a safe driver just aren’t good enough. My mind just isn’t as sharp as it used to be. My body is just too stove-up with arthritis to keep moving/keep looking to see where the danger might be and how to avoid it.
So yeah, I’m a great guy for helping the young-uns out. But I breathe a sigh of relief every time I don’t have to take my life in my hands on the Arizona roads.
Driving in a city is a chore, it’s not fun. I did the math back in I think it was 2011 or 2012, and between 1990 and 2010 the number of “lane miles”–the amount of road–had gone up by 10 percent. And the number of miles driven had doubled. So we had twice as many cars on only slightly more road.
Roads *are* more congested than they used to be and traffic IS worse.
> would I not be better off by delegating the driving to someone (or something) else?
The important question is *what do you mean by better off*.
One thing we know about the human condition is basically “use it or lose it”. Skills decay if you don’t practice them.
But also we decay. Vision gets worse, reactions get worse etc.
The other side of the coin is that we do optimize for what we do.
If you spend too much time in short attention span environments (cellphones, social media, youtube etc.) we wind up unable to focus on long things.
In many ways we would all be better off with self driving cars that (and all of these are important):
1. Reported back *anonymized* data on the drive.
2. Had both visual band and radar/lidar sensors.
3. Were impossible to control remotely (note this is a problem for lots of cars today. Auto engineers don’t do security well).
4. Still had the ability for a drive to take over.
This would be particularly useful for those in the diminishing capacity portion of their lives (though note that physical and mental activity can reduce the velocity of the diminishing, which is sort of contradictory).
“Rush hour” would be a LOT better with mesh-networked vehicles feeding short-term route information to each other (e.g. I’m going to be switching lanes in 1 mile to exit. I’m exiting).
So yeah, in a lot of ways we’d all be better off if more people had good self driving cars.
[1] Older Telsas had radar and/or lidar so that they could accurately determine distances of things they couldn’t “see”. These were expensive and to my understanding removed.
There’s clear advantages. I just don’t, at any level, trust our “betters” to keep their hands off our merchandise. As stated below, I hate driving, I do it a lot, an autonomous vehicle would give me several hours of time to read, or sleep.
But like John Cowperthwaite noted, when you let entities gather information, they are going to use that information, so now driving to an unauthorized church, for example, can get me on a shit-list somewhere.
Sooner or later too, its going to be introduced on a tiered approach. You have to buy a mileage pak of say 50 miles per week. If you need to drive 51 miles you need to buy the 150 mile a week pak, at 5x the cost.
Which is already being done in computing with the asinine move to the Cloud. You used to buy equipment, use it however you want, as long as it worked. Now you have to pay for a “subscription” that is tiered, limited, tightly controlled, and any additional capabilites are “extra” meaning $$$$$. I see autonomous vehicles following the same stupid path.
The real problem, in both the above examples is that the consumer base did not show up with torches, pitchforks, hot tar, & feathers to put a stop to it, because…..we want to be sheep. We say otherwise but we behave as if we belong in a pen, with a dog & shepherd.
I hate driving, especially with my wife in the car, who refuses to drive but insists on telling me how to.
I would love a self-driver, but the caveats anymore are too much to overcome. I don’t trust fuckwads like Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook, et. al. and I do not trust ANY level of any .gov Fed/State/Local period.
So if the self driver was completely standalone, sign me up. As part of Skynet, go fuck yourself. You can also spare me the comment that, “they’re already doing it” as if that’s supposed to make me more accommodating to it.
Agree absolutely.
With any luck at all, this mess will be settled by product liability.
A few more of these glorified golf carts and a massive multi-car ( both ‘self drivers’ as well as ‘you’re on you own’ types ) could literally destroy the market or damage it enough to make it pointless.
I do not wish misfortune on ANYONE for any reason but but ‘driving’ in and of itself is too complicated ( far too many variables and scenarios to program for ‘just in case ‘ ) to simply turn over the control of your vehicle to a machine.
You really want to be barreling down the road at 80, lightly dozing with your family
in the back seat knowing that Windows is in charge ?? Yeah, me neither.