UDel

Yes it can. All it is going to take is just a couple more accidents or 1 or 2 more fatalities of a autonomous system before the public and lawmakers demand they are taken off the road. Loss of human life is not just a small price to pay for a new technology. I would say the reason you don't hear too much of autonomous driving anymore is because of the deaths and accidents that received a lot of media attention/lawsuits and car makers are finding out this technology still has way too many flaws and issues, even with the most expensive/advanced iterations of it and trying to reduce costs for something that could gain a wider audience is probably not working out either.

There is simply no real demand for autonomous technology from consumers, certainly not if it greatly increases the price of a car or has a lot of bugs, there are too many variables for a road vehicle that the technology just won't be able to deal with like snow, heavy rain, debris in road like leaves, poorly marked/paved roads, rough country/dirt roads, animals, crowded cities, etc. Only way to really make it work is to place sensors everywhere, for every single vehicle/car to have it, redesign/make perfect roads everywhere, etc which would be way too expensive and difficult, there is simply no demand or need for it. More aggressive accident avoidance systems and smarter cruise control systems that allow more hands off is probably the most you are going to see in the near future, I just don't see fully autonomous being implemented in the avg consumer vehicle happening for a very very long time if ever aside from a very few cases of maybe allowing handicapped people to be able to ride in their vehicle and some other cases with very small, light, mostly harmless delivery vehicles.

swajames

Level 5 autonomy will absolutely be with us and it will be with us sooner than we think and better than we could reasonably expect.

No self-respecting futurist and no-one with a genuine understanding and passion for technology would think otherwise, for to think otherwise disregards the incredible pace of change in computing power and just as importantly the ability of developers to harness that computing power.

We will see a level 5 car within the next few years.

As for liability, you also have to remember that it wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things that someone was required to walk in front of a car carrying a flag to warn others of danger.

The pace of change rendered that requirement obsolete, and the pace of change will render the concept of manufacturer liability obsolete.

riredale

Wait, so an autonomous car kills somebody and no one is sued for millions? Not in my lifetime. Could be wrong, but I don't think so.

mmarshall

......and certainly not in the litigious-happy U.S., with its chase-the-ambulance lawyers.

swajames

There are some reasonably obvious ways to address this. A state and/or federal statute broadly providing that a customer who chooses to have their car drive for you would be deemed to be the driver and deemed to be responsible for the actions of the car could be held potentially liable in the same way that a driver of a non-automated car might potentially be held liable would address that. Driving isn't a right, it's a privilege and that privilege can be regulated and made subject to whatever conditions the public will tolerate. You also can't underestimate the impact of changing perceptions around things like tort reform. There's a growing acceptance that liability risks potentially stifle innovation, but a balance can be struck between encouraging innovation on the one hand while preserving some accountability on the other. I'm not saying that no one should be liable if something negligent were to happen, but it's a mistake to assume that the liability should automatically be on the manufacturer (which may stifle innovation) rather than on the driver (which encourages proper and sufficient insurance coverage)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

never happen, right? decades away they said, if ever. wrong.

After months of testing and millions of miles developing self-driving vehicle technology, Waymo (aka Google) has officially launched the country’s first commercial autonomous ride-share service.

The company’s Waymo One program will give customers rides in self-driving vehicles 24 hours a day. Initially, the service will be limited to cities surrounding Phoenix, including Tempe, Mesa and Chandler.

While there may be many potential customers who want to ride in an autonomous vehicle, the Waymo One service will initially be offered to a limited number of people. Those customers will include hundreds of people in the Phoenix area who were test users of the Waymo self-driving vehicle fleet that has been in development since April 2017.

“Self-driving technology is new to many, so we’re proceeding carefully with the comfort and convenience of our riders in mind,” said Waymo CEO John Krafcik. One example of Waymo taking a cautious approach rolling out its ride-share service is the company’s use of safety drivers to supervise the rides, at least initially. In addition, the company’s app and consoles in the Waymo One vehicles will allow riders to instantly connect with support agents who can assist riders with questions.

Alphabet’s Waymo One marks the start of the race by automakers, tech companies and other firms to launch autonomous ride-share services. General Motors subsidiary Cruise plans to launch a similar service using self-driving vehicles next year.

What’s driving the competition? The pursuit of greater profits. Studies of have shown the biggest cost for ride-share operations is the expense of paying a driver. General Motors estimates it costs ride -share companies more than $3 per mile in San Francisco. However, GM believes that cost could drop to roughly $1 per mile by 2025 with driverless vehicles in ride-share fleets.

Waymo has said it expects the cost to consumers for using Waymo One to be competitive with Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/waym...e-service.html

mmarshall

I dont think anyone here (including me) ever said that it would never happen. Getting it in operation, though, and getting it RIGHT, are often two different issues. The problems associated with something like this are going to turn out (and are turning out) to be a lot harder than a lot of people are thinking.

plex

iTrader: (11)

Didn't you read the previous posts by the experts they said it won't happen for 200 years

Och

iTrader: (3)

Slow weekend, nasty weather in NE, so why not resurrect this thread. Seems that many players are abandoning the self driving ship. Tesla just got rid of radars making their primitive self driving tech even more primitive, Lyft abandoned it's self driving tech (sold it to Toyota) after claiming level 5 autonomy by 2021, Waymo CEO stepped down, and Waymo valuation is down by 85% from 2017. Obviously the whole self driving nonsense was always just a meme to cheat investors.


https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/26/2...on-amount-deal

https://www.theverge.com/22423489/au...tion-lyft-uber

Great interview with Missy Cummings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missy_Cummings

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/self-driving-cars-might-never-drive-themselves/

Och

iTrader: (3)

Hilarious, Waymo's "self driving" car, that is actually being remotely monitored by a a group of people that intervene in its operation, couldn't manage an orange cone placed on the road. Then it got hilariously erratic, what a sham, lol.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/14/2...sistance-video

Och

iTrader: (3)

It's been over over four years since I started to participate in this thread, and it became somewhat heated. Seems like the autonomous tech has not improved at all during these four years - much like I predicted they picked the low hanging fruit, scammed the investors, and it's now being stalled.

LeX2K

Investors of which companies regret buying stock in 2016-2017?

Och

iTrader: (3)

A bunch of "tobotaxi" startups went bust. Waymo valuation down to 30 billion from 175 billion in 2018.

LeX2K

Which ones? I never followed what happened.
AFAIK Waymo is private.

Och

iTrader: (3)

I don't follow it closely either, just took it at face value from the article I posted earlier

"The recent reorganization of the self-driving car industry may also point to a new set of priorities. Namely, robotaxis are out, and logistics and industrial applications are in.Four years ago, the industry saw plenty of startups come out of stealth promising to do everything: they were going to make hardware and software; they were going to build their own vehicle; they were going to do robotaxis and delivery and trucking. And of course, they were going to change the world in the process. “It was a little bit like the decathlete business model,” said Reilly Brennan, general partner at venture capital firm Trucks. “We’re going to be very good at 10 different things.”

Now, most investors are interested in more “structured” applications of automated driving technology, such as construction, mining, middle-mile delivery, and agriculture. “So instead of being a decathlete, you had to pick a javelin thrower,” he said.



That’s not to say robotaxis are completely dead — far from it, with major players like Waymo, Cruise, Argo, and Baidu as well as smaller startups like Pony.ai, May Mobility, and Optimus Ride still banking on the proliferation of autonomous ride-hailing vehicles by the middle of this decade. But Brennan says the robotaxi craze has definitely cooled in recent years.

“Frankly, we stopped seeing robotaxi startups in probably the end of 2017,” Brennan said. “Here we are in 2021 and there are very few ongoing robotaxi startups that aren’t, you know, Cruise, Waymo, or Argo.”"


They are private but they do raise money from outside investors.

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waym...its-sow-doubts