Comments on: California’s taking the lead on self-driving cars

By: NakedApe

NakedApe — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 22:50:39 +0000

As a professional truck driver (University educated), I object to the notion that trucking is a fall-back job for the unskilled. Although it is not rocket science, it is a demanding job requiring many skills besides sitting behind the wheel. You need maturity, a responsible attitude, patience and, often, very quick thinking. Truckers usually work around 80 hours per week and good truckers can make 80-100 K per annum. Society doesn’t pay you that kind of money for nothing. Truckers bring you all of the goods that you need or want in your stores. Imagine how our society would function if we suddenly went back to the horse and buggy days? A computer may be able to do some of the work driving down the highway, but I wonder how it would cope with tight docks, inclement weather, irate drivers, bad road design or mechanical failures?
Furthermore, society needs to address the issue of providing a livelihood for people that have been made obsolete. Simply telling them that they’re out of luck and they can just starve to death and go to hell isn’t going to cut it. We need a new social paradigm to deal the millions of people who are or will be replaced by technology. The people who become fabulously rich from new technology will HAVE to share with the ones who are displaced by it or we will have a huge social upheaval coming our way on par with the French Revolution. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

By: gaoptimize

gaoptimize — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:10:55 +0000

Optimistic? If I’m ever required to drive in a car I cannot control, I will first practice egress with a crowbar, install a very simple kill switch, and manual emergency brake. Do you REALLY know where they are taking you?

By: Juhor

Juhor — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:05:33 +0000

How come everyone is so optimistic? Usually you guys are so skeptical. Anyways, awesome news, go California!
I think it’s pretty clear this thing is not decades away, only years (hope my country won’t lag behind too much, we only got HDTV broadcasts a few years ago). And the greatest obstacle is probably convincing people it’s safer than humans driving.

I always get the “well, what if the thing malfunctions?” when I talk about this to people, and I always ask them “well, what if the human driver malfunctions? (falls asleep, isn’t paying attention, is drunk, decides to show “who’s the man”…)”.

By: btud

btud — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:17:53 +0000

I don’t understand why would anyone think there are insurmountable problems for driverless legislation. This is exactly the opposite. It is an example of technological change that will very soon be encouraged by the law. Of course it moves slowly first, until commercialization begins on significant scale around 2020. But I would bet that by 2030′s there will be laws preventing manual driving on superhighways and cities. This will be reduced to a hobby that one can enjoy on country roads.

By: snake

snake — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:47:26 +0000

If there are no ‘easy’ jobs, humanity will be forced to become a more intellectual society. Let the rules of evolution weed out the idiots before its too late I say.

By: DCWhatthe

DCWhatthe — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:01:03 +0000

Better sooner, than later.

By: Dan Robinson

Dan Robinson — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:55:02 +0000

But can it pass the written test and get a license?

Yes, if this succeeds, it will mean we have to make some big advances in our economic “system” to make anyone believe it still works and there’s a place in it for us.

By: gaoptimize

gaoptimize — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 21:06:11 +0000

I totally recall this has been tried and failed::
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/spacemonkey_fg/Blog%20Pictures/Robots21.jpg

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:59:49 +0000

No more taxi drivers, bus drivers, truckers will disappear like elevator operators. Those jobs have traditionally been fall back jobs for many people, what low skill jobs will be left? Don’t say life guard, soon intelligent machines will replace all the easy jobs, with no possible way to compete! These devices will cost less than a years salary, never be late, or beligerant, sick. They can work 24/7 without any vacations, or pensions. Yes the singularity is almost here. Like an ice skater spinning on axis, these forces will increase quite dramatically. Our politicians are oblivious to the impending storm. It will change everything, and almost nobody seems to know.

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:46:13 +0000

Insurance companies will lose their shirts. They make money in plying the odds. No accidents, no odds to hide their huge profits in. When your paying out billions it’s easy to slip past a couple of million. Lock at the money that disappeared in Iraq! Check out the second ave subway in NY. In 09 it was less than two billion, now thre years later it’s triple!. It’s easy to hide on all those numbers. If you spent a thousand dollars a day since Jesus was doing his thing, you’d still have hundreds of years to go! Less accredits, less money to set aside to cover claims, less numbers to hide in.

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 19:35:21 +0000

Watson is light years ahead, it can figure out arcane verbal relationships, in Jeoparty question you’d just shrug your head at. Did you drive someplace and not remember the actual driving? That’s how driverless systems are as aposed to Watson.

By: Paul T

Paul T — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:29:01 +0000

Wait a minute. If accidents are eliminated, why would we need insurance at all?

By: Kristoph77

Kristoph77 — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 16:03:11 +0000

30-40 years from now we’ll look back at the first driverless cars and say this is where it all began, the first non-biololgical species will evolve from this tech.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:35:17 +0000

I think insurance companies should be slavering for this. Self-driving cars will drastically reduce collisions and other accidents. Assuming insurance premiums don’t go down in price, they stand to clean up. Also, the cars will be able to record all the events leading up to any incident, making their jobs a lot easier.

By: PirateRo

PirateRo — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:30:13 +0000

This is entirely too useful a thing to be without.

By: John Doe

John Doe — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 15:06:32 +0000

Any legal barriers will be swept cleanly away due to the immense competitive economic advantages that driverless vehicles will bring to America and other countries that adopt them.

It is simply too important to ignore.

By: spikosauropod

spikosauropod — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:35:10 +0000

This represents another species of evidence that we are diverging to the Singularity. Earlier this year, we heard that driverless cars had to overcome insurmountable problems before they could be street legal. Now, they are being legalized. Barriers that used to take years (even decades) to overcome are falling like dominoes.