Epic fail

What happens when a situation arises where the car has to crash, but can either hit the child who has run into the road, or crash into a lorry, almost certainly seriously injuring, and possibly killing, the occupants of the car? The ethics of that one would trouble everyone, not least the engineers writing the algorithm which their management demand saves the car occupants.

If you live in the US, where huge numbers of people commute by car, on roads that are much straighter than European roads, where pedestrians are massively discriminated against, and there is massive congestion you can see why some people think autonomous cars are the answer.

But here it’s very different and I’m not sure it’ll ever become the norm.

Just like airplanes, cars, microwaves, electricity, smart phones, the internet, Amazon etc etc.

Seriously, I think there is a good chance that anybody here who has recently had children will never see them get a driving license, at least as we know it now.

You might be right, but it could be for the wrong reasons. I think more progressive governments are recognising that the days of the private car driver being at the summit of the transportation hierarchy are over, and more urban environments will prioritise active travel and public transport over car use.

Sorry for that coming across as facetious, that wasn't my intention.

Robots have been gradually increasing the complexity of the tasks that they can perform more reliably and consistently than humans for fifty or more years. Given that the vast majority of car accidents are caused by human error by the driver, to say that a computer/robot will never be more reliable or consistent than the incredibly fallible human being, is to ignore decades of progress that has exceeded expectations. Even at a basic level, even an early self driving production car is likely to far exceed human performance.

Maybe being an owner of a car that parks itself perfectly first time in any space has made me more of a fan of the tech than I should be.

->->->->-> Musk is a cunt and Tesla are shit

We'd all love to see less private car ownership but I don't think governments have enough influence to make this happen.

At least when most cars are self driving it will increase road capacity. I would of course would love to see less personal car ownership. Perhaps what we will see is Uber providing the ultimate self driving car sharing service

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https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/133340/

I have to wonder how these autonomous cars will ever manage to interact with each other.

Like on stretches of road with average speed cameras, you can tell there’s loads of cars where the drivers have set the cruise control to the speed limit yet they gradually crawl past each other because Ford’s 70mph is slightly different to Volvo’s.

Can imagine different manufacturers could also have different ideas around what constitutes safe distances between vehicles and the like.

Seems like there needs to be some sort of universal standards established. Maybe this is happening though?

Things like Prius and Leaf have had a way bigger real world effect.

Not sure that's true. In your London's Famous London maybe. I spend most of my life on motorways and I'm seeing a lot of Teslas, certainly more than 7series Beemers or SL Class Mercs, so for your executive-type who still wants a traditional saloon they're a very attractive option. I think there is (or at least was) a bit of cachet to having a Tesla parked on the drive of your identikit 5-bedroom executive box. I do expect that wifey will have an e-golf rather than a Model 3 to park alongside it though.
The other thing to bear in mind that makes Tesla far more practical in the real world is they have a range of 250 to 300 miles. The new Leaf can almost match that but the old model most certainly could not. The e-Golf has a range of 150 miles, which is fine for nipping around town but who buys a Golf for that?

If it's a company car then the benefit in kind aspect is (IIRC) handy.

Zipcar, by the hundred. There's three Zipcar egolf parked outside my house right now.

Until induction charging road surfaces. Then range won’t be a problem

Almost all of the new VW MEB platform cars are supposed to have 500km+ range. I'll say it again, from $20,000.

In the glorious future they'll all be connected to share sensors and data, draft each other perfectly at speed and swap tinder profiles.

Mercedes already said they have taken the decision that their software would place driver safety over pedestrian in such a situation and would avoid the lorry at the cost of the pedestrian. They got heavily criticized for that stance but I think their only mistake was admitting it, can't imagine any manufacturer admitting they are putting driver safety second. This can obviously be appropriately legislated for however if you have a competent regulator.

This has been done to death (pardon the pun) in the autonomous cars thread. I'd prefer to see pedestrians prioritised since the car occupant already has 2 tons of metal protecting them but the idea is that it should be able to avoid those circumstances before it happens. Predicting pedestrian movements and having 0 reaction time decreasing stopping distances etc

Interesting though - if you buy such a car, knowing that it will prioritise your life over someone elses then it suggests that you're knowingly risking others every time you drive. Now I know that happens every time a normal car is driven, but we've agreed a fiction that that's untrue. Codifying it in a cars autonomous systems makes it concrete.

Yup, I don't see it as any different to what we have now.

You know, there already is a thread for this kind of thing
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/234810/

Swipe right for overtaking

It's the 'I think' bit that really makes this.

Thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what you mean, though.

universal standards

We all know where this leads...

Having to add 'I think' indicates that we can't even say with complete assurance that they're programmed not to hit people. While they're - probably - programmed not to, we have no idea of the priorities in their algorithms.