gabe@gabegold.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2017 08:14:51 -0500
Everyone thinks they're an above average driver, that they never make mistakes, that they're never distracted or tired. So where's the improvement for them in self-driving cars? It's just everyone else needing to be automated.
Risks? Adopting self-driving cars too fast, or too slowly. Regulating them too much, or not enough. Overly dreading any robo-caused accidents, or accepting unnecessary carnage because of sloppy products. Once it's required to have someone with a flag walking in front of every self-driving car (it worked once, right?) we'll be OK.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2017 08:48:06 +0000
From: Aging In Place Technology Watch <laurie@ageinplacetech.com>
Subject: The Unstoppable Momentum of Self-Driving Cars
<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AgingInPlaceTechnologyWatch/%7E3/kZqVQKjLFxM/unstoppable-momentum-self-driving-cars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Everybody's doing it -- talking, investing, launching an initiative for
self-driving cars. Imagine 300,000 lives saved per decade, preventing the
37,500 deaths just last year
<https://www.wired.com/story/self-driving-cars-rand-report/>. In fact, the
development of self-driving cars and other Autonomous Vehicles (AV), have
received a whopping $80 billion in investment to date
<https://jalopnik.com/a-whopping-80-billion-has-been-invested-so-far-in-the-181950442>.
Amid the hype, obstacles are occasionally noted (like roads
<https://www.ageinplacetech.com/-%20http%3A/thehill.com/opinion/technology/353034-self-driving-cars-are-coming-but-us-roads-arent-ready-for-the-change>)
and surveyed consumer disinterest, including AAA
<http://www.newsweek.com/you-may-not-live-long-enough-ride-driverless-car-575305>,
JD Power
<http://www.jdpower.com/cars/articles/car-news/study-says-minority-drivers-want-autonomous-cars>,
Gartner <https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3790963>, and in particular,
older people might not be interested
<http://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/05/25/mit-study-self-driving-cars>,
even though enabling older adults to keep driving is one of the oft-repeated
rationales by self-driving car evangelists. And of course, since older
adults want to age in place, self-driving cars are often described as
enablers
<https://finance.yahoo.com/news/age-place-self-driving-cars-will-transform-retirement-173308278.html>.
Who and what can get on board first with a media-friendly project?
Will it be Optimus Ride <https://www.optimusride.com/>, testing the
'future
<https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/28/optimus-ride-will-provide-self-driving-vehicles-to-boston-community-residents/>of
transportation' near Boston
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/28/optimus-ride-will-provide-self-driving-vehicles-to-boston-community-residents/>?
Will it be Lyft in Boston
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/6/16742924/lyft-nutonomy-boston-self-driving-car>,
Uber in Pittsburgh (maybe not)
<https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/22/pittsburgh-welcomed-ubers-driverless-car-experiment-not-anymore.html>,
Tempe (never mind that crash)
<https://www.wired.com/2017/03/uber-redeploys-self-driving-cars-wreck-arizona/>?
Will it involve redoing the roads to add a separate self-driving lane,
as Foxconn in Wisconsin has requested for its 13,000 employee
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/12/11/apple-supplier-foxconn-wants-build-self-driving-vehicles-into-its-new-u-s-campus/938500001/>
plant near Racine? Does it matter that a new self-driving shuttle has an
accident on its first day
<https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/11/the-real-lesson-of-that-self-driving-shuttles-first-day-accident/>
(blaming a driver, naturally)? What about that 6 mph Robot shuttle in
Japan
<https://futurism.com/japan-is-testing-driverless-buses-to-help-the-elderly-get-around/>
(and likely Paris, Singapore, etc.)? And how about this – commercial
delivery via self-driving trucks
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/self-driving-trucks.html>,
and for local delivery even self-restocking delivery vehicles
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/08/magazine/tech-design-autonomous-future-cars-100-percent-augmented-reality-policing.html>
(imagine the UPS truck with no driver)?
Why is *boon for the elderly* generally included as a rationale?
First, 70% of older adults live in car-dependent suburbs
<https://usa.streetsblog.org/2011/06/14/how-seniors-get-stuck-at-home-with-no-transit-options/>,
and of course, ask AARP, 90% expect to age in place
<https://www.aarp.org/home-garden/livable-communities/info-11-2011/Aging-In-Place.html>.
So seniors are among other much-lobbied reasons to create the 2017
Self-Drive Act
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16259170/self-drive-act-autonomous-cars-legislation>,
a federal effort to reduce the regulatory burden on getting 80,000
self-driving cars into the market, and to discourage states from
crafting individual legislation, one state at a time. Never mind that
only 6 percent of cities
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/13/16453926/self-driving-car-us-cities-uber-traffic-collision>
have any policy or strategy about self-driving cars -- it's full
spending steam ahead. Waymo
<https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/28/16709104/waymo-self-driving-autonomous-cars-public-roads-milestone>
(formerly Google's Self-driving project) has even issued a report
<https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/waymo-self-driving-safety-report/> to
explain self-driving safety, benefit to the elderly
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/driverless-cars-promise-far-greater-mobility-for-the-elderly-and-people-with-disabilities/2017/11/23/6994469c-c4a3-11e7-84bc-5e285c7f4512_story.html?utm_term=.450933a33ece>
and disabled, and to justify its own investment and expected growth.
Do risks matter? Toyota offered a wake-up comment. From Toyota:
<http://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-is-skeptical-of-self-driving-tech-2017-1>
"Society has come to accept 39,000 traffic fatalities a year in the US,
mostly due to human error, but would never tolerate similar carnage
involving cars controlled by computers." People are worried -- in a 2017
Harris poll about the future of self-driving cars, 52% fear for other
drivers, 62% fear for pedestrians
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/11/16/breaking-down-the-barriers-of-self-driving-cars/#5aece2102ef1>.
What about the ability of a car's sensors to work when covered with slush
and ice – maybe that will work and maybe not
<https://globalnews.ca/news/3165122/we-may-never-see-self-driving-cars-anywhere-it-snows-heres-why/>.
Meanwhile manually-driven cars are still being purchased today, and owners
keep their cars 11.6 years on average
<http://www.newsweek.com/you-may-not-live-long-enough-ride-driverless-car-575305>.
So it will take a few decades to get all of those cars off the regular
roadways, assuming that all other vexing barriers
<https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/barriers-to-self-driving-cars>, not to
mention ethical concerns
<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/>
and insurance
<https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/03/522222975/self-driving-cars-raise-questions-about-who-carries-insurance>
issues, are addressed. And for sure, this is just the beginning.