# Self-Driving Cars Predominant by 2040



## CHamilton

Self-Driving Cars to Account for 75% of Traffic by 2040, Says IEEE



> The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) thinks that we are close to roadways dominated by the technology. In fact, they predict that self-driving cars will make up 75% of all cars on the road in less than thirty years.
> 
> “With any form of intelligent transportation, building the infrastructure to accommodate it is often the largest barrier to widespread adoption,” said Dr. Alberto Broggi, IEEE Senior Member and professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Parma in Italy. “Since we can use the existing networks of roadways, autonomous vehicles are advantageous for changing how the majority of the world will travel on a daily basis.”
> 
> The IEEE also envisions a world without traffic lights, stop signs, or any other visible signals. Their driverless landscape involves ““Intersections equipped with sensors, cameras and radars that can monitor and control traffic flow to help eliminate driver collisions and promote a more efficient flow of traffic.” You’ll still be waiting at “red lights,” in theory, but without the actual red light.


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## Anderson

Actually, I think there's a jam that's not being accounted for in this trend: How much is going to need to be spent on the aforementioned "support" infrastructure for this so that these cars still work in tunnels, so that cars, traffic light grids, and satellites plug into one another, etc.? Those computers, transmitters, and the bandwidth to run this system won't be cheap to carve out and use.

For what it's worth, I don't see the removal of visible signals coming for a _long_ time (and by that. I mean before the 50s). That's a bridge too far in a lot of cases...absent those signals, the 25-ish percent of non-automated traffic will muck up the works even more. You really need nearly total adoption before you go that far.

Another point to consider that nobody's bringing up in this debate: Could such a system be set up to complement mass transit? Some of the chatter has been "Oooh, this will replace mass transit!", but it seems to me that the implied car-sharing system would be _very_ easy (well, comparatively-speaking), not to mention cheap (again, comparatively-speaking) to operate as a more local network that gets you to the local train station or a major bus line. That would also help with demand issues...such a system may work well during the "off hours" (10 AM-3 PM, 7 PM-5 AM), but during the morning and afternoon rushes your "shared network" is likely to hit a limit of some sort. On the other hand, if you have reduced car ownership...well, I can see a feedback loop that could happen without too much trouble.

And lastly...


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## The Davy Crockett

I remember watching movies on an ancient (even then, back in the 1960s) school movie projector that had us doing this by now. Pa would get the car to the highway, once on it, he would set the car on automatic, then head back to the couch to smoke his pipe and read the newspaper, while Ma did cross-stitch dressed 'to the nines,' Dick played with the family pooch and Jane played with her dolls...   



It can be pretty dang hard to predict the future!


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## John Bredin

> The IEEE also envisions a world without traffic lights, stop signs, or any other visible signals. Their driverless landscape involves ““Intersections equipped with sensors, cameras and radars that can monitor and control traffic flow to help eliminate driver collisions and promote a more efficient flow of traffic.” You’ll still be waiting at “red lights,” in theory, but without the actual red light.


Apparently these boffo boffins also envision a world without (1) bicyclists and motorcyclists in the road traffic, and (2) pedestrians crossing the road traffic. :blink:  Unless there's some kind of handlebar-mounted or wristwatch readout of these virtual traffic signals, how is a cyclist supposed to know when he has a stop signal, and more importantly how is a pedestrian supposed to know when the road traffic has a stop signal so he/she has the right of way to cross?! <_<


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## railiner

The Davy Crockett said:


> I remember watching movies on an ancient (even then, back in the 1960s) school movie projector that had us doing this by now. Pa would get the car to the highway, once on it, he would set the car on automatic, then head back to the couch to smoke his pipe and read the newspaper, while Ma did cross-stitch dressed 'to the nines,' Dick played with the family pooch and Jane played with her dolls...
> 
> 
> 
> It can be pretty dang hard to predict the future!


I love to see how past perceptions of "the future" panned out. I fondly remember a whole World's Fair full of them back in '64 and '65, from small exhibits all the way up to the giant GM Futurama. Remarkable how accurate some turned out, and equally remarkable how far off some were.


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## trainman74

railiner said:


> I love to see how past perceptions of "the future" panned out.


I recently read a science fiction novel from the early 1960s that was incorrect about a lot of things, but I was a bit stunned that it predicted the ability to watch an all-news channel on a TV mounted in the back of the seat in front of you while on an airline flight.


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## railiner

trainman74 said:


> railiner said:
> 
> 
> 
> I love to see how past perceptions of "the future" panned out.
> 
> 
> 
> I recently read a science fiction novel from the early 1960s that was incorrect about a lot of things, but I was a bit stunned that it predicted the ability to watch an all-news channel on a TV mounted in the back of the seat in front of you while on an airline flight.
Click to expand...

Interesting...but that wasn't much of a 'stretch' from technology available in the early '60's....American Airlines Boeing's had "Astrovision" sets on their "Astrojets", that while not showing all-news channels, did show feature movies...


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## railiner

On the subject of self-driving cars....my 2010 Prius 5, with its Advanced Technology Package, with new software, could come close to fulfilling that today....

It has navigation, utilizing both GPS and its own internal input when GPS signal is lost; it has radar adaptive cruise control, that operates both the throttle and brakes, it has precollision sensor, that can apply brakes if necessary, it has ultrasonic parking sensors, it has lane departure control as well as self parking that both can steer the car. Its Safety Connect (similar to On-Star), provides cell phone connection to outside world that could be configured to receive input from a guided roadway system.

Early conceptions of 'automated driving cars' utilized mostly specially equipped roadways with guideways embedded in the pavement with cars having a transceiver for guidance. The latest generation of 'self driving cars' are capable of operating on any roadway with all the sensors carried within the vehicle.


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## Anderson

You know, I'd forgotten about those old images of driving onto a highway, having your car "plug into" a track, and running from there. I suspect the problem with such a system (something that I never thought about growing up) is that, in addition to having compatible cars to _use_ the thing, you'd basically be converting interstates to quasi-streetcars.

Now, one idea I _do_ wish could be implemented in this vein would be some sort of power-transmission system to "plug into" this (I don't care if you're stringing catenary like they're looking at in LA, some sort of induction system that the guidance system would keep you on top of, or something else), if for no other reason than doing so might actually make electric cars desirable for LD trips since you could at least avoid long charging stops.*

Still...as I said before, the biggest hangup in any sort of operation (involving lots of car-sharing) such as has been envisioned you're likely to run into is three-fold:

1) Infrastructure cost and paying for the installation and, more importantly, operation thereof. You're looking at, in the vast majority of cases, having to at _least_ keep existing roads in place while upgrading all sorts of signaling systems (visible or not). Depending on your spacing protocols, I also get a feeling that you run a _very_ real risk of this having all sorts of problems akin to the teething problems that PTC is expected to have (especially if lots of folks get picky about the route(s) they take from A to B...for example, if a given road shows up as "clear" now but I know that by the time I get there it's likely to be jammed with traffic, I might need to manually override my system...but if enough people do this, you'll lose any benefits from some of the traffic direction...basically, this becomes a version of the El Farol Bar Problem in plenty of cases, and I think we all know that if you get redirected and then stuck in traffic, it will be the computers getting the blame).

2) Demand pulses are always going to be a problem. I raised this when I saw a presentation on Personal Rapid Transit (which has plenty of its own flaws and has never been tried on a system larger than 5 stations or on a many-lined system)...you either need a lot of spare vehicles that will be idle most of the time (and a system to shuffle empty cars around _en masse_...I think we can all see the surreal sight of a swarm of cars rolling downtown for expected pickups at 4-5 PM), reducing the efficiency of the system, or you're going to have to aggressively "demand price" the system and _pray_ you don't just force people off of it. As I noted, using this sort of system outside of dense areas and just sticking to mass transit in those areas would probably be better, especially since these cars will presumably take up close to as much space as existing cars (and you're still going to have "human" issues such as slow loading/unloading at the curbside to muck up the works even if nobody is driving themselves).

--Actually, I did think of how you could manage things in a hybrid system: Have a streetcar/LRT/metro system operate in downtown with spokes out to the suburbs, but also include an interface either in the stations or in the transit vehicles themselves (relying on smartphones seems like a recipe for trouble) that allow you to "order up" a car for when you get to your destination station. Since a lot of systems will still take 20-40 minutes (if not more) to get you from downtown to many suburbs (it takes the DC Red Line close to half an hour to get from downtown to the Rockville area, for example), this could allow you to move vehicles in from a decent distance away to allow a quick transfer at the station. Actually, I'm now getting an image of a Metro station where you exit your train, swipe a card at the station, and are directed to another set of platforms where your car picks you up and then you board.

3) I'm not sure what cost models you'd need to make things work. If you charge strictly per-use, folks who need the system a lot will probably end up defaulting back to having their own cars (and accommodating that would be awkward). If you have a "buy in", the starting cost might scare a lot of folks off if it isn't somehow subsidized (since if they have to shell out most of the cost for a new vehicle to join, why not just buy their vehicle outright and not have to screw with reservations, perceived above-cost rents, and the like)? They could order their vehicle back home if parking (or parking costs) become an issue in downtown, for example).

--A hybrid might work, though, where you _generally_ pay on a per-use basis, but you can also "option" a guaranteed vehicle for certain times of the day and locations at a reduced cost over the per-use basis (sort of like a monthly metro pass) but with an upfront buy-in cost as well. The cost reduction would be because the system would _know_ that it needs a vehicle at X location at Y time.

--For example, I need to go from my house to...let's say the White Flint Metro Station every morning at 7 AM and plan to come back between 5:30 PM and 6:00 PM (subject to system delays). I buy a long-term option on a vehicle for this service for a fixed price (to acquire the "slot") plus a monthly charge that applies whether or not I use it. Arguably, I might also have the right to either sell my slot for reallocation (say, if I move and instead need a car at Shady Grove at the same time) or transfer my slot accordingly (for example, if I need to move from 7 AM to either 6 AM or 8 AM).

---The biggest problems I can see with this is that you'd need serious government intervention lest you get a timeshare-esque meltdown (i.e. slots being pitched with a certain transfer/resale value getting aggressively diluted) or an inability to move times around (i.e. someone needing to move to a "peak" slot, though paying a fee here could solve this...but then do you offer a similar-sized refund/rebate if someone moves to an "off-peak" slot? And what private company wouldn't try to force some arbitrage there and/or restrict swaps?) on the one hand, dealing with occasional variations in schedules (i.e. I leave work at 5 PM most of the time...but on average I get stuck in the office late about once a month, or a few times a year I get off early...again, do I get stuck paying full fare for the additional use? If I notify the system in advance, could I get a partial rebate on my prepaid slot for that day since it can now move "my" vehicle around in that time?), and dealing with system-induced delays (i.e. What happens if my drive home is scheduled for 5:30-6:00 PM but the Metro gets swamped and/or breaks down and I can't get out to my stop until 7:00 PM? Could I get a guarantee on my vehicle as long as I "swipe in" at my downtown station by 5 PM, for example?).

Anyhow...just some food for thought here.

*Probably the biggest stumbling block to electric cars as non-local options is this...I don't want to get 300 miles into a trip and then have to park for a few hours while my car charges. If I can do this while in a place I don't mind spending the afternoon, this might not be a _problem_, but it's still a bug since...well, at that point, why am I not just sitting back on the train and enjoying lunch along the way? Likewise, if I could park for an hour or so (basically, a reasonably-paced lunch) and be charged up in that time, that wouldn't be an issue either.


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## railiner

Anderson, that's an interesting post, and obviously you have spent some time on the subject. I don't know how far ahead your theory would occur, but I am thinking that by then, a much larger proportion of people would be working from their home computer, and reducing the need for such an elaborate system. And even if manufacturing makes a comeback in this country (let us hope!), a lot of the manual labor would be done by robotics, so still reduced commuting....


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## Anderson

Actually, if I'm being honest with you, I'm just applying what I've observed/learned about transit in general. Nothing about those observations is terribly radical, when you get down to it. To give an example, assuming a totally unregulated demand pricing scenario on a set of express lanes of traffic, I think it is possible to envision places where folks /would/ pay rather obscene tolls just to get out of a super-long jam. Transit planners have to deal with those demand pulse issues (there's a reason fares fluctuate on the DC metro...or, for that matter, on Amtrak); I simply moved it over to a system of large-scale vehicle sharing and assumed that you can move the empty vehicles. I have /no/ specific background.

One thing that I do see as being limited, though, is the ability of folks to telecommute. I definitely don't see it as becoming a majority proposition in the economy. 10-15%? Maybe. But I think that between the ineffable value of interpersonal interaction on the one hand and the fact that a very large share of the population is paid on an hourly basis on the other, unless you get some sort of differential minimum wage law (i.e. $8/hr for in-office folks vs. $6/hr for work-from-home hours), the inability to monitor offsite workers is sufficiently ripe for abuse (an efficient worker might simply work a 3 hour workday, produce an "average worker's" workload of 8 hours, and bill the 8 instead of the 3) that I think it will act as a deterrent, while trying to pay on a work product basis seems unlikely in a lot of cases (and likely to trigger some form of messy regulation if it does arise).

I would, however, point out that there seems to at least be a middle-term problem of finding jobs for lots of folks...in the late 19th/early 20th century, you had farmers replaced by factory workers; in the last few decades, there was a drive to replace factory workers with service workers, but I don't see retail sales associates filling that gap (esp. with the rise of the internet). This is getting badly off-topic, I know, but...though I don't know where we're going (a longer-term trend hasn't asserted itself), I'm getting rather nervous that there might not be "enough" jobs to pass around at full-time levels, while part-time jobs present their own issues for folks insofar as being able to support a family.


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## The Davy Crockett

Anderson said:


> ...assuming a totally unregulated demand pricing scenario on a set of express lanes of traffic, I think it is possible to envision places where folks /would/ pay rather obscene tolls just to get out of a super-long jam.


Up here in the state of Northern Virginia, we are being told to call something similar to this concept HOT (High Occupancy Toll) Lanes.

BTW, They are nearing completion on a portion of the VA portion of 'THE' Beltway. Nothing but two wide white lines seperate them from the rest of the road in many places. Locals are already saying that its going to be interesting to see if they work as planned or if the :wacko: crazed swarm :wacko: that passes for DC area rush hour commuters will run mayham over them...


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## leemell

The Davy Crockett said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...assuming a totally unregulated demand pricing scenario on a set of express lanes of traffic, I think it is possible to envision places where folks /would/ pay rather obscene tolls just to get out of a super-long jam.
> 
> 
> 
> Up here in the state of Northern Virginia, we are being told to call something similar to this concept HOT (High Occupancy Toll) Lanes.
> 
> BTW, They are nearing completion on a portion of the VA portion of 'THE' Beltway. Nothing but two wide white lines seperate them from the rest of the road in many places. Locals are already saying that its going to be interesting to see if they work as planned or if the :wacko: crazed swarm :wacko: that passes for DC area rush hour commuters will run mayham over them...
Click to expand...

They are doing exactly that on two Los Angeles freeways right now.


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## AlanB

The Davy Crockett said:


> BTW, They are nearing completion on a portion of the VA portion of 'THE' Beltway. Nothing but two wide white lines seperate them from the rest of the road in many places. Locals are already saying that its going to be interesting to see if they work as planned or if the :wacko: crazed swarm :wacko: that passes for DC area rush hour commuters will run mayham over them...


It didn't work on NJ's I-80 & I-287, that is just having a couple of white lines separating things. And those lanes weren't even tolled, you just had to have 3 people in the car IIRC. Might have been 2.

The police made a half-hearted attempt at enforcing things, but it didn't really help. After several years NJ declared them a failure and got permission from the Fed, who had paid the bulk of the money via CMAQ, to simply turn them into regular lanes. Which is what NJ wanted in the first place anyhow.


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## jis

But it seems to work on LIE. Ones mileage of course may vary. I don't think NJ ever intended it to work. In proper NJ style the intention all along was to snooker the Feds to pay for something by cheating a little.


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## AlanB

jis said:


> But it seems to work on LIE. Ones mileage of course may vary.


The LIE has more than a couple of thin lines separating things. The HOV lane is well set off from the regular lanes, typically by almost the width of a normal lane. It's quite evident if one is trying to quickly exit out of the HOV lane because one sees a cop coming.



jis said:


> I don't think NJ ever intended it to work. In proper NJ style the intention all along was to snooker the Feds to pay for something by cheating a little.


Agreed!

One of the reasons that enforcement was half-hearted.


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## Anderson

The Davy Crockett said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...assuming a totally unregulated demand pricing scenario on a set of express lanes of traffic, I think it is possible to envision places where folks /would/ pay rather obscene tolls just to get out of a super-long jam.
> 
> 
> 
> Up here in the state of Northern Virginia, we are being told to call something similar to this concept HOT (High Occupancy Toll) Lanes.
> 
> BTW, They are nearing completion on a portion of the VA portion of 'THE' Beltway. Nothing but two wide white lines seperate them from the rest of the road in many places. Locals are already saying that its going to be interesting to see if they work as planned or if the :wacko: crazed swarm :wacko: that passes for DC area rush hour commuters will run mayham over them...
Click to expand...

Well, if they use cameras for enforcement they might get somewhere. As it is, I know there are troopers who just _love_ racking up the tickets at the HOV lanes, so even if local enforcement is shoddy, I don't see the state passing up on free cash. Even without cameras, they may just go aggressively after flaunters to raise revenue..

Still, I'm not _quite_ thinking of the HOT lanes as planned. There, I think there's a pretty tight regime of pricing (about 100% variance or something like that; at least, that sort of thing was suggested at one point); I'm thinking of a case where the price for a 20-mile trip might be $2...or it might be $20 at the peak of the peak with a wreck in the normal lanes.*

*Unrelated note: Why the **** has VA been so obsessed with selling these concessions rather than just issuing low-interest bonds (3-4%) and securing them primarily with the revenue from the lanes? I get hiring an operating company and paying them a percentage or fixed amount...but these "build this and we'll give you a 50-80 year concession" operations are driving me a little nuts.


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## leemell

AlanB said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> 
> BTW, They are nearing completion on a portion of the VA portion of 'THE' Beltway. Nothing but two wide white lines seperate them from the rest of the road in many places. Locals are already saying that its going to be interesting to see if they work as planned or if the :wacko: crazed swarm :wacko: that passes for DC area rush hour commuters will run mayham over them...
> 
> 
> 
> It didn't work on NJ's I-80 & I-287, that is just having a couple of white lines separating things. And those lanes weren't even tolled, you just had to have 3 people in the car IIRC. Might have been 2.
> 
> The police made a half-hearted attempt at enforcing things, but it didn't really help. After several years NJ declared them a failure and got permission from the Fed, who had paid the bulk of the money via CMAQ, to simply turn them into regular lanes. Which is what NJ wanted in the first place anyhow.
Click to expand...

Maybe the majority of LA freeways have HOT lanes for cars with 2 or more passengers. Two are currently installing tolls for cars with one driver. It has been heavily enforced (this started here about 25 years go) and compliance is generally very good.


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## The Davy Crockett

I found THIS article that self-driving cars are now legal in CA & NV.

Those crazy folks at Google...


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## The Davy Crockett

And now the Feds are getting involved: Gov't to examine technology for automated cars.

Reminds me of the old joke:

Q) What is the most dangerous part in an automobile?

A) The nut behind the wheel. :lol:


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## Anderson

http://www.humantransit.org/2012/10/los-angeles-a-nightmarish-fantasy-that-refuses-to-die.html

Looks like I'm not the only one who's seeing the "math problem" here.


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## CHamilton

How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The Economy by 2025

Some interesting predictions, but count me skeptical.


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## railiner

CHamilton said:


> How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The Economy by 2025
> 
> Some interesting predictions, but count me skeptical.


It's coming....

and sooner than many think....

Have doubts? Check out this link....scroll down to the description of their 'Autopilot' feature.... http://www.teslamotors.com/models


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## CHamilton

CHamilton said:


> How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The Economy by 2025


A rebuttal to the above.


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## neroden

Elon Musk at Tesla is smart enough to realize that autonomous cars are currently impossible and may be impossible for quite a long time. He's enough of a techno-optimist to think that they will be possible within his lifetime. They won't.

Having studied the technology carefully, this is what's going on:

(1) They're totally functional for grade-separated expressways as long as there's no severe weather, no trees down across the road, no animals crossing, etc.

(2) They're completely functional at very low speeds like 10 mph, where it's basically OK to crash into people.

(3) On city streets and country roads, they're better than the typical totally-incompetent-and-irresponsible driver, but much less competent than any competent driver. And they're going to stay that way.

The competent driver can notice a deer at the *side* of the road, infer that the deer might be about to jump out, and slow down preemptively. The autonomous car can't even tell that it's a deer.

I'd like to see an autonomous car figure out where the road *is* when everything is flat white due to a snowstorm. (I used the indicators of road signs and driveway markers and the slight hint of drop-off for drainage ditches.)

These are hard pattern-matching problems. And humans (when they're paying attention) are *very very good at pattern-matching*. We have no idea how to program computers to do pattern-matching of this quality.


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## railiner

While the above post makes some valid points based on current technology, I believe that all of the cited problems can be solved.

Currently, camera's and perhaps GPS are utilized in follow lanes. But by using a combination of that, plus radar, and infrared camera's, an autonomous vehicle can 'see' better than humans can. Some cars offer a 'night-vision' system that can see animals hidden behind trees or brush. And because roadways and non-paved surfaces have slightly different temperatures, they can even detect that. As far as 'pattern-matching'....why can't computer software be programmed to meet or exceed what humans can do? They are already much better at many tasks...


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## jis

railiner said:


> While the above post makes some valid points based on current technology, I believe that all of the cited problems can be solved.
> 
> Currently, camera's and perhaps GPS are utilized in follow lanes. But by using a combination of that, plus radar, and infrared camera's, an autonomous vehicle can 'see' better than humans can. Some cars offer a 'night-vision' system that can see animals hidden behind trees or brush. And because roadways and non-paved surfaces have slightly different temperatures, they can even detect that. As far as 'pattern-matching'....why can't computer software be programmed to meet or exceed what humans can do? They are already much better at many tasks...


I tend to agree with you. I don;t believe that the pattern matching problem is as insurmountable as it is being suggested. But it has ways to go, and it won;t be a von neumann architecture computer that will solve that problem. If one is thinking of being totally limited to todays computer architectures one is already off track a bit.

The lane keep assist in my car, which I use a lot during highway driving (it is not particularly useful in back street driving anyway since there are not enough road markings in place to guide it) does not use any GPS, and AFAIK the typical GPS used inc ars is not accurate enough anyway. I also use radar assisted cruise control, and this I do even on local streets that are not too twisty-turny. It is very useful to hold a steady speed matched with that of the car ahead of you and within the posted speed limit.

Realistically I think what we will see is more and more functions involved in driving getting aided by automation, but with the human as the final arbiter, sort of like what happens in autopilot systems in planes. I think 100% autonomic operation is very far away, but at the end of the day it is not really that important either just for making roads safer. There are some specific features that have much greater impact that full autonomy. One of the bigger issue will be the human interface design. Apparently that issue has not been fully and satisfactorily resolved even for aircraft autopilot systems yet.


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## CHamilton

jis said:


> Realistically I think what we will see is more and more functions involved in driving getting aided by automation, but with the human as the final arbiter, sort of like what happens in autopilot systems in planes.


I like that idea. There are quite a lot of us who don't (or shouldn't) drive due to disabilities of various sorts. In my case, I am capable of driving, but since I have limited peripheral vision, no depth perception, and lousy reaction time on top of my physical disabilities, you really don't want me sharing a crowded city street with you. But people like me, and a growing number of aging baby boomers who are struggling with diminished capabilities, could probably continue to drive with a little automated assistance. Of course, whether we should be pouring more asphalt and burning fossil fuels at all is another question.


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