• atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    Self driving cars are a bad idea. There, I said it. It’s solving the wrong problem with technology that is nowhere near ready. The world is simply too dynamic and the “edge cases” matter.

    Better safety features, however, will be a great side effect of this research though.

    • acargitz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      That’s not even a controversial take. That’s precisely the common sense take.

      This is the somewhat controversial take: We don’t need driverless cars, we need carless drivers on transit, on foot and on bikes.

    • SpaceBar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      The Tesla Model Y is literally the safest passenger vehicle available right now.

      Self driving vehicles are actually close, but as you said, the edge cases are a bitch.

    • EnderWi99in@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      It sounds like your saying that self driving cars moving to the consumer market too soon is more of the problem. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, I agree. I think the tech is more like 10-15 years out still at least. There may be other smaller applications sooner but the continued improvement of safety features can be done now.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m not even sure 10-15 years is good. They’ve been 10-15 years for 10-15 years already. I’m personally at the point where they’re square in the “flying cars” category (which is coming “real soon now”!).

        Detecting things is easy. Finding the road and following it is easy. Stopping the car when an obstruction is in the way is easy. What’s not easy are the 100,000 things that the developers haven’t thought of that happen in a real-world dynamic environment. And it’s a situation where lives are at stake so you need to get those right.

        And then there is the issue that we already have “self-driving cars” in the form of light rail, busses, taxis, etc.

        I think the combination of human driver with “AI Assist” for cruise control, avoiding obstacles, and other things is likely the way to go for cars for some time.