The AI car

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J.D.
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The AI car

Post by J.D. »

With the testing of the Google car and the first showing of its sportier Audi equivalent, it seems that AI cars are not too far away. But there's a lot of new stuff to consider, some of it practical, some of it legal and some of it downright embarrassing:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33676388

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-r ... p-highway/

https://www.wired.com/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/

The big question for me is how it would cope with traffic on the daily grind to work and back. Could I sit there and read a good old fashioned book while it does the driving for me? Will it drive me home legally when I'm pissed/asleep? Could I park it remotely after it drops me off at my front door?

The big worry for anyone who drives even a current generation car though is its hackability. Could I find myself in the future being transported to a destination I don't want because of some advertising hack which has exploited my car?

I know most of you enjoy driving so you are unlikely to end up in a Google car. I'm the other way these days but all of us will face the same problem eventually. I wonder how vulnerable my current generation Toyota Klugger is, with its "Toyota Link" software?

Meanwhile, taxi drivers take note:

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Re: The AI car

Post by Jamo »

Fuck this shit, it should be preemptively banned.
Cruise Control is as far as I go and I dont even like that much. I cant even stand Auto, that's not driving.
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Re: The AI car

Post by Enforcer-J »

Drive an old manual ford courier on shit roads in traffic with lights that are synchronized to turn red every time you reach them and you'll soon be wishing for an auto! :)
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Re: The AI car

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Jamo wrote:Fuck this shit, it should be preemptively banned.
Cruise Control is as far as I go and I dont even like that much. I cant even stand Auto, that's not driving.

Nope. if it proves to be safer, which it looks like it is, make it compulsory. Get the fuckwits out of the equation, as well as pisspots and old Barry doing 30kph in his Toyota Crown on a county road.

If you want to drive, do a track day.
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Re: The AI car

Post by w00dsy »

I have days where I'm knackered from work and I wish my car would just drive me home. It'll be good too if they automatically update the route based on traffic. Imagine how many people will wank on their commute out of boredom.
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Re: The AI car

Post by wabbit »

JD from what I've watched and read...

The big question for me is how it would cope with traffic on the daily grind to work and back.
-- I think they're certainly part way there with with adaptive cruise control and lane keeping then in testing conditions e.g.: Google or Merc test cars are able to complete the entire trip.

Could I sit there and read a good old fashioned book while it does the driving for me?
Will it drive me home legally when I'm pissed/asleep?
Could I park it remotely after it drops me off at my front door?
-- If you were the only occupant I don't think that would be seen as legal.

The big worry for anyone who drives even a current generation car though is its hackability. Could I find myself in the future being transported to a destination I don't want because of some advertising hack which has exploited my car?
-- Of course that could be possible, how likely is another story but the Jeep issue is a real issue.

I know most of you enjoy driving so you are unlikely to end up in a Google car. Meanwhile, taxi drivers take note.
-- I think I'm more towards your way of thinking. I don't see the joy of driving in driving myself to work, I came to enjoy the bus when moving to Brisbane because I got that extra 30mins each trip to do something that interested me rather than being in traffic jams and watching fuckwits make stupid decisions/near misses/etc.

Not that it's seen as legal yet, I still see value in the AI car in areas where people that can't drive, quick examples 1) older people 2) children, pickup/drop off to school or desired location 3) Pets, pickup the dogs take them to where we are, do activity then drive us all home (far more efficient ie: time saving than the steps needed now).

Basically I see this area being fantastic for time saving and boring trips. I truly think some people aren't focusing on the time savings but rather the reduced control. I too enjoy driving be a no smarts manual gearbox with turbo or even Amanda's little floaty auto Corolla, however driving either a boring situation is just that.
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Re: The AI car

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wabbit wrote:If you were the only occupant I don't think that would be seen as legal.
I was thinking that sooner or later, occupations like taxi driver or chauffeur will disappear. Of course, all this would have to be tested legally but it kind of means that you actually could be alone in a car and asleep (or watching "erotic" videos in Woodsy's case). It would be a question of who is responsible in an accident or something similar and that either means the manufacturer or the owner. If the owner is pissed then there's a problem. That would also preclude any possibility of dropping off or picking up kids/pets without supervision.

BUT...anything which takes dropkicks out of the equation is okay with me (I'm one of them anyway). And anything which leaves the boring task of driving in traffic has to be a plus (unless you're a complete masochist).

It will be all okay if everyone has these things but given that a lot of people will elect not to, the mix of AI and human-controlled vehicles is not likely to be a friendly one.

All the same, the possibilities are fascinating.
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Re: The AI car

Post by wobblysauce »

There are a few makers out there with adaptive cruise, works a treat. Can not wait for Ai cars..

Been driving say avg 1,000kms a week for years gets tired fast .. plain highway for most of it, then stop start.
Now even taking a trip to the city.. it is quite boring, and have seen the results of others that have had the misfortune of incidents first hand.
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Re: The AI car

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J.D. wrote:The big question for me is how it would cope with traffic on the daily grind to work and back. Could I sit there and read a good old fashioned book while it does the driving for me? Will it drive me home legally when I'm pissed/asleep?
Yep, autonomous vehicles will do a better job of getting places. They will be able to run at high speed, in close platoons, at much closer headway than normal drivers and remove the need for signal controlled intersections. The AI vehicles negotiate paths on the move and they swarm around each other like a Tehran roundabout. On major arterials, they will probably operate like swarms of birds or schools of fish. Will take some getting used to / trusting the technology.
J.D. wrote:Could I park it remotely after it drops me off at my front door?
You probably won't own one. It's most likely they will be operated in fleets owned by companies like Uber or Google. They will be more like an instant, driverless taxi fleet. Probably only very wealthy people will own autonomous vehicles for status. Their great advantage will be the convenience of travel without the costs and burdens of ownership. Trips may even effectively be free if you accept being advertised at, or the vehicle may ask you to share a journey.

Latest developments by big tractor and car manufacturers are redefining ownership. if you buy a modern John Deere tractor, the proliferation of tech in them means that you are being licensed by John Deere to operate the vehicle, not to own it. The company retains ownership of the crucial software to make it run and you will be locked out of servicing it, or changing operating parameters. This is already happening.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
J.D. wrote:The big worry for anyone who drives even a current generation car though is its hackability. Could I find myself in the future being transported to a destination I don't want because of some advertising hack which has exploited my car?
There's some interesting things happening with remote hacking of vehicles in motion (Wired had an article recently about a couple of guys demonstrating by remotely running a Jeep off the road while a journo was driving it.
J.D. wrote:I know most of you enjoy driving so you are unlikely to end up in a Google car. I'm the other way these days but all of us will face the same problem eventually. I wonder how vulnerable my current generation Toyota Klugger is, with its "Toyota Link" software?
Interestingly, many current trials of autonomous vehicles are being run or partnered by insurance companies. I think in the future, once the technology is proven and safe, individuals will find it very hard or expensive to own and operate their own vehicles - ie you may not find an insurer willing to cover your Kluger with you as a driver. I think all of the vehicle crashes involving autonomous vehicles have involved and been the fault of, a human driver).

I also think that one of the outcomes of autonomous vehicles will be pedestrianisation of city centres. Most of the intersection simulations for traffic engineers investigating traffic control for AI cars forget pedestrians. For them to work like this (see link) peds and cyclists need to be separated from the cars (bridges, tunnels) but i don't think peds will settle for this. I think once you trust the AI car to avid killing a ped, then there's nothing to stop you just stepping out into the street. Result - gridlock for cars in heavy pedestrian zones.

smith

http://www.citylab.com/tech/2012/03/wha ... cars/1377/
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Re: The AI car

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My prediction (+ hope) is that these things will be a disaster, a pipe dream and never work properly. With the possible exception of on dedicated Motorways.
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Re: The AI car

Post by J.D. »

Never is a long time.

2029 anyone?

Look, for those who enjoy driving, good luck to them. But the chances are they are not the ones battling it out on a clogged freeway every morning. For a drive on the Great Ocean Road you're going to pick something different - unless you just want to look at the scenery. I can't see a situation where it would be forced on anyone.
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Re: The AI car

Post by wobblysauce »

I have done a number if trips on the Great Ocean Road, Motorbike and Car.

The amount of people doing U-turns on blind corners is ridiculous.. most being foreign drivers, would be great to stop that happening.
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Re: The AI car

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Rentals should be compulsory AI cars.
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Re: The AI car

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Jamo wrote:My prediction (+ hope) is that these things will be a disaster, a pipe dream and never work properly. With the possible exception of on dedicated Motorways.
Typically backwards thinking there Jamo but why? If you enjoy driving you should be giving automated cars your full support.

Personally I can't wait until all the people who are incompetent, drunk, stoned, blind, stupid or simply hate driving don't have to do it, because it means people like me who love driving can go out knowing they're not out there trying to kill me.

I think automated cars will be commonplace in my lifetime and when that happens, I suspect driving will be something we do at weekends for fun. Trackdays are already significantly more enjoyable than driving on the road, so I can't wait :)
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Re: The AI car

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If any one would be against AI cars.. it would be insurance company's.
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Re: The AI car

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wobblysauce wrote:If any one would be against AI cars.. it would be insurance company's.
The reverse is true I think wobbles - they want to minimise their risk of a payout by controlling and minimising risk. This is why they charge more for young folk in high performance cards. It's the cross-platform model that will win out. Google will want to run the cars not to make money from the travel, but to market at you, and understand your habits. Similarly, why is Coles selling car insurance? The more they know about you, the more data they can cross-tab, the more valuable you are as a commodity to them.
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Re: The AI car

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I'm kinda looking forward to them to be honest...

Anyone who thinks driving is a chore and boring will get one. That'll make them predictable and controlled by a known quantity.

Then, those that enjoy driving will still have their place in the market, and can drive their cars knowing what the driving zombies are going to do, and make trips better.

This would all fall apart if the Auto manufacturers completely ignore the enthusiasts though, so let's hope they maintain the market for us!
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Re: The AI car

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If/when they are a real option, I would be happy to sell my car. If I can rely on an autonomous vehicle to do all the things I want to do - going out at night, away on holidays, to the shops etc, then I'll be happy to get out from under a car loan and annual operating costs that almost no-one really understands. owning one or two cars is a huge impost on a family. They spend 90% of the time parked.

Bring em on i say.
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Re: The AI car

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I'd never trust one to do my driving and I'll not be at all happy to be surrounded by them. Even the dumbest licenced driver is cognitively far superior to a canned programmed system. A human has inbuilt self preservation, how the hell do you program that?
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Re: The AI car

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Actually the AI cars have proven to be extremely mistake free. They essentially have eyes that take in everything around them and act accordingly. I was skeptical until I watched a couple of videos that showed how it works and it's quite fascinating.
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Re: The AI car

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smithcorp wrote:Google will want to run the cars not to make money from the travel, but to market at you, and understand your habits. Similarly, why is Coles selling car insurance? The more they know about you, the more data they can cross-tab, the more valuable you are as a commodity to them.
I suspect this is true. I still think it will be possible to be hijacked to some shop you don't want to go to on the way home because your browser has been exploited. What you outlined is probably quite right.

So how about commuter lanes for AI cars and ordinary lanes for the rest? Could that be made to work?

I have also wondered how an AI car would cope with a merge situation.

Incidentally, the Mercedes F 015 I saw on YouTube had the occupant facing backwards which is sooooo much safer in a major front end impact.

I suspect these things will be like mobile phones. 30 years ago nobody had one. 25 years ago perhaps one in five. 15 years ago everyone had one. Today it seems nobody can live without them.
w00dsy wrote:Actually the AI cars have proven to be extremely mistake free. They essentially have eyes that take in everything around them and act accordingly. I was skeptical until I watched a couple of videos that showed how it works and it's quite fascinating.
Don't they still have trouble with snow and rain?
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Re: The AI car

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J.D. wrote:So how about commuter lanes for AI cars and ordinary lanes for the rest? Could that be made to work?
Good question. The company I now work for is a global consultancy in innovative travel, so we have lots of projects going on around the world with autonomous vehicle trials and policy-setting. Its fair to say the transition question hasn't been looked at in a lot of detail yet. How do you deal with human controlled vehicles when you start to have a lot of AVs? I have no idea for the moment, but I know its being looked at in the UK.

http://www.arup.com/News/2014_12_Decemb ... _cars.aspx

Another good (very recent) article here on the transition, using the move from horse-drawn transport to horseless carriages as a model: http://worldif.economist.com/article/11 ... driverless

The current thinking is about evolution - our cars are getting more and more high tech, so they will be integrated gradually. However, on the other side of the coin is the sheer speed of adoption. My firm did a thinking paper on the future of highways. Typically the "future of" range of papers look ahead 50 years, but in AVs things were moving so quickly they concluded the future is already here.

The real benefits for cities form these things will only really come if car ownership changes. Parking is in every city, is the biggest land use. For every car, there's around 3 to 3.5 parking spaces. If autonomous vehicles reach their proper potential, then a lot of land is freed up and people can change the way they live.

I reckon there's an interesting debate to be had on the 'convenience' of cars. Say you want to travel into the city centre for dinner with mates. You go by train. Five minute walk to the station, 5 minute wait, 5 minute walk to the restaurant, then a train home, or a taxi if its late. However, your friend says lets drive together. Assuming they turn up on time, you have a comfortable ride into the city (maybe not stuck on the eastern distributor because of a crash), then the parking space dance begins. 15 minutes of messing around trying to find a park, finally you get one down some dark alley hundreds of metres away, or in a big car park for $25 or more. You probably spent more time and stress messing about on that car trip than if you'd just taken the train. Lots of people argue that cars provide them freedom, but I reckon for a lot of trips the car is actually a burden. It may offer freedom for some trips (going on holidays down the coast etc) for most others it's just not the first choice for me.

Mind you, not using the car sometimes involves some effort and some folk don't like that. My own sister would drive to her letterbox if she could. She lives 150m away from the local shops, but on the weekend she drove that distance to meet my wife. She justifies this by saying she may go to a different more distant shopping centre (also accessible by train) as part of that trip. But of course she doesn't. So having a car is helping to make her unhealthy because it facilitates laziness.

/rant off.
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Re: The AI car

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smithcorp wrote:Lots of people argue that cars provide them freedom, but I reckon for a lot of trips the car is actually a burden. It may offer freedom for some trips (going on holidays down the coast etc) for most others it's just not the first choice for me.
This is exactly the cut off point. Freedom is as freedom does and if a car is more trouble than an alternative then the freedom angle is largely irrelevant. The difference between people is that some are prepared to put up with a greater level of inconvenience or they don't see it as inconvenience. There's no right or wrong answer here. There's just what people want.

I sort of figure that if an AI car can park itself then the issue of parking spaces would be largely removed. It would just drop you off at your destination and then find the nearest available spot. Leaving would become more difficult because you would have to make sure everyone is ready to go (Uncle Bob's a bit pissed and can't say goodbye and Aunt Maud has just remembered she left her coat hanging on the chair).
Mind you, not using the car sometimes involves some effort and some folk don't like that. My own sister would drive to her letterbox if she could. She lives 150m away from the local shops, but on the weekend she drove that distance to meet my wife. She justifies this by saying she may go to a different more distant shopping centre (also accessible by train) as part of that trip. But of course she doesn't. So having a car is helping to make her unhealthy because it facilitates laziness.
My maternal grandmother lived three doors up the street from us and used to do the same thing. I think her motivations were slightly different and she had a heart condition brought on by scarlet fever as a child. The Segway, which as far as I know isn't available here, is already doing this in some parts of the world.
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Re: The AI car

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<rant>
Public transport isn't always a viable alternative...

For example, for me to currently get to work, it takes 20-25mins by car. This same trip would take me 1.5 hours on public transport and cost me more per fortnight.
  • I'm currently using $45 in fuel per fortnight (less if I didn't purchase 98). This is with a 2012 Kia Rio (UB) 1.6L, 4Cyl manual.
  • The cost of public transport is $69.6 per fortnight.
Now this only works because I don't have to pay for parking and I work outside of the Adelaide CBD.

However when we go for a night out in the city, we usually take the bus. But the difference between that and the cost of a taxi (for 2 people) isn't as much as you would think. Mostly because the only time public transport fees are discounted is between 9am and 3pm Monday to Friday. So their is no incentive to use it on the weekend, especially if a) you don't live close to a bus stop / train station or b) live on one of the 95% of routes that have infrequent service (e.g. once and hour).

I'm not looking forward to working in the CBD again (which is probably going to happen fairly soon), because it means much longer travel times (by bus) and higher costs... and don't get me started on the people you have to deal with on the bus (school kids, drunks, guys with BO, local wannabe "gangs", inconsiderate bitch's taking up 2 seats, people with no bus etiquette, etc...). :(
</rant>
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Re: The AI car

Post by J.D. »

This is true for a lot of people. However, at the moment, the main issue is with inner city driving and inner city is where the public transport is (in most cities). I actually think Adelaide would be almost an ideal place to trial AI cars. The public transport system there isn't all that extensive so the incentive is there. At the same time, the streets are wide so there could be trial lanes allotted for AI only (someone would have to figure out how to do this).
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