But it hasn’t happened, not even close. Maybe the brainiacs of Silicon Valley couldn’t anticipate the vagaries of normal street [...]]]>
But it hasn’t happened, not even close. Maybe the brainiacs of Silicon Valley couldn’t anticipate the vagaries of normal street chaos and snow drifts in diverse climates.
Below, a lot of early testing occurred in sunny suburbs south of San Francisco where 25 mph was the maximum speed of the Google car shown below.
The slow development is not a bad thing at all. Although self-driving cars would be a help to people with restricted movement, the job loss would be catastrophic. Millions of Americans work as drivers, as shown in the 2015 graph below:
As has been pointed out here numerous times, the automation of many industries means America needs vastly fewer immigrants to do low-skilled jobs. In numerous areas of work — those that are less fraught with issues of human safety — robots and automation are going gang-busters, and the country should recognize a near future of fewer jobs overall and adjust immigration accordingly — to zero. But in contrast to trends elsewhere, the self-driving issue being postponed indefinitely benefits foreign drivers along with Americans, so immigrant cabbies are safe for now.
In the current article from CNBC, there’s no assurance of self-driving progress. The failures in safety (like the 2018 crash of an Uber car that killed a woman in Arizona) have not been solved, so the basic promise of totally safe automotive travel has not been fulfilled. More surprising is that the technologists seem unsure of when the real deal will be here — the magic day keeps being postponed years into the future.
]]>Self-driving cars were supposed to be here already — here’s why they aren’t and when they should arrive, CNBC, November 30, 2019
More companies are trying to bring self-driving cars to the masses than ever before. Yet a truly autonomous vehicle still doesn’t exist. And it’s not clear if, or when, our driverless future will arrive.
Proponents in the industry, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Waymo CEO John Krafcik and Cruise CEO Dan Ammann, touted an aggressive timeline but missed and reset their goals.
In a third-quarter earnings call, Musk said Tesla “appears to be on track for at least an early access release of a fully functional Full Self-Driving by the end of this year.” Other leaders in the field are taking a more sober view on driverless cars, what’s still needed to perfect them and how long before they are part of our daily lives.
Avideh Zakhor, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer sciences department, explained what inspired the rational reckoning in the industry:
“There was a sense maybe a year or two ago, that ‘Oh, our algorithms are so good! We’re ready to launch. We’re gonna launch driverless cars any minute.’ And then obviously there’s been the setbacks of people getting killed or accidents happening, and now we’re a lot more cautious.”
States don’t have clear regulations governing the safety testing and deployment of driverless cars, and that’s one challenge to getting them out on the road.
As of October, 41 states have either enacted legislation or signed executive orders regulating the testing and use of autonomous vehicles. In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released new federal guidelines for automated driving systems — but they’re only voluntary at this point.
Miles driven by test vehicles on real roads had been a frequently touted metric. But to advance the safety of their driverless systems, big players including GM-owned Cruise and Amazon-backed Aurora have also developed their own means of testing in simulation, much like rocket and airplane makers would before a first test flight. (Continues)
Below, Waymo self-driving cars are being tested — and abused by citizens — in Chandler, Arizona.
In an earlier time, workers known as Luddites destroyed factory machinery to protest technology seen [...]]]>
Below, Waymo self-driving cars are being tested — and abused by citizens — in Chandler, Arizona.
In an earlier time, workers known as Luddites destroyed factory machinery to protest technology seen as taking their employment. Today, the job-eliminating machines are visible in the community, seen by taxpaying drivers and pedestrians. As a result, the self-driving cars are convenient targets for citizens who don’t accept the corporate automation agenda. The physical attacks on self-driving cars suggest a building anger on the part of the public.
Keep in mind that millions of Americans are employed in driving jobs.
The New York Times‘ rather substantial article was reprinted by newsstandhub.com, posted below:
]]>Wielding Rocks and Knives, Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars, New York Times, December 31, 2018
CHANDLER, Ariz. — The assailant slipped out of a park around noon one day in October, zeroing in on his target, which was idling at a nearby intersection — a self-driving van operated by Waymo, the driverless-car company spun out of Google.
He carried out his attack with an unidentified sharp object, swiftly slashing one of the tires. The suspect, identified as a white man in his 20s, then melted into the neighborhood on foot.
The slashing was one of nearly two dozen attacks on driverless vehicles over the past two years in Chandler, a city near Phoenix where Waymo started testing its vans in 2017. In ways large and small, the city has had an early look at public misgivings over the rise of artificial intelligence, with city officials hearing complaints about everything from safety to possible job losses.
Some people have pelted Waymo vans with rocks, according to police reports. Others have repeatedly tried to run the vehicles off the road. One woman screamed at one of the vans, telling it to get out of her suburban neighborhood. A man pulled up alongside a Waymo vehicle and threatened the employee riding inside with a piece of PVC pipe.
In one of the more harrowing episodes, a man waved a .22-caliber revolver at a Waymo vehicle and the emergency backup driver at the wheel. He told the police that he “despises” driverless cars, referencing the killing of a female pedestrian in March in nearby Tempe by a self-driving Uber car.
“There are other places they can test,” said Erik O’Polka, 37, who was issued a warning by the police in November after multiple reports that his Jeep Wrangler had tried to run Waymo vans off the road — in one case, driving head-on toward one of the self-driving vehicles until it was forced to come to an abrupt stop.
His wife, Elizabeth, 35, admitted in an interview that her husband “finds it entertaining to brake hard” in front of the self-driving vans, and that she herself “may have forced them to pull over” so she could yell at them to get out of their neighborhood. The trouble started, the couple said, when their 10-year-old son was nearly hit by one of the vehicles while he was playing in a nearby cul-de-sac.
“They said they need real-world examples, but I don’t want to be their real-world mistake,” said Mr. O’Polka, who runs his own company providing information technology to small businesses.
“They didn’t ask us if we wanted to be part of their beta test,” added his wife, who helps run the business.
At least 21 such attacks have been leveled at Waymo vans in Chandler, as first reported by The Arizona Republic. Some analysts say they expect more such behavior as the nation moves into a broader discussion about the potential for driverless cars to unleash colossal changes in American society. The debate touches on fears ranging from eliminating jobs for drivers to ceding control over mobility to autonomous vehicles.
“People are lashing out justifiably,” said Douglas Rushkoff, a media theorist at City University of New York and author of the book “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.” He likened driverless cars to robotic incarnations of scabs — workers who refuse to join strikes or who take the place of those on strike.
“There’s a growing sense that the giant corporations honing driverless technologies do not have our best interests at heart,” Mr. Rushkoff said. “Just think about the humans inside these vehicles, who are essentially training the artificial intelligence that will replace them.” (Continues)
Unfortunately, the whiz-bang technology of self-driving vehicles comes with a big downside, namely massive job loss as the machines become cheaper than human workers. Driving is a job held by millions of Americans — and replacing them with autonomous cars will cause massive unemployment throughout the nation.
Furthermore, it makes no sense for America to continue importing immigrants to work as drivers and in other low-skilled jobs when the automated future is galloping toward us. Oxford researchers forecast in 2013 that nearly half of American jobs were vulnerable to machine or software replacement within 20 years, and later investigations have been similarly grim.
Below, this photo of Apple car technology mounted in a Lexus body was snapped in 2017.
]]>Apple self-driving car fleet grows to 66 vehicles in California, Apple Insider, July 18, 2018
Apple is continuing to increase the number of autonomous vehicles it has on the roads for testing, reportedly registering more vehicles with the Californian Department of Motor Vehicles to bring the fleet up to 66 self-driving cars operating in the state.
In a recent filing with the state DMV spotted by Macreports, the 66 cars being used by Apple are being controlled by 111 registered drivers. This is an increase in both vehicles and drivers since May 14, when Apple had 55 test vehicles and 83 authorized drivers.
The increases suggest Apple is adding more vehicles to the fleet at a steady rate. The previous update on March 20 claimed there to be 45 Apple-owned self-driving cars, which would put Apple at introducing roughly ten more cars to the collection every two months.
Despite the increases, Apple still does not operate the most autonomous test vehicles in the state. California’s records indicate Apple’s fleet to be the third-largest, behind the 117 cars and 333 drivers for GM Cruise, as well as the 72 cars and 411 drivers of Waymo. Tesla has 39 cars and 92 registered drivers in its own project.
California has issued 56 autonomous vehicle testing permits, with 468 approved vehicles operated by 1,677 approved drivers. Notably, Apple has yet to apply for a driverless car permit from the DMV, suggesting it would prefer to continue with driver-assisted testing for the moment.
Worked on under the “Project Titan” name, Apple’s autonomous vehicle technology was originally thought to be part of a branded car, but the focus reportedly changed to just the self-driving vehicle system in late 2016. It is unclear what the current goal for Apple’s work is, but it is thought to be the autonomous platform itself rather than an entire vehicle, with the potential of partnering with an outside firm to create a ridehailing service.
A connected self-driving project intending to shuttle company employees between facilities was reported in May to use Volkswagon T6 Transporter vans, after attempts to negotiate with BMW to work on the project allegedly failed. Running from Palo Alto to Infinite Loop, the PAIL program will include specialized dashboards, seats, and extensive modifications made to the vehicles, and will still be operated by a back-up driver and co-pilot, in case the self-driving element fails.
(Continues)
The MIT car uses LIDAR and GPS to navigate country roads.
An estimated 3.8 million Americans drive for a living, and while many of those jobs are on city streets and well marked freeways, cabs and delivery vehicles travel country roads also. So the job loss from autonomous vehicles is looking to become more widespread.
A 2013 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, Are There Really Jobs Americans Won’t Do?, found that among taxi drivers and chauffeurs, 42 percent are foreign born. But with advanced autonomous cars coming on strong, low-skilled immigrants who are capable of only simple tasks like driving are fast becoming obsolete.
]]>MIT built a self-driving car that can navigate unmapped country roads, TheVerge.com, May 13, 2018
No 3D maps required
Taking the road less traveled is extremely difficult for self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles rely on highly visible lane markings, as well as detailed 3D maps in order to navigate their environment safely. Which is why most of the major companies have eschewed testing on unmapped rural roads in favor of suburbs and cities.
Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a new system that allows self-driving cars to drive on roads they’ve never been on before without 3D maps. Called MapLite, the system combines simple GPS data that you’d find on Google Maps with a series of sensors that observe the road conditions.
This allowed the team to autonomously drive on multiple unpaved country roads in Devens, Massachusetts, and reliably detect the road more than 100 feet in advance. (As part of a collaboration with the Toyota Research Institute, researchers used a Toyota Prius that they outfitted with a range of LIDAR and IMU sensors.)
“The cars use these maps to know where they are and what to do in the presence of new obstacles like pedestrians and other cars,” says Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s CSAIL, in a statement. “The need for dense 3D maps limits the places where self-driving cars can operate.”
MIT explains how its system operates without relying on 3D maps:
MapLite uses sensors for all aspects of navigation, relying on GPS data only to obtain a rough estimate of the car’s location. The system first sets both a final destination and what researchers call a “local navigation goal,” which has to be within view of the car. Its perception sensors then generate a path to get to that point, using LIDAR to estimate the location of the road’s edges. MapLite can do this without physical road markings by making basic assumptions about how the road will be relatively more flat than the surrounding areas.
If it ends up going commercial, MIT’s MapLite would go a long way in fulfilling one of the mandates from the Trump administration: that the safety benefits from autonomous driving be extended to residents in rural communities.
(Continues)
The Google spin-off company Waymo has applied to the state of California for a permit to allow driver-free cars on the roadways for testing. Of course, [...]]]>
The Google spin-off company Waymo has applied to the state of California for a permit to allow driver-free cars on the roadways for testing. Of course, the two recent deaths in self-driving cars — one pedestrian in Arizona and one highway crash in California — have not stopped the technology’s march forward: there are billions of dollars at stake.
Below, the Waymo car has logged over five million miles to date.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik recently assured consumers that the company’s cars are safe, noting, “Our confidence stems from the fact that we’ve been working on this for so long and we’ve been focused throughout this mission on ensuring the safety of the cars and the technology.”
The emphasis on the safety of self-driving cars distracts from the social crisis they will create in employment: The US Commerce Department has forecast that 3.8 million driving jobs could be displaced by the technology.
An important associated issue is immigration: many low-skilled immigrants are employed as drivers, as reported in industry publication Fleetowner.com (June 11, 2017), “Currently, of the 1.2 million motor carrier-employed U.S. truck drivers (operating Class 8 trucks) about 224,722 or 18.6% are immigrants, according to U.S. Census data for 2011-2015.”
So it makes no sense to continue high immigration levels when automation in driving and other fields will substantially lower the need for workers generally, and certainly the government should prioritize American jobs for citizens.
California is a convenient testing ground for Waymo because its headquarters are in Mountain View in Silicon Valley.
]]>Exclusive: Waymo applies for no-driver testing in California, San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 2018
Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, this week applied to test cars without drivers on California roads, The Chronicle has learned — even as a pair of recent crashes has heightened fears about the safety of autonomous vehicles.
Waymo confirmed Friday that it had submitted an application to the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test cars without a backup driver behind the wheel. So far, only two companies have applied for such permits, and the other company’s identity has not been publicly revealed.
According to a source familiar with the matter, Waymo plans to start testing near its Mountain View headquarters, an area where its fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans have already logged many miles with backup drivers. Over time, the company will expand testing of autonomous cars with no backup driver to more of the Bay Area, the source said.
Waymo’s approach will be to extensively map a terrain by having vehicles with test drivers cover it first, before using no-driver cars.
The move comes less than a month after a fatal accident involving a self-driving Uber SUV in Arizona raised fresh concerns about the safety of autonomous cars. That vehicle had a backup driver behind the wheel when it struck and killed a pedestrian on March 19, but dashcam videos showed the driver was not watching the road.
Days later, a Tesla Model X operating in Autopilot mode slammed into a concrete freeway divider near Mountain View, killing the driver. Although Autopilot, which requires the driver to pay attention, does not represent full self-driving technology, it is considered a major step in that direction.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik said that the Arizona tragedy would not have happened with a Waymo car.
“We have a lot of confidence that our technology would be robust and would be able to handle situations like that one,” Krafcik told a car dealers group the week after the accident.
There’s a certain poetic justice in Waymo being an early applicant for California’s no-driver car permits.
The company started testing autonomous vehicles in 2009, when the idea was considered as futuristic as personal jetpacks. It was the third company to receive a permit for road tests — with backup drivers behind the wheel — in California. Its cars have driven themselves some 5 million miles, 2 million of them in California.
Waymo’s success in getting cars to drive themselves has spurred major automakers, tech companies and startups to pursue the same goal in what is now a worldwide, multibillion-dollar race.
(Continues)
Below, Waymo self-driving cars from the Google [...]]]>
Below, Waymo self-driving cars from the Google company have clocked over five million miles on the road.
The story highlighted the rapid progress of the technology, but it neglected the social consequences of what happens when autonomous cars fully arrive with associated job loss. Driving is a common occupation for Americans, employing 3.8 million persons in this country.
Similarly, driving is a popular job for immigrants. A 2013 report from the Center for Immigration Studies, Are There Really Jobs Americans Won’t Do?, found that among taxi drivers and chauffeurs, 58 percent are native born, which means that 42 percent are foreign born.
A truck-industry website, Fleetowner.com, reported on Jun 11, 2017, “Currently, of the 1.2 million motor carrier-employed U.S. truck drivers (operating Class 8 trucks) about 224,722 or 18.6% are immigrants.”
Yes, there are self-driving semi trucks in the pipeline too.
Automation technology is only beginning to revolutionize the workplace. Oxford researchers forecast in 2013 that nearly half of American jobs were vulnerable to machine or software replacement within 20 years. Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi believes that in 30 years humans will become largely obsolete, and world joblessness will reach 50 percent. The Gartner tech advising company believes that one-third of jobs will be done by machines by 2025. The consultancy firm PwC published a report last year that forecast robots could take 38 percent of US jobs by 2030. Last November the McKinsey Global Institute reported that automation “could displace up to 800 million workers — 30 percent of the global workforce — by 2030.” Forrester Research estimates that robots and artificial intelligence could eliminate nearly 25 million jobs in the United States over the next decade, but it should create nearly 15 million positions, resulting in a loss of 10 million US jobs.
Given the staggering extent of future job loss, it’s crazy to continue immigration as if it were 1910 in America. We should just stop.
AUTOMATION MAKES IMMIGRATION OBSOLETE.
Here’s the Fox News report:
]]>BRYAN LLENAS: Whether it’s picking up customers in Las Vegas or delivering a pizza in Michigan or Miami, today driverless vehicles are being tested seemingly everywhere. In fact at least 40 cities in the US are testing autonomous vehicles or are committed to doing so. At Carnegie Mellon’s robotics lab, engineers have partnered with General Motors.
RAJ RAJKUMAR: We actually have radar behind the logo.
LLENAS: This 2011 Cadillac SRX drives autonomously but with a human test driver on board and along specific city routes. The ultimate goal is to create the world’s first fully autonomous vehicle that drives itself anywhere in any conditions.
RAJKUMAR: It’s going to take at least, my estimate, eight to ten years before we likely reach full automation.
LLENAS: And the race to be first is well underway. General Motors plans to launch self-driving robo-taxis with no steering wheels or pedals in US cities by 2019. GM is in a dead heat with self-driving company Waymo. Waymo’s driverless cars have driven over five million miles through two dozen cities. The Google offshoot will launch a ride-sharing service this year but there are new concerns about safety. Uber has suspended driverless car testing after its self-driving vehicle hit and killed a woman on March 18th in Tempe, Arizona. The company is now being accused of compromising safety in an effort to catch up with leading competitors like Waymo, an accusation it denies.
MICHAEL LAMB, PITTSBURGH CONTROLLER: Maybe now is the time to rethink about how how Uber works in the city and how it tests its vehicles here.
LLENAS: Michael Lamb is Pittsburgh city controller. Uber started testing its autonomous vehicles there in 2016. He admits his city hastily welcomed Uber under the handshake promise of a partnership which he says is one-sided.
LAMB: We’ve opened the city to them, allowed them to test their vehicles here. They’re out now collecting a lot of data. If Uber can monetize that data, shouldn’t the city benefit from that monetization?
LLENAS: Twenty-two states have enacted autonomous vehicle legislation so far, as government tries to catch up with an industry in the fast lane. Inclement weather poses a big hurdle for autonomous vehicles. Heavy rain for instance makes it difficult for car sensors to pick up objects. Still, RethinkX, an independent think tank, predicts by 2030, 95 percent of the miles traveled in the US will be in self-driving cars.
Below, the revolutionary General Motors self-driving car has no steering wheel or brake pedal, a design that depends on customers who are true believers in tech.
Automation in factories occurs behind closed doors, so the jobs lost weren’t visible to the citizenry. But taxi and uber drivers are out there in the public square, and people will notice, perhaps reasoning that sweeping change is coming to the workplace, economy and society.
As of 2012, the total number of US taxi drivers was 233,900, so the eventual job loss will be significant and will show how many driving jobs are at risk for automation displacement: the total number being over 3.5 million.
In addition, automation makes immigration obsolete and particularly so in the driving category where low-skilled foreigners congregate. In fact, a 2014 New York Times article, American-Born Cabbies Are a Vanishing Breed in New York, reported, “Today, only 8 percent of New York City taxi and for-hire drivers were born in the United States.”
Unfortunately, Washington is mostly asleep to the automation threat to jobs, but not entirely: Senator Tom Cotton has a clue and co-authored legislation to reduce immigration substantially.
Back to the news of the day: the New York Times observes that the California rules require a remote driver to be able to take over if necessary — a message that sounds like catnip for hackers.
]]>California scraps safety driver rules, gives green light to truly driverless cars, WRAL Tech Wire, February 27, 2018
by New York Times —
SAN FRANCISCO — California regulators have given the green light to truly driverless cars.
The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday that it is eliminating a requirement for autonomous vehicles to have a person in the driver’s seat to take over in the event of an emergency. The new rule goes into effect on April 2.
California has given 50 companies a license to test self-driving vehicles in the state. The new rules also require companies to be able to operate the vehicle remotely — a bit like a flying military drone — and communicate with law enforcement and other drivers when something goes wrong.
The changes signal a step toward the wider deployment of autonomous vehicles. One of the main economic benefits touted by proponents of driverless vehicles is that they will not be limited by human boundaries and can do things like operate 24 hours in a row without a drop-off in alertness or attentiveness. Taking the human out of the front seat is an important psychological and logistical step before truly driverless cars can hit the road.
“This is a major step forward for autonomous technology in California,” said Jean Shiomoto, director of California’s DMV. “Safety is our top concern and we are ready to begin working with manufacturers that are prepared to test fully driverless vehicles in California.”
[ . . . ]
California requires companies to report the number of “disengagements,” or instances when human drivers are forced to take over for the autonomous vehicle. Waymo had the fewest number of disengagements — based on a per mile basis — of all the companies testing cars on California roads.
Between Dec. 2016 and Nov. 2017, Waymo’s self-driving cars drove about 350,000 miles and human drivers intervened 63 times — or about 5,600 miles between every disengagement. Over the last few years, Waymo has made steady progress in reducing the instances where people need to retake the wheel.
Below, the interior of GM’s new self-driving car looks rather sparse without a steering wheel and brake pedal.
In fact, a recent poll showed substantial suspicion among the public about self-driving cars in general:
But the CBS article below hinted that consumers may not be the main target when it mentioned Cruise Automation, a San-Francisco start-up purchased by GM in 2016, referring to it in connection with a “service.” So perhaps GM is planning to set up an Uber-style ride-sharing company rather than aiming at the general public for sales. GM’s 2016 purchase of Lyft also aligns with that direction for its automated future.
Still, the important point is that GM’s automated car shows the destruction of human driving jobs is getting closer. As of 2012, the total number of US taxi drivers was 233,900, so the eventual job loss will be significant.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to continue immigration of low-skill foreigners when jobs for them are disappearing fast, and cabbie is a popular gig for such people. A 2014 New York Times American-Born Cabbies Are a Vanishing Breed in New York reported, “Today, only 8 percent of New York City taxi and for-hire drivers were born in the United States.”
Immigrants replaced citizens and now self-driving cars are about to replace the immigrants. So we shouldn’t import more immigrants who will soon be unemployable.
]]>GM is dropping the steering wheel in autonomous cars, CBS News, January 12, 2018
General Motors (GM) says it is mass-producing autonomous cars that give complete control to the machine by taking away both the steering wheel and pedals.
The company says it has filed a petition with the federal government seeking permission to put the vehicles on the road sometime next year with no human backup drivers.
GM’s Cruise Automation unit has announced plans to carry passengers in self-driving cars that won’t have a backup driver in 2019. The location of the service has not been revealed. GM and other companies have tested autonomous cars on the road, yet the vehicles typically have an engineer behind the wheel, reading to take over in case the need arises.
“What’s really special about this is if you look back 20 years from now, it’s the first car without a steering wheel and pedals,” Kyle Vogt, chief executive officer of Cruise Automation, told Bloomberg News. Cruise Automation is developing the software for GM’s self-driving cars.
(Continues)
Below, a self-driving car navigates a Pittsburgh bridge as part of its testing process.
A poll [...]]]>
Below, a self-driving car navigates a Pittsburgh bridge as part of its testing process.
A poll conducted by the insurance company AIG a couple months back found that three-quarters of the 1,000 respondents thought there was a danger from hackers, and favorability was pretty evenly split on sharing the road with self-driving vehicles, with 42 percent generally positive and 41 percent had reservations (Hacking Risk Is What Worries Americans Most About Driverless Cars, Bloomberg, October 3, 2017).
A survey from AAA released March 1, 2017, found a more basic negative response — fear: Three-Quarters of Americans “Afraid” to Ride in a Self-Driving Vehicle.
But not to worry! American advertising swung into action with a reassuring message about self-driving cars from hoops hero Lebron James, who went from doubt to acceptance in less than 30 seconds:
Remember that the whole enchilada of self-driving vehicles means huge job loss eventually, with 3.8 million Americans now working as drivers according to figures from the US Department of Commerce:
So America can end its outmoded program of importing foreigners via immigration to work cheap because the robots are cheaper than Mexicans, and even if some expressions of automation are viewed with suspicion by the public, in general the workplace revolution of machines replacing human workers is coming sooner than we think.
]]>Are we going too fast on driverless cars?, ScienceMag.com, December 14, 2017
The automakers and high-tech companies spending billions of dollars on developing self-driving cars and trucks tout the idea that autonomous vehicles (AVs) will help create a safer, cleaner, and more mobile society. Politicians aren’t far behind in their enthusiasm for the new technology.
“This is probably the biggest thing to hit the auto industry since the first car came off the assembly line,” Senator Gary Peters (D–MI) told a cheering audience of researchers and executives at a recent computing conference in Washington, D.C. “It will not only completely revolutionize the way we get around, but [AVs] also have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives each year.”
Such predictions, however, turn out to be based on surprisingly little research. While developers amass data on the sensors and algorithms that allow cars to drive themselves, research on the social, economic, and environmental effects of AVs is sparse. Truly autonomous driving is still decades away, according to most transportation experts. And because it’s hard to study something that doesn’t yet exist, the void has been filled by speculation—and starkly contrasting visions of the future. “The current conversation … falls into what I call the utopian and dystopian views,” says Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California (UC), Berkeley.
In the utopian view, she says, fleets of cheap, accessible AVs offer rides at the tap of a screen. Their ubiquity expands transportation options for everyone. Once AVs are commonplace, traffic accidents become a thing of the past, and enlightened government regulatory policies result in fewer traffic jams and parking problems, and less urban sprawl. Fleets of electric-powered AVs shrink fossil fuel consumption and reduce air pollution. Commutes become stress-free and more productive, as former drivers can now work, read, or knit while being whisked to their destinations.
In the dystopian view, driverless cars add to many of the world’s woes. Freed from driving, people rely more heavily on cars—increasing congestion, energy consumption, and pollution. A more productive commute induces people to move farther from their jobs, exacerbating urban sprawl. At the same time, unexpected software glitches lead to repeated recalls, triggering massive travel disruptions. Wealthier consumers buy their own AVs, eschewing fleet vehicles that come with annoying fellow commuters, dirty back seats, and logistical hassles. A new metric of inequality emerges as the world is divided into AV haves and have-nots.
A few scientists are examining these predictions—both the dire and the starryeyed. It’s too soon to definitively address some questions, such as the environmental impact of AVs, which will depend not just on the type of cars on the road, but also on how people will use them. Recent studies by researchers at two Department of Energy national laboratories, for example, have calculated that total energy consumption for transportation could drop by as much as 91%—or increase by 200%.
(Continues)
The current Waymo car is a Chrysler Pacifica teched out with self-driving sensors and computers.
Industry flacks promoting the technology like to tout the increased safety of self-driving cars — 37,461 people were killed on US roads in 2016, an increase of 5.6 percent over the 2015 total.
So if autonomous vehicles can make the highways less deadly, that would be a genuine improvement with all those lives being saved.
But the price is high. Driving is a major occupation in the United States with an estimated 3.5 million Americans employed as commercial drivers.
The map below shows the most common job per state in 2014, and truck driver is remarkable for its frequency.
So the approach of true self-driving vehicles is moving ever closer, which promises increased highway safety, but with substantial job loss.
And in the more automated future, it makes no sense for the government to continue to import immigrant workers from abroad.
]]>Waymo to take on Uber and Lyft with its fleet of self-driving minivans, CNBC, November 7, 2017
● Waymo said it plans to start a ride-hailing service with its fleet of driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.
● Although Waymo didn’t disclose when the service would launch, the first location will be Phoenix.
Waymo goes for driverless ride-sharing from CNBC.
Waymo, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is getting into the ride-hailing business, but with a twist. Sometime within the next few months Waymo will start offering the public rides in driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.
“The vehicles will be fully self-driving,” said Waymo CEO John Krafcik. “So you have your own personal space where you can sit back and relax.”
While Krafcik has yet to say exactly when Waymo’s ride-hailing service will launch, the first metropolitan area where people will be able to order a Waymo is Phoenix, he said. The public will use an app to catch a ride just as they do for Uber and Lyft.
Initially, those ride-hailing companies may hardly notice Waymo. After all, Waymo has a small fleet of minivans and is just starting up in one city at first. By comparison, Uber dominates the ride-hailing industry, while Lyft is a distant second, though quickly adding customers around the country.
Second Measure, which tracks the ride-hailing industry by analyzing credit card data, estimates Uber has a 70 percent share of the U.S. market, while Lyft has 25 percent and other smaller services make up the remaining 5 percent.
Still, Waymo’s corporate parent, Alphabet, has deep pockets and a strategy designed to leverage eight years of developing self-driving cars. While other tech firms, many automakers, some auto suppliers, as well as Uber and Lyft are also developing self-driving vehicles, Waymo is considered to be ahead of others when it comes to taking the driver out of car and having it operate safely on public roads. . .
Watch: Behind the scenes at Waymo
Behind the scenes at Waymo’s top-secret testing site from CNBC.