[cosmon0t]

A serious question here, and not trying to ruffle any SV'ers feathers, but why do you see autonomous vehicles to be as valuable as...say transistors, or satellites? In terms of long term usefulness for the 99% who care much more about turning up at work on time and/or transporting things efficiently from one place to another.

[jballanc]

My favorite explanation of why autonomous vehicles will be so game changing is this imagined future conversation:

[30 years in the future...]

My son: Wait...you mean to tell me that people used to operate multi-ton machines, with a minimum of training, in a range of different conditions, and relied solely on human reflexes and human attention span to avoid collisions?

Me: Yes

My son: And nobody was killed?!?

Me: Oh no! People died ALL THE TIME!

---

Look at any source you like, and it's as clear as day: the LEADING cause of death for individuals in their prime productive years (late teens through late 30s) is the automobile! If autonomous cars are even a fraction safer than human drivers, the impact it will have on demographics and population productivity will be MASSIVE.

[perl4ever]

"the LEADING cause of death for individuals in their prime productive years"

No matter how unlikely it is to die in your prime, something will be the leading cause. Since it is very unlikely to die in your prime in modern first world countries, why focus on that? Are we going to go on a crusade to eliminate bathtubs next? I may be biased, because I'm now too old to die young...

[icebraining]

Not eliminate them, the focus is on improving them, and yeah, we should definitively improve bathtubs so people die less in them.

[lostlogin]

I’m glad this logic wasn’t applied to planes.

[perl4ever]

You are thinking of scheduled flights. But general aviation is 80 times more dangerous. So we have refrained from applying an extreme safety culture to all flying. Obviously because there is a trade-off between people being able to do it and safety.

[hgdsraj]

Autonomous vehicles could optimize routes and driving to get things to places faster, reduce stress while driving, and create safer roads. If the tech was widespread enough, there could be autonomous lanes that can drive at very fast speeds too.