[matthewmacleod]

I'm a little bit confused about why there's such a negative reaction to this on HN - it seems like a pretty reasonable statement to make, no? Sure, I don't think there's any firm idea of when 'robotic' drivers will overtake humans in terms of safety. But it does seem pretty clear that it will eventually happen.

Self-driving cars have a few massive potential advantages relative to humans, such as faster reaction times, no distractions, the ability to directly communicate car-to-car, and so on. It certainly seems likely that those advantages will far outweigh the adaptability of humans – after all, aren't most accidents caused by distraction, driving too fast for the conditions and the like?

[drzaiusapelord]

Because HN'ers are results based people in general and the results on autonomous cars are currently terrible. Still no solution to driving in the snow, heavy rain, and other poor visibility conditions. Still no solution to weirdo edge cases like a madman running up to your car with a bat (I used to live in a poor neighborood and had this happen once and accelerated away. My dumb smartcar would have stopped to avoid hitting him and let me be victimized).

Personally, I'd rather take my chances with the occasional drunk than worry about Google's bugs killing me because some H1B engineer with 4 hours of sleep was forced to write some really junky code that didn't understand some edge case. I look at what Google is able to do practically like Android and am not impressed. Even the best code quality for automation, for example NASA's work on rovers, is wrong occasionally and those things move at a snail's pace with almost nothing around them! The state of AI itself is in shambles. Its healthy to be skeptical of extraordinary claims like Musk's. We just aren't there yet and may never get there considering the fuzzy logic that driving requires.

Not to mention the anti-progressive thinking that better cars are the solution to our transportation woes and refusing to accept that we will reach a post-car age in urban centers sooner than later. This is like building a better horse drawn carriage. Sure its technically impressive, but its just not the real solution here.

[matthewmacleod]

the results on autonomous cars are currently terrible

Sure, they're not there yet. But in 20 years they'll probably be much better. Might not happen, but it does seem pretty likely that technology will continue improving.

Still no solution to weirdo edge cases

So that might be one of things that are traded off against the benefits. How often does a car get attacked by a baseball-bat-weilding maniac? Is that risk worth ignoring the improvement in safety? Are there other solutions to the problem?

Not to mention the anti-progressive thinking

I can't agree with this. It's something common to hear from green-leaning movements around the world – that the car should be retired altogether in favour of public transport.

That's true to some extent, but public transport (and it's excellent in many cities around the world) can't completely replace individual vehicles. Regardless of how much it improves, it does not offer point-to-point connections, or the ability to transport goods, for example.

In any case, what would be the difference between a city centre populated by electric vehicles (let's say owned by Uber or Tesla or some other company) and one populated by public transport - simply the efficiency? It might be better to think of a city full of electronic cars as being the first implementation of something like personal rapid transport.

[drzaiusapelord]

> But in 20 years they'll probably be much better.

Historically when people play the "wait, in 20 years it'll be here" they're universally wrong. According to futurists from the 1990s we'd have the immortality pill, jet packs, Mars colonies, cancer cure, diabetes cure, extinct animal revival, etc by now.

In 2035 Musk will be at retirement age, so why is he selling us on this concept now? Obviously, these guys want to push a product out soon and that product is flawed and not remotely ready for, say, Chicago traffic. I'm sure its wonderful on the Google campus, but that's not my world.

I think Musk, being a business man, has an agenda here. Its to keep Tesla's largely failed experiment in electric cars going via hype and promises. Everything he says exists to raise the value of his company. The same way he ironically badmouthed "strong" AI recently to discredit robotic space mission funding that would challenge the manned launches SpaceX plans to profit from.

I think its funny that Musk flip-flops on AI so easily. Good in cars, bad in space, when in reality the opposite is true. I think the more extremist Musk gets in the pressm the more we're seeing problems at Tesla and his other companies. Take at look a TSLA stock from a 1 year perspective, not to mention their $108m losses this past quarter and $300m loss in the past year. Things have been very bad there. Musk is just trying to keep it alive via hype and showmanship.

Tesla is really starting to feel like Segway. Musk, for all his merits, is probably best as a space guy and should stick to that. Space needs big thinkers and big disruptors. This is a field where we need good AI and a cost cutting approach, not cars. Focusing on making the best car, in this day and age, is like focusing on making the best horse and buggy 100 years ago. Shame he is wasting so much talent and capital on this quixotic endeavor, especially considering Detroit and Tokyo have their own affordable electrics, if anyone is interested in buying them in the age of the BRICS nations demanding less oil and the price of oil falling to historic lows.

[forgottenpass]

I'm a little bit confused about why there's such a negative reaction to this on HN - it seems like a pretty reasonable statement to make, no?

"Too dangerous" is sophistry that is rightly derided when used for unquantified fear-mongering elsewhere and this is barely different.

I can't wait for the future where I don't have to drive, and safer is an attractive selling point too. But there is a level of risk associated with road travel, a level society has largely deemed acceptable (otherwise speed limits would be lower). Musk putting this in his cross-hairs is a disappointing choice of sales tactic.

[matthewmacleod]

I don't think I agree with this.

Road traffic accidents are something like the 10th most common cause of death worldwide. It's clearly a rather dangerous activity.

The idea that we have 'deemed acceptable' the risk involved is only the case where the risk cannot be lowered without compromising other goals (e.g. fast travel).

In a hypothetical future where autonomous cars are widespread and much safer, the tradeoff changes – it suddenly becomes possible to have both fast and safe travel, with the proviso that humans can't be in change cars.

I'm not going to argue that this is a good thing, because I don't know. But it's not fair to say that it's fear-mongering – it's objectively true that cars kill loads of people, and quite possible that non-autonomous vehicles will be banned or at least heavily regulated in the future.

[closetnerd]

> Road traffic accidents are something like the 10th most common cause of death worldwide. It's clearly a rather dangerous activity.

I just want to note here that if you look at the same statistics in countries that have implemented better driver training programs, its clear that there is still leaps and bounds of efforts we can take to address the concerns of safety without outlawing the practice completely.

[manicdee]

Lower speed limits will not reduce the number of deaths, unless all traffic is reduced to 40km/h or less.

Inattentive drivers, confusing road signage, insufficient separation of pedestrians and cars, drivers not following established rules and guidelines: these are the contributing factors which can be addressed to reduce road fatalities with greater reduction of fatalities than simply reducing speed limits.

Autonomous cars won't speed for thrills, they won't cut lanes or run red lights. They will be far safer, if more annoying, than most drivers: just like the more conservative human drivers we already have.

[cheatsheet]

The only thing I am concerned with is how secure / exploitable they are from a computer security perspective. I assume there will be some kind of link between the vehicular peripherals to vehicle control and configuration. Then I worry about who is actually controlling the car. I'm open to AI driven cars with redundant intelligent networks, but people are smart too, and some people are not nice people. How do you know that the entire system is functioning as expected? I'm pretty sure that's NP hard.

[undersuit]

> people are smart too, and some people are not nice people.

What did you do to these people? Because there are two reasons these people aren't going to be nice to you: you offended them, or you're a random target of violence that we already experience, but now it takes the form of a homicidal self driving car instead of a boy in a movie theater with automatic weapons.

Are you advocating we stop pursuing self driving cars just because security is an open ended problem?

[cheatsheet]

I expressed my own personal concern.

This conversation will not be about equivocating one tragedy to another. That is a red herring.

[matthewmacleod]

Definitely a concern, but I'm not sure what can be done about that – except for "let's develop the technology so that can't happen", even though that seems unlikely.

[closetnerd]

I think the reason you're confused is because you're under the impression that people are arguing against the very obvious practical benefits of having only self driving cars: congestion, safety, etc. This is obvious to everyone.

However, there are other human concerns. I personally enjoy driving. I often go on drives where I'm simply exploring, not knowing which turn I might take next. It's my personal belief that driving is not just my privilege, but my right. If you want a self driving car, you're well within your rights to do as I am to drive my self.

Moreover, there's a huge scope of privacy issues and increased amount of control being put in the government. I am one of those individuals who is inherently distrusting of government policies that can restrict us under the guise of safety, etc.

[matthewmacleod]

However, there are other human concerns. I personally enjoy driving. I often go on drives where I'm simply exploring, not knowing which turn I might take next. It's my personal belief that driving is not just my privilege, but my right. If you want a self driving car, you're well within your rights to do as I am to drive my self.

That's an interesting concern – I suppose we end up, like with most issues of public policy, trying to draw a balance. I imagine it's much like gun control: while most gun owners are going to be responsible, that damage that can be caused by those who aren't means that many jurisdictions prefer to restrict firearm ownership.

Moreover, there's a huge scope of privacy issues and increased amount of control being put in the government. I am one of those individuals who is inherently distrusting of government policies that can restrict us under the guise of safety, etc.

Sure, and there's good reason for that. The privacy issue is orthogonal and must be set to one side (though it's legitimate).

How would you feel about a move to regulate non-autonomous vehicle ownership more closely? Driver licensing could become much more rigorous, for example. Combined with the essential outlawing of non-autonomous vehicles in urban centres (almost inevitable in the long run), that would ideally assuage most safety concerns while still allowing people the freedom to drive.

[closetnerd]

> How would you feel about a move to regulate non-autonomous vehicle ownership more closely? Driver licensing could become much more rigorous, for example.

I'm very much in favor of a far more thorough practical driver training programs before being licensed. The issue is less with people not knowing their theory as apposed to not being capable drivers. I think we should model our own driving training programs closer to Finland's for example.

In California, at least, the training, the theory, the test itself is a complete joke. It's the definitive example of bureaucratic incompetence.

However, I'm not in favor of a rigorous licensing program which simply aims to dissuade one from obtaining a license because of various background checks, fingerprinting, paper work, and encyclopedic knowledge of vague and obscure laws.

> Combined with the essential outlawing of non-autonomous vehicles in urban centres (almost inevitable in the long run), that would ideally assuage most safety concerns while still allowing people the freedom to drive.

I'm extremely skeptical and, on the whole, against this. This is exactly where lawmakers would find gray enough lines to outlaw humans drivers from the majority of road networks from laws that give the impression that only a handful of metropolitan cities would initially be effected.

[panglott]

The right to travel is a very ancient right, from a time when people only walked, rode horses, or used draft animals to travel. The introduction of mechanical vehicles in the late 19th century changed things.

Especially, motor vehicles are so uniquely hazardous to their operators, passengers, and bystanders than operating them quickly became a privilege, not a right. http://www.bicyclelaw.com/road-rights/a.cfm/road-rights-cycl...

[closetnerd]

I did say that "my personal belief" is that it is my right?

Not sure what your point is since I'm not going to disagree that from the perspective of the law it is not my right.

[fricken4]

Mobility should be a right, driving shouldn't be a right. If someone is too old, too young, too poor, disabled, or otherwise unable to drive, and unfortunate enough to live in a car dependent area (as most inhabited areas are) then their rights are being infringed upon by your driving and others. For most of those who are victims of vehicle accidents- which number in the millions annually- what about their rights? Most of them did not cause the accident- they were passengers, other drivers, cyclists, pedestrians etc.

[dagw]

I can't see a ban coming anytime soon, but I can see self-driving cars only roads. If you really want to/have to drive yourself feel free to take the 40-50 mph speed limit side roads. Or you can take engage the auto-drive and hop onto the speed limit free express way.