Public Skeptical of Self-Driving Cars Despite Race to Perfect Technology

[CarpalMac]

I'm definitely in the majority group. I loooooooove cars and loooooooove driving. Autonomous cars probably appeal more to those who view cars as an appliance and driving as a chore.

Me too, as you may guess! Whilst what you say is sure to apply to some people, it would definitely appeal to me to.

Scenario is that there is a long drive that I do very regularly, hundreds of miles long, and to use a plane/train would be a logistical ball ache. I would dearly love to be able to hand over control of my vehicle to a trusted computer so it can do some of the longer, duller parts of this drive for me. Maybe whilst I have a nap.

That would be awesome, though I am not sure it'll ever be fully developed enough in my lifetime to ever be fully trusted.

 

[djcerla]

A friend of mine went from Italy to Ibiza by car (a 12 hours trip, plus ferry boat), because he's scared of flying, increasing his risk of death by 1.000.000%.

Public perception and logic are very, very far from each other, sometimes.

 

[Toutou]

The more you know about IT and computers, the less you trust them.

And one more thing - I live in a fully-civilized first-world european country, in a tiny little village with 20 inhabitants and I can't even imagine a self driving car capable of driving me home from the nearest town (20 thousand inhabitants, 6 kilometres) on a snowy January night, without an accident. The road is slippery and not always level, there are twists and turns, deers, no road marking of any kind.

I study in Prague, our famous and beautiful capital city. No way a self driving car can get anywhere during the rush hour. This isn't USA, there are no wide boulevards and six lane streets, everything is narrow and complicated and even a skilled human driver makes mistakes here and has to change lanes at the last moment or make a U-turn, blocking a tram that came out of nowhere.

Self driving cars aren't ready for this. And won't be for a long time.

 

[Christoffee]

My mother-in-law: "I hate modern technology."

Except her smart TV, and Plex, and her iPhone camera, and email to share photos, and iMessage, and Facetime, and the air-conditioning in the car, and planes that take her on holiday, and her cataract operation that means she isn't blind and no longer needs glasses...

 

[_Refurbished_]

I really get the feeling our grandchildren will be bewildered at the thought that everybody used to drive their own cars.

Computers and technology grow exponentially. We just don't really notice it as we're living through the curve.

Of course they will. We sound like a bunch of old geezers in 2016. Our kids will laugh at us.

The publics opinion on technology is irrelevant. One day you won't even have the option to buy a car that you can drive yourself, as it will be illegal to drive a car.

Crazy in today's world? Yes. But as others have mentioned, there was a larger cultural shift from horses to cars....look how that turned out.

 

[jayducharme]

I can't wait for the day to come when all cars will be automated. This past week, I turned in my leased car and gave up driving, opting instead for public transportation. The roads are simply getting too dangerous. I used to enjoy driving. But now I spend all my time watching out for inattentive drivers who are running stoplights and stop signs, texting, talking on the phone, eating food. It's as if people think their playing GTA. They don't seem to realize they're inside a potentially deadly weapon.

The main problem with autonomous cars at this point is that a few of them won't matter. They'll still get hit by those inattentive drivers. When every car on the road is autonomous, the roads will become infinitely safer and going for a drive will once again be enjoyable.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

I would never buy an autonomous vehicle.

1. I like driving.
2. Autonomous vehicles don't go off-road.

 

[saudade]

I want 2 drive my car 2 impress my gurlz with speed u know. My carro was modified cause i like fast n furioso style lol. A machine won't drive my car thats not 4 man papi y q pasa if u want to horn females on la calle? Do yo ask siri or what? They all'll make jokes of my en el barrio so nono 2 thiz

 

[Juicy Box]

Don't forget the "driver sacrifice problem". Human decision making, no matter how flawed, has a cachet that machine decisions do not.

I doubt an autonomous car would be doing that. But would have a trigger for different condition changes such as a proximity sensor trigger or light sensor. They would be more likely to keep over the recommended distance from the car in front. They might even predict a potential collision based on sound/vibrations from the ground in the event another vehicle is travelling very fast from a certain direction. If they become a public service, they might even access roadside cameras to know instantly of who's coming from where and how fast.

Public wary of airplanes being flown by pilots, demand that autopilots be returned to the sky.
The following generalizations may help those that are designing the autopilots for cars

People: Alert 80% of the time
Computers: Alert 100% of the time

People: Can predict what other people do, and when they're wrong, can adjust with varying degrees of skill
Computers: Can guess, and when they're wrong, and the programmer hasn't thought of a situation, the passengers are screwed

People: Care about tomorrow, and take steps to be sure they're there
Computers: Don't have the capacity to care, or know the implications of not being there

People: Get drunk, fall asleep, have fights with their spouse, kids, boss while driving
Computers: Well, we don't know what they do between clock cycles, now do we? But we assume that they just wait for the next instruction (I do have my doubts about the soberness of my work PC sometimes...)

Interesting posts.

I think overall autonomous, or self driving cars would be more safe than traditional driving. I find the tech really interesting and it is a kind of bittersweet thought of having autonomous vehicles. I love driving, but love the tech.

But, there is always the computers' logical way of processing information, that could be a problem. I like to think of the scene of iRobot, where the robot chooses to save the man instead of the little girl due to a higher probability of the man surviving.

Think of it this way: A vehicle driving down the road, with an on coming car in the other lane. A child runs across the street. The vehicle is incapable of stopping in time. The driver's choice is to hit the relatively still object in the road, or the high speed object coming towards the driver's vehicle.

Most humans would try to avoid the child, even if it meant they hit an on coming car. This is almost like a reflex, or instinctual, not really a pros and cons decision.

A computer might logically think that hitting a relatively still object (a child) is ideal vs hitting a on coming car.

This type of scenario could be redone in many different ways, but if a computer processes the data logically, the outcome would probably always be the same.

 

[bitslap47]

It is not like fully self-driving car won't have accident at all.

If the car is controlled by a program, it will alway has bugs will cause accident. You will never get software without any bugs. Therefore, human take over should be an option with self-driving car.

I thought maybe you would go for the "those cars will use the same battery as the Samsung Phone and need to be recalled because Ford uses the same supplier" argument.

 

[BvizioN]

Public is absolutely ignorant and stupid to things that are new to them. People with vision are unfortunately rare.

 

[gnipgnop]

The AI isn't even close to being as good as an experienced human driver, so I think the actual benefit currently is fairly limited. So what are autonomous companies going to be be doing in the mean time? Asking the government to make rule changes and infrastructure changes to help their autonomous vehicles work better in the real world. They know that they're not really good enough, so they need help from the government to "disrupt".

 

[69Mustang]

Me too, as you may guess! Whilst what you say is sure to apply to some people, it would definitely appeal to me to.

Scenario is that there is a long drive that I do very regularly, hundreds of miles long, and to use a plane/train would be a logistical ball ache. I would dearly love to be able to hand over control of my vehicle to a trusted computer so it can do some of the longer, duller parts of this drive for me. Maybe whilst I have a nap.

That would be awesome, though I am not sure it'll ever be fully developed enough in my lifetime to ever be fully trusted.

I'm lucky. I only go into the office 1 day a week now. Even better, I only show up at 11:30 so I completely miss rush hour (which is actually hours and hours and hours: suburban Atlanta). I definitely get it though. Going to events where traffic is going to be an issue? Public trans all the way. That's where I think autonomous driving will get it's biggest push.

Switching gears <-- see what I did there? The biggest impediment to autonomous driving isn't the cars, the tech, or people for that matter. It's infrastructure. The majority of roads and bridges are crappy. City, state, and federal money doesn't really go in that direction be cause it's not headline grabbing enough. The streets need to be fixed properly for the autocars to safely navigate. That will require government intervention so I see full auto coming around the year 2250 or so.

 

[Gasu E.]

People want to be in control. Being not in control of something is daunting at times.

A good reason to avoid planes, trains and buses.

 

[wiimixer]

What happens if a pedestrian steps out in front of a self-driving car??

Oh, it stops automatically??

Great, no more standing around on the kerb waiting for an opportunity to walk across the road. Just step out whenever you choose!

Hope they give the 'driver' a horn to honk at least

Despite accelerating hype surrounding the possibility of self-driving and fully autonomous vehicles in the near future, most Americans would rather drive themselves.

That's according to the results of a new study published today that aimed to assess public opinion on the subject. The survey commissioned by Kelley Blue Book showed that out of 2,264 U.S. residents polled, 64 percent said they need to be in control of their own vehicle and 62 percent said they enjoy driving.

The results also revealed that 80 percent of participants believed people should always have the option to drive themselves, while a third of respondents said they would never buy a fully autonomous car.

When asked if they would live to see a world in which all vehicles are fully autonomous, 62 percent of respondents answered no. Baby boomers were the most resistant to the idea (72 percent), followed by Gen X (64 percent) and millennials (60 percent). Gen Z (ages 12-15) respondents were the most optimistic about a future of cars with no drivers, with only 33 percent believing such a scenario unlikely.

"This shows that while many of us have been reading a lot about progress being made on self-driving cars of late, to most people it's still like a flying car, something out of The Jetsons," said Kelley Blue Book senior analyst Karl Brauer. "But we also learned that while it's hard to get people on board, any level of exposure changes perceptions quickly."

The poll showed that most people aren't familiar with the term "autonomous vehicle" - one with no steering wheel or pedals, and no way for a human to intervene - and are wary of such technology. Meanwhile, just over half of respondents preferred to have full control of their vehicle, even if that made roads less safe overall, while 49 percent said they would be willing to cede some control to a computer if that meant having a safer roadway.

The poll results will be seen as a challenge for companies hedging their bets on an emerging market for self-driving vehicles. Ford, BMW, and Volvo aim to offer autonomous cars for sale within the next five years. Google and Uber are actively researching the area, while Lyft recently claimed that private vehicle ownership would be phased out in major cities by 2025, largely because of self-driving vehicles.

Although Apple's vehicle plans seem to be in flux, the company does have hundreds of employees working on a car project. Following Bob Mansfield's takeover of the car initiative earlier this year, Apple is said to have laid off dozens of employees as part of a "reboot" that will see focus shifting towards the development of an autonomous vehicle system.

Article Link: Public Skeptical of Self-Driving Cars Despite Race to Perfect Technology

 

[theluggage]

A friend of mine went from Italy to Ibiza by car (a 12 hours trip, plus ferry boat), because he's scared of flying, increasing his risk of death by 1.000.000%.

...and maybe had an interesting and pleasant trip, taking in the sights along the way and enjoyed a nice, relaxing lunch at a restaurant, rather than spending the first and last days of his holiday hanging around airports, getting groped by security staff, standing in queues, unexplained delays and being crammed into cattle-class seats for an hour or two with no view unless you score a window seat: unpleasant enough even if you're not scared of flying.

Meanwhile: talking about % changes on small risks is classic scare tactics (as in: eating chocolate doubles your risk of Mongolian hopping disease).

As for the self-driving issue: stand and watch a busy road interchange somewhen. The truth is that humans are actually pretty bloody good at steering a ton of metal at 70mph while spotting and avoiding threats. All that swinging through the trees and throwing turds at rival packs back in prehistory equipped us primates with binocular vision, sharp reactions and good spatial ability. We don't easily mistake the setting sun for a red traffic light or the side of a white truck as open space. (Has anybody tried the old Loony Tunes 'painting a tunnel entrance on a wall' gag on a Tesla yet?)

What humans are likely to be absolutely useless at is staying attentive while using fallible self-driving, ready to take over if the computer has a Wile-e-Coyote moment. That (note to Mr Musk) is a job for test drivers.

Full self-driving, that can cope with the unexpected, is asking a lot of technology - and I think it will take a long time to go from effective demos of self-driving in restricted conditions (e.g. freeway cruise-control-deluxe or automatic parallel parking) to removing the steering wheel.

I'm sure that, eventually, full self-drive will be available and significantly safer than humans, although it may need changes to infrastructure (e.g. transponders on traffic lights, other cars, re-design of some junctions, buried cables) and probably a ban on manual driving (which throws an unpredictable element into self-driving).

Also, make no mistake, one source of improved safety will be that self-driving cars will anally follow the rules of the road: manufacturers will probably have to take liability for accidents (or stick to strict standards if they want their cars to be insurable) - so don't expect your autonomous car to take a calculated risk pulling out of that blind junction that you can't get out of without taking a calculated risk, ignore that stupid 20mph speed limit that everybody ignores, or drive you to the hospital before you've refilled your windscreen washer.

 

[EdT]

I would never buy an autonomous vehicle.

1. I like driving.
2. Autonomous vehicles don't go off-road.

I think you should take #2 as a personal challenge. Find a way to make it try.

 

[doelcm82]

Think of it this way: A vehicle driving down the road, with an on coming car in the other lane. A child runs across the street. The vehicle is incapable of stopping in time. The driver's choice is to hit the relatively still object in the road, or the high speed object coming towards the driver's vehicle.

Most humans would try to avoid the child, even if it meant they hit an on coming car. This is almost like a reflex, or instinctual, not really a pros and cons decision.

A computer might logically think that hitting a relatively still object (a child) is ideal vs hitting a on coming car.

Agreed. A human might kill a carload of children in the oncoming vehicle rather than hitting a single child in the street.

 

[Gasu E.]

Don't forget the "driver sacrifice problem". Human decision making, no matter how flawed, has a cachet that machine decisions do not.

The driver sacrifice problem is so over-rated. People posit such hypotheticals, which happen once every ten years if ever. These are unlikely scenarios that are totally dominated by the overall cost or benefit of the mainstream cases.

 

[djcerla]

...and maybe had an interesting and pleasant trip, taking in the sights along the way and enjoyed a nice, relaxing lunch at a restaurant, rather than spending the first and last days of his holiday hanging around airports, getting groped by security staff, standing in queues, unexplained delays and being crammed into cattle-class seats for an hour or two with no view unless you score a window seat: unpleasant enough even if you're not scared of flying.

That wasn't the case. He traveled alone, had to fight with himself not to fall asleep because he wanted to reach his friends in Ibiza as soon as possible, and had sandwiches. The trip costed about 4x compared to the flight.

I'm all for car trips myself (if I have gigs in Austria or Southern Germany I prefer to go by car for example), but his decision was 100% due to his scare to fly, despite the obvious drawbacks. I personally know at least 3 other guys with the same "problem".

Meanwhile: talking about % changes on small risks is classic scare tactics (as in: eating chocolate doubles your risk of Mongolian hopping disease).

Mongolian hopping disease doesn't kill millions of real people each year like monkey-operated cars.

 

[Juicy Box]

Agreed. A human might kill a carload of children in the oncoming vehicle rather than hitting a single child in the street.

This is also true.

But hitting a car with seat belts, air bags, and two huge chunks of metal in between the passengers would probably be better than hitting a little kid with no protection what so ever.

Again, I am not saying one scenario is better than the other, or that humans would be safer than computers, actually I said the opposite earlier.

I am just saying that there is a positive human element to driving that can't be replace. At least not yet.

 

[doelcm82]

Full self-driving, that can cope with the unexpected, is asking a lot of technology - and I think it will take a long time to go from effective demos of self-driving in restricted conditions (e.g. freeway cruise-control-deluxe or automatic parallel parking) to removing the steering wheel.

The future will take care of itself. I'm skeptical of claims that most cars will be self-driving by year x, but on the other hand, I've seen products replaced seemingly overnight. Vinyl to CD, CRT to flat-screen. This is different, but only in the way that everything is different.

 

[Gasu E.]

This is also true.

But hitting a car with seat belts, air bags, and two huge chunks of metal in between the passengers would probably be better than hitting a little kid with no protection what so ever.

Again, I am not saying one scenario is better than the other, or that humans would be safer than computers, actually I said the opposite earlier.

I am just saying that there is a positive human element to driving that can't be replace. At least not yet.

Computers will get better, and probably will improve quite rapidly given the attention to this matter. I have less confidence in the rate of human evolution. The limited evidence available suggest humans and machines are about equal now, statistically, in the likelihood of a mistake leading to a fatality. Five years from now? The smart money is on machines being much, much better.

Personally, I would not buy a fully autonomous vehicle in 2016, were such a thing available. In 2021, I expect the opposite.

 

[musika]

It is not like fully self-driving car won't have accident at all.

If the car is controlled by a program, it will alway has bugs will cause accident. You will never get software without any bugs. Therefore, human take over should be an option with self-driving car.

You're right, but I highly doubt that it will hold a candle to the 1.3 million deaths and additional 20-50 million injuries + disabilities caused every single year on our planet by human-driven automobiles.

 

[walnuts]

First: the study is a bit flawed in asking about a technology that hasn't been developed yet. If there was a survey in 2005 that asked if you would buy a cell phone with only one button, what do you think the response would have been?

Second, there isn't going to be a sudden either you drive it or the computer drives it moment. It's gonna be more like "would you like to sit in traffic, or would you like the computer to take over for that annoying part"? That's a better question for such a survey.

I also think that if we ever move towards a society where automated cars are mandated, it would be location based. You might need to cede control to the computer if you enter an urban area where throughout is key, but the nicer country roads that everybody thinks about when they say they like to drive will be left to be optionally driven by humans.