The future is here baby. Total recall johnny cab please
"The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed."
- William Gibson
The future is here baby. Total recall johnny cab please
It will completely change our culture. It's going to have the biggest impact on our lives since the introduction of the cell phone. There is a crazy amount of stuff that's going to change in the next 20 years, due to self driving vehicles. Here's a few, but I could go on for hours...
Want a new iPhone? Send your car to the Apple Store and they will drop it off in the car. On the way home, bring back pizza for the family. Oh, we needed more toilet paper, I'll make sure to send the car to Costco on the way back to pick some up. No delivery fees, no waiting = endless possibilities.
I live in California and my best friend lives in Utah. Sleep in my car bed and wake up in Utah.
I can go on and on with this one...
It will completely change our culture. It's going to have the biggest impact on our lives since the introduction of the cell phone. There is a crazy amount of stuff that's going to change in the next 20 years, due to self driving vehicles. Here's a few, but I could go on for hours...
Want a new iPhone? Send your car to the Apple Store and they will drop it off in the car. On the way home, bring back pizza for the family. Oh, we needed more toilet paper, I'll make sure to send the car to Costco on the way back to pick some up. No delivery fees, no waiting = endless possibilities.
I live in California and my best friend lives in Utah. Sleep in my car bed and wake up in Utah.
I can go on and on with this one...
I'm not so sure about that. I'm mostly thinking about situations that today can only be resolved by communicating with other drivers (things like waving a hand, eye contact, or a construction worker holding up a hand). I don't see how an autonomous vehicle would fit into that picture today. As long as not all cars are automated and connected (and traffic rules adapted accordingly), I think there will always be situations where human intervention is needed.Anything that you can list under the heading "things as simple as" will probably be addressed early in the evolution of automated driving.
Yes.It will be the unusual situations (which also confused human drivers) that give automated drivers and their passengers problems.
If I was not clear, let me be so now. My point was larger than UBER. I was not specifically calling UBER out, but automation in general. From that standpoint, as you automate and replace previous Human jobs with machines, those Humans need to find jobs. As you state, they can go into customer service or maintenance or something else. The biggest problem here is that Automation is currently taking the middle out and people end up having to move up or down. In you examples, those are typically part time, low wage, and low benefit jobs. Some of the displaced may be able to retrain and get better jobs, but that is not the majority.Whenever something new threatens take on a duty currently filled by a human, some folks immeditaly think society will crumble. I think that's way too narrow a view on the change. So a computer drives the car and thus a human is out of a job, right? I think not exactly. This new technology will create new jobs, some of which will require humans. You mentioned that these new automonus cars will be better maintained than current cars. Someone, likey humans in some capactiy, will have to build them, test them, and maintain them. If this technology allows uber to transport 100x more people, will they need more customer service folks to handle the increase in customer issues? Will they need a team of rescue vehicles if a self driving car breaks down? If uber has 100 cars running around a city (because their abilty to scale is no longer limited to human driver availibility), that's a lot of oil changes, brake jobs, and vomit clean up. So the humans may not be replaced, but moved to another function.
As far as having no driver = no more social skills - I dont buy that either. When I'm in an uber, I'm often not alone. I'm often tipsy from a 3 mimosa brunch with friends. Or what about a person who can't drive who's abilty to get around town depends on a taxi service. Most of our new tech is built around human interaction. Think about it. Sure it's differnt, but that doesnt mean it's worse.
Über's goal is to make money for themselves. If they can make more by putting their drivers out of work they will happily do it.
Love the ideas. To build on that, I think you would have some businesses start to offer this as a service for free to grow business. You get a notification on an app or home automation system to tell you the delivery has arrived and to go out front to pick it up.
That's awesome! I haven't yet thought about all of the implications for people with disabilities. Automated driving will truly be life changing for so many people.Mo' Money! so yes.
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I have a friend that is legally blind and loosing what eyesight is left very quickly that is very excited about self driving cars.
Not to mention how many lives will be saved everyday as driving algorithms improve. Less traffic and fewer collisions.It will completely change our culture. It's going to have the biggest impact on our lives since the introduction of the cell phone. There is a crazy amount of stuff that's going to change in the next 20 years, due to self driving vehicles. Here's a few examples, but I could go on for hours...
Want a new iPhone? Send your car to the Apple Store and they will drop it off in the car. On the way home, bring back pizza for the family. Oh, we needed more toilet paper, I'll make sure to send the car to Costco on the way back to pick some up. No delivery fees, no waiting = endless possibilities.
I live in California and my best friend lives in Utah. Sleep in my car bed and wake up in Utah.
I can go on and on with this one...
The constant push for automation is great to a point. Having a fleet of driverless cars that pick people up and drop them off seems like a cool idea. Aside from the actual driving part, these cars will need to be calibrated and maintained to make sure no accidents occur which likely means they will be in better shape than a lot of taxis and cars I get into today. The problem of automation however is a social problem. As we have the internet, the video games, self check out and now driverless cars (to mention but a few obvious ones), we end up with two major social issues. First is the loss of human contact. We spend much less time with others than ever before and that has an impact on culture. The second is the jobs being replaced by automation are the lower income, lower skilled jobs. This creates a huge problem in terms of poverty and inequities that is already stirring up a lot of anxiety and is clearly visible in this election year. As someone that works in technology, I am certainly not against it and totally look forward to being able to hail a driverless car (never Uber, but maybe Lyft or a taxi). I just hope we can address the social issues along the way, because from my perspective technology is way out and the social considerations are being left in the dust.
Not to mention how many lives will be saved everyday as driving algorithms improve. Less traffic and fewer collisions.
It will completely change our culture. It's going to have the biggest impact on our lives since the introduction of the cell phone. There is a crazy amount of stuff that's going to change in the next 20 years, due to self driving vehicles. Here's a few examples, but I could go on for hours...
Want a new iPhone? Send your car to the Apple Store and they will drop it off in the car. On the way home, bring back pizza for the family. Oh, we needed more toilet paper, I'll make sure to send the car to Costco on the way back to pick some up. No delivery fees, no waiting = endless possibilities.
I live in California and my best friend lives in Utah. Sleep in my car bed and wake up in Utah.
I can go on and on with this one...
This is still a testing phase. That's why it's only rolling out in one city right now too.I love that these 'driverless ' cars will have two people in rather than a usual taxi with just the one.
It takes two people to enable one person to not do the driving.....
People seem to forget how much technology is in our lives right now, and how many of our jobs are dependent upon it.Whenever something new threatens take on a duty currently filled by a human, some folks immeditaly think society will crumble. I think that's way too narrow a view on the change. So a computer drives the car and thus a human is out of a job, right? I think not exactly. This new technology will create new jobs, some of which will require humans. You mentioned that these new automonus cars will be better maintained than current cars. Someone, likey humans in some capactiy, will have to build them, test them, and maintain them. If this technology allows uber to transport 100x more people, will they need more customer service folks to handle the increase in customer issues? Will they need a team of rescue vehicles if a self driving car breaks down? If uber has 100 cars running around a city (because their abilty to scale is no longer limited to human driver availibility), that's a lot of oil changes, brake jobs, and vomit clean up. So the humans may not be replaced, but moved to another function.
As far as having no driver = no more social skills - I dont buy that either. When I'm in an uber, I'm often not alone. I'm often tipsy from a 3 mimosa brunch with friends. Or what about a person who can't drive who's abilty to get around town depends on a taxi service. Most of our new tech is built around human interaction. Think about it. Sure it's differnt, but that doesnt mean it's worse.
On the passenger side of things, once users hail the specially modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility vehicles, they'll see a tablet computer in the backseat that comes stacked with information to tell them that they're in an autonomous vehicle and educate them on exactly what's happening. Although unspecified, it appears that riders won't know they're being paired with a driverless car while in the Uber app, but the ride will be free of charge "for the time being."
Many people may get rid of their cars if Uber self-driving cars are cheap, quick and ubiquitous. Being driverless could significantly reduce the cost of using Uber. It might make more sense to not own a car... Only time will tell.Once driverless cars are real - why would anyone with their own car call Uber or any other taxi service? Why wouldn't you just get your own car to come pick you up. You could get it to drop you off wherever and let it go park itself nearby letting you know how many minutes it was away. Then, when you wanted to go somewhere else you'd just call it back.
Seems like Uber is putting its current drivers out of work and they could be putting themselves out of business too...
I love driving and I'm lucky that I don't live in or near a city, so I would never buy a driverless car unless I was forced into doing so by some future law or if I get too old or too daft to control the vehicle myself.![]()
It will completely change our culture. It's going to have the biggest impact on our lives since the introduction of the cell phone. There is a crazy amount of stuff that's going to change in the next 20 years, due to self driving vehicles. Here's a few examples, but I could go on for hours...
Want a new iPhone? Send your car to the Apple Store and they will drop it off in the car. On the way home, bring back pizza for the family. Oh, we needed more toilet paper, I'll make sure to send the car to Costco on the way back to pick some up. No delivery fees, no waiting = endless possibilities.
I live in California and my best friend lives in Utah. Sleep in my car bed and wake up in Utah.
I can go on and on with this one...
I agree, but that's the way things are going. Some restaurants have already replaced having waiters take your orders with tablets, after experiencing one I try to avoid any others I see, but I'm sure given enough time I won't have options.That would be stupid. Certain things require human interaction. The service industry is one area we should never cut out human interaction
It'll change our culture all right: most transportation will be owned by a tiny handfull of billionaires and the rest wont even be able to drive a taxi for a living.
Dystopian is the word.
Not all technological progress results in human progress.
Car companies are already owned by billionaires.
Personal vehicles will never go out of style, there will always be a need for them. Especially without the need to pay for gas and the much reduced insurance rates.
Über's goal is to make money for themselves. If they can make more by putting their drivers out of work they will happily do it.
You probably don't get it because you don't have to waste 1-2hours of your day driving to work and back home everyday like many people (myself included) do.I don't get the fascination and rush for self-driving cars