Real Headline: “Get Ready for Freeways That Ban Human Drivers”
September 22nd, 2016Sure, they lead with the safety argument, but what you’re going to wind up with is something like this:
Didn’t pay taxes? “Driving disabled. Would you like to pay overdue taxes, penalties, fees and interest now?”
Didn’t pay parking fine? “Driving disabled. Would you like to pay your fine now?”
Children not vaccinated? “Limited destinations. Would you like me to drive you to your child’s health care provider/vaccination center?”
Overdue library books? “Limited destinations. Would you like me to drive you to the library? Yes. Let’s confirm that you have the overdue materials…”
Assuming paper books still exist by then…
Anyway, you get the point.
Via: Bloomberg:
New rules of the road for robot cars coming out of Washington this week could lead to the eventual extinction of one of the defining archetypes of the past century: the human driver.
While banning people from driving may seem like something from a Kurt Vonnegut short story, it’s the logical endgame of a technology that could dramatically reduce — or even eliminate — the 1.25 million road deaths a year globally. Human error is the cause of 94 percent of roadway fatalities, U.S. safety regulators say, and robot drivers never get drunk, sleepy or distracted.
Autonomous cars already have “superhuman intelligence” that allows them to see around corners and avoid crashes, said Danny Shapiro, senior director of automotive at Nvidia Corp., a maker of high-speed processors for self-driving cars.
“Long term, these vehicles will drive better than any human possibly can,” Shapiro said. “We’re not there yet, but we will get there sooner than we believe.”
Regulators are accelerating the shift with new rules that will provide a path for going fully driverless by removing the requirement that a human serve as a backup. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recognized Google’s self-driving software as the “driver” in its fully autonomous test vehicles, eliminating the need for a person to be present.
This week, technology industry veterans proposed a ban on human drivers on a 150-mile (241-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 5 from Seattle to Vancouver. Within five years, human driving could be outlawed in congested city centers like London, on college campuses and at airports, said Kristin Schondorf, executive director of automotive transportation at consultant EY.
The first driver-free zones will be well-defined and digitally mapped, giving autonomous cars long-range vision and a 360-degree view of their surroundings, Schondorf said. The I-5 proposal would start with self-driving vehicles using car-pool lanes and expand over a decade to robot rides taking over the road during peak driving times.
“In city centers, you don’t even want non-automated vehicles; they would just ruin the whole point of why you have a smart city,” said Schondorf, a former engineer at Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. “It makes it a dumb city.”
This idea to me is beyond insane. I barely trust computers to predict the weather one day from now. How are people so willing to gamble their lives to this alpha technology? They haven’t even gotten the bugs out of VR yet, and people are ready and willing to hand over control of their cars to AI?
GPS can be jammed/spoofed, and these things are definitely hack-able. How long until the first self-driving virus? They’re really taking the plastic deathtrap to a whole new level. What scares me more than any of this “super advanced technology” – is that people are so quick to embrace it, without considering what they are giving up.
Your predictions are very chilling Kevin, I hadn’t even considered them controlling destinations. I’ll be damned before I ever get in one of those death machines.
No RFID chip? “Driving disabled. When the green light flashes, place your left hand in the re-chipper template and insert your card for the $60 fee, payable to Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong.”
Check this out:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/23/13030682/uber-driver-selfie-facial-scan-fraud-security
You can see the spin now re: applying this more widely. Prevent car theft! …while constantly providing updated mug shots to the state. And I do mean “the state” because these companies are partnered with the state in most cases.
And motorbikes?