Driverless Vehicles

[ursaminortaur]

Once AI appears and shows significantly lower accident rates, the transition to it will imho be rapid after a slowish start.

If one recalls the transition to on-line banking, it was initially slow and the media was full of how folk had been scammed, but once the advantages became known, the scam rate determined to be very low with guarantees about folk being scammed, large numbers of people moved over to online for most of their financial transactions and have not gone back to traditional methods. Sure there are some folk who still don't trust the internet for anything, but they are becoming an ever smaller component of the economy, ditto mobile phones.

Regards,

I didn't realise online banking was an AI exercise and humans weren't involved in setting up payments, checking balances, transferring between accounts etc.

How fast is that transitioning of driverless trains coming on? I think you are underestimating both times with respect to that "rapid" transition and "slowish start"

Driverless trains seem to be mostly held up by the strong train unions (which crucially include other important groups other than the drivers meaning that just sacking the drivers isn't a solution). The same strong unionisation certainly doesn't apply to passenger road vehicles (taxis, minicab drivers etc) though unionisation might affect the rollout of automation in road haulage to some extent.

[odysseus2000]

Once AI appears and shows significantly lower accident rates, the transition to it will imho be rapid after a slowish start.

If one recalls the transition to on-line banking, it was initially slow and the media was full of how folk had been scammed, but once the advantages became known, the scam rate determined to be very low with guarantees about folk being scammed, large numbers of people moved over to online for most of their financial transactions and have not gone back to traditional methods. Sure there are some folk who still don't trust the internet for anything, but they are becoming an ever smaller component of the economy, ditto mobile phones.

Regards,

I didn't realise online banking was an AI exercise and humans weren't involved in setting up payments, checking balances, transferring between accounts etc.

How fast is that transitioning of driverless trains coming on? I think you are underestimating both times with respect to that "rapid" transition and "slowish start"

I did say when AI appears, but my main point was that when something becomes attractive to punters they adopt it in large numbers, the so called s-curve.

We are about to enter the age of the Luddite as many well paid jobs will be replaced with low cost AI. For now some industries can resist, but once the tidal wave starts there will be nowhere to hide & lots of folk will be marginalised. It is not clear where this will start but GP’s imho are likely one of the first groups to be replaced by machines.

Regards,

[TUK020]

I did say when AI appears, but my main point was that when something becomes attractive to punters they adopt it in large numbers, the so called s-curve.

We are about to enter the age of the Luddite as many well paid jobs will be replaced with low cost AI. For now some industries can resist, but once the tidal wave starts there will be nowhere to hide & lots of folk will be marginalised. It is not clear where this will start but GP’s imho are likely one of the first groups to be replaced by machines.

Regards,

I think very black and white perspectives oversimplify how new technologies are adopted, and their effect on employment.
When people talk of AI, they often tend to think of general intelligence, which is a long way off. Of more immediate relevance is specialized machine learning devoted to improved performance in a narrow application, which tends to get used to augment a persons job/performance rather than replace it.
The example I like to quote is in petrol service stations. The till attendant used to have a clipboard with known license plate numbers of vehicles that had absconded without paying. One of the till attendant's main functions was to check the license plate against the list, and then authorize the fuel delivery at that pump.
Now a camera reads the number plate and a machine checks the plate against a centralized data base and enables fuel delivery. This frees up the till attendant to do higher value added things, like checkout the coffee, booze and pasties from the shop. It doesn't always feel like progress, but it is enabling the individual to contribute to the margin earned by the enterprise.
It has changed the job, but not replaced it. Sometimes this deskills the job, sometimes not.

I have been in a GP's appointment when the doctor used google to check on something. He was not replaced by the search engine, but it presented him with information that he could assess and decide whether it was relevant to the diagnosis, and then help with recommendations for treatment. As the patient, I felt reassured that the doctor was using available information to augment his knowledge and expertise. I didn't expect him to stay up to date on all aspects of primary care medicine for all time.

[BobbyD]

Driverless trains seem to be mostly held up by the strong train unions (which crucially include other important groups other than the drivers meaning that just sacking the drivers isn't a solution). The same strong unionisation certainly doesn't apply to passenger road vehicles (taxis, minicab drivers etc) though unionisation might affect the rollout of automation in road haulage to some extent.

To be fair one of the major problems UBER have had around the world is Taxi drivers campaigning against the dissolution of their effective monopoly, which given their close relationships with many metropolitan transport authorities has been annoyingly effective.

Check out the Transport for London and Met Police endorsements on this piece of propaganda from the Licensed Taxi Drivcers association in the campaign which succeeded in getting TFL to refuse to renew UBER's operation license in London.



The Black Cab bandits are every bit as bad as the RMT.

[odysseus2000]

I did say when AI appears, but my main point was that when something becomes attractive to punters they adopt it in large numbers, the so called s-curve.

We are about to enter the age of the Luddite as many well paid jobs will be replaced with low cost AI. For now some industries can resist, but once the tidal wave starts there will be nowhere to hide & lots of folk will be marginalised. It is not clear where this will start but GP’s imho are likely one of the first groups to be replaced by machines.

Regards,

I think very black and white perspectives oversimplify how new technologies are adopted, and their effect on employment.
When people talk of AI, they often tend to think of general intelligence, which is a long way off. Of more immediate relevance is specialized machine learning devoted to improved performance in a narrow application, which tends to get used to augment a persons job/performance rather than replace it.
The example I like to quote is in petrol service stations. The till attendant used to have a clipboard with known license plate numbers of vehicles that had absconded without paying. One of the till attendant's main functions was to check the license plate against the list, and then authorize the fuel delivery at that pump.
Now a camera reads the number plate and a machine checks the plate against a centralized data base and enables fuel delivery. This frees up the till attendant to do higher value added things, like checkout the coffee, booze and pasties from the shop. It doesn't always feel like progress, but it is enabling the individual to contribute to the margin earned by the enterprise.
It has changed the job, but not replaced it. Sometimes this deskills the job, sometimes not.

I have been in a GP's appointment when the doctor used google to check on something. He was not replaced by the search engine, but it presented him with information that he could assess and decide whether it was relevant to the diagnosis, and then help with recommendations for treatment. As the patient, I felt reassured that the doctor was using available information to augment his knowledge and expertise. I didn't expect him to stay up to date on all aspects of primary care medicine for all time.

Your last point is important. It is beyond a GP to stay up to date with all medicine & they make large numbers of mistakes.

A narrow AI not a general AI can access all your medical history at machine speed, take all body function measurements including any new technologies such as breath gas & keep a personalised track of you & your siblings, parents for potential inherited troubles. It can do this 24-7, 365 days & follow up as needed. Currently you will have to go to a surgery, soon a robotic machine will come to you. This technology exists in China. The ability to process large numbers of the population, not be distracted by anything will bring the medical care that is currently only available to the super rich to Mr & Mrs Bloggs & their children.

The potential of emerging medical technology is amazing. We need to get away from 19th century practices & combine 21st century medicine with 21st century administration. At the end of todays PMQ, one question for the PM was a request to increase GP awareness of childhood cancers after one of her constituents children had a terrible time due to a misdiagnosis & I have seen many of these. Many of these lead to heart breaking cases. Ask any solicitor how many medical mall practice suits they see, almost all get blunted by the establishment. What is needed is to get fallible humans out of the chain & have AI systems operate 24-7, every day, no longer waiting times of months, but when ever a patient feels I’ll or has problems.

Regards,

[PhaseThree]

This video is well worth a watch. It shows how well the latest Tesla beta software handles near empty roads in good weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbSDsbDQjSU&t=154s

It only runs one red light, hits one bollard and attempts to drive down a tram line twice.
Some considerable room for improvement - and nowhere near the advertised "Full Self Driving"

[BobbyD]

This video is well worth a watch. It shows how well the latest Tesla beta software handles near empty roads in good weather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbSDsbDQjSU&t=154s

It only runs one red light, hits one bollard and attempts to drive down a tram line twice.
Some considerable room for improvement - and nowhere near the advertised "Full Self Driving"

Yeah, but apart from that....

I can understand belief in most things, even if that belief is patently absurd, and I think autonomous isn't that far away but I can not for the life of me get my head around how people genuinely think Tesla is leading autonomous, and Musk's pronouncement that it will be out of beta in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.

[bungeejumper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbSDsbDQjSU&t=154s

It only runs one red light, hits one bollard and attempts to drive down a tram line twice.

And after the first one it drives maybe 100 yards down the bus lane before pulling out to the correct lane. (around 5.20 into the video.) Now, I don't know about American bus lanes, but in downtown Bristol you'd have copped a traffic penalty after the first couple of yards. So who pays the fine? No, don't tell me, let me guess.

Today I travelled round a small town hereabouts, and once again they'd reversed the roundabout so as to flow anticlockwise. (Road resurfacing.) Getting across it successfully was all down to eye contact, and about knowing when it was your turn to be assertive. How's that algorithm coming on?

BJ

[JohnB]

As always with journalism, I'd ask about the footage as to how representative it is. We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently. Its certainly the channel's focus but I don't know if its just someone taking pleasure in their own car doing funny things. Humans like anecdotes, computers like statistics.

[doolally]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving
doolally

[JohnB]

... or even worse, we've committed these transgressions and didn't even notice!

[Lootman]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving

Can you honestly declare that you have never broken any traffic law, ever?

Not even unknowingly?

If so I suspect you are the only Lemon who can make that claim.

[doolally]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving

Can you honestly declare that you have never broken any traffic law, ever?

Not even unknowingly?

If so I suspect you are the only Lemon who can make that claim.

I did not claim that I have never broken any traffic law. But I have never driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles
doolally

[servodude]

I did not claim that I have never broken any traffic law. But I have never driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles
doolally

I drove through a traffic light junction recently that had been rendered inopperative due to flooding
Didn't even have the flashing ambers that they're meant to when they've gone and got themselves in to trouble; so I can only presume that it had been borked badly at a power level
I wonder how it would have been handled by a self driving Tesla?

I've also seen reds stuck on and the polis waving folk through - which would be an interesting edge condition for an algorithm to handle

- sd

[Lootman]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving

Can you honestly declare that you have never broken any traffic law, ever?

Not even unknowingly?

If so I suspect you are the only Lemon who can make that claim.

I did not claim that I have never broken any traffic law. But I have never driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles

If like me you'd never drive through a red light, that still leaves the possibility that you don't see a red light, and so never knew that you had driven through it.

So the way I would phrase such a claim is: "I have never knowingly or intentionally driven through a red light"

The one ticket I ever got was for going the wrong way down a one-way street. I never saw the sign and so assumed that it was 2-way. But for the ticket I would never have known to this day about my transgression.

[BobbyD]

The road is being paved...

NHTSA greenlights self-driving cars without manual controls

Ditching the steering wheel and pedals could enable a new class of autonomous vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened the door for self-driving vehicles to operate without manual controls under updated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. While fully autonomous vehicles are likely several years away from going on sale, the new rule paves the way for automakers to remove the steering wheel and pedals.

- https://www.engadget.com/nhtsa-self-dri ... tobx3exCJs

[GoSeigen]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving
doolally

I also can't believe this. In 50 years you've never been through a red light? Really? You've never bumped anything static? A gate post? A low wall?

Impressive if true I guess... I went through a red light in my driving test, LOL. And reversed on a mini-roundabout...


Also got a ticket for running a red light in a town the size of Guildford. I was told later it was the only traffic light in the town.


GS

[Lootman]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving

I also can't believe this. In 50 years you've never been through a red light? Really? You've never bumped anything static? A gate post? A low wall?

Impressive if true I guess... I went through a red light in my driving test, LOL. And reversed on a mini-roundabout...

Also got a ticket for running a red light in a town the size of Guildford. I was told later it was the only traffic light in the town.

I don't believe doolally either. After all, how would he know if he had ever gone through a red light? If he had done that it would presumably be because he never saw the light, and he would have no way of knowing that unless a cop happened to catch and ticket him.

What he should have claimed is that he has never knowingly gone through a red light, although I'm not sure I believe that either.

[doolally]

.....We've all driven through red lights and into pedestrian areas and hit static obstacles. Its just a question of how frequently........

Some of you, maybe. But not me, in over 50 years of driving

I also can't believe this. In 50 years you've never been through a red light? Really? You've never bumped anything static? A gate post? A low wall?

Impressive if true I guess... I went through a red light in my driving test, LOL. And reversed on a mini-roundabout...

Also got a ticket for running a red light in a town the size of Guildford. I was told later it was the only traffic light in the town.

I don't believe doolally either. After all, how would he know if he had ever gone through a red light? If he had done that it would presumably be because he never saw the light, and he would have no way of knowing that unless a cop happened to catch and ticket him.

What he should have claimed is that he has never knowingly gone through a red light, although I'm not sure I believe that either.

You don't believe me, well that is your right. Neither of us can prove it one way or the other. I'll concede that I should have said "not knowingly gone though a red light". But I do consider myself a careful driver and hate being distracted by anything while driving, and think if I inadvertently ran a red light I would realise it. I never take phone calls while driving, I'll park the car then call back, a phone conversation is just far too distracting. And I've never bumped a wall or gate post.
Having said all that, I do believe in the law of averages so I expect the next 12 months will be full of incidents
doolally

[BobbyD]

You don't believe me, well that is your right.

Please don't allow yourself to be driven off topic.