Are fully autonomous vehicles a bad thing?

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They say autonomous vehicles are the future.

They say it saves time smarter, safer.

They say it’s a paradigm shift for civilization.

Well guess what? Autonomous vehicles controlled by artificial intelligence, robotaxis, self-driving cars or whatever else you want to call them have a long way to go before they change our lives – if at all .

I’m not someone who hates autonomous vehicles (AVs). The idea of ​​a quasi-time machine that allows you to roll out of bed in a driverless robot taxi and then wake up at your destination three hours later fully rested is a lovely idea.

But spare a thought for residents of San Francisco (arguably the global hub for AV testing due to California’s laws and proximity to Silicon Valley), who regularly face lengthy delays due to AV malfunction during extensive robotaxi testing.

Or worse.

According to AVCrashes.net, there have been 623 autonomous vehicle crashes in the greater San Francisco Bay Area since 2014, and the US NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) reports that 18 Related deaths have been recorded nationwide as of January 15, 2023.

Okay, so we don’t see a code red situation (Skynet, anyone?) and robotaxis are extremely convenient for many people, but San Fran residents regularly complain about AV traffic congestion stopped working because they could not cope with the countless situations we encounter on the road every day.

Reports of AVs interfering with public transportation are common, and the San Francisco fire chief reported nearly 40 incidents in which AVs ‘interfered’ with emergency responders.

Waymo and Cruise, the two largest robotaxi operators in the San Francisco Bay Area (owned by Google and General Motors) continue to expand the size of their self-driving fleets, and some are now joining the fight street with AV.

Vigilante groups have begun waging war on AI-controlled vehicles by placing traffic cones on their helmets, thereby confusing and disabling the ridiculously complex and expensive cars.

According to The Guardian, various activist groups including Safe Street Rebels have mobilized citizens to take action against San Fran’s automatons.

Taxi and Uber drivers also don’t like robotaxis (to put it mildly!) because the income they would normally earn would instead fill the pockets of rich and powerful auto and tech companies. understand.

AV advocates see the technology as a silver bullet for road injuries, given that 90% of road deaths are due to human error, and point out that they will give them more time to relax, but the Australia’s leading university, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), has urged caution.

Already popular Level 1 and 2 automated driving systems like automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, and, at least in the short term, lane-keeping will certainly help life behind the wheel. easier if they are properly arranged.

But fully autonomous Level 3 and 4 self-driving cars – need to be perfected before Level 5 driverless cars like the ones being tested in San Fran become legal on a public basis. Spacious base – not necessarily safer than conventional cars.

Dr Neng Zhang from RMIT School of Engineering and lead author of the study “Is driving experience the most important thing? Driver Takeover Performance in Conditioned Automated Driving” examined how different experiences and distractions such as work, social media, and rest influence the driver’s ability to cope. driver in case of emergency.

“We ask them to write work emails, watch videos, and close their eyes to rest in a resting state,” said Zhang of Level 3 AV simulation.

“We found that rest led to the worst takeover response, followed by work. Social media is less disruptive. However, the longer participants were active, the worse their response to an emergency.”

Zheng’s colleague and co-author Professor Mohammad Fard essentially flagged the need for federal and state governments to ensure self-driving cars do not become a social scourge.

“Governments can effectively protect road safety by acknowledging these adverse impacts and regulating non-driving activities in the context of autonomous vehicles,” said the professor.

Even AI is facing an image crisis in Australia. And no, ChatGPT did not write this article and will never write anything in my name other than meaningless words to colleagues moving abroad to ‘find themselves’.

Indeed, Roy Morgan’s latest survey of more than 1400 Australians aged 16 and over, co-sponsored by the AI ​​Safety Campaign, confirmed that 57% of Australians believe AI ‘creates problems’. than can be solved’.

Should we worry that self-driving vehicles might one day develop manipulative arms and enslave us all? It’s unlikely, but a Roy Morgan survey found one in five Australians think ‘AI risks causing human extinction in the next twenty years’.

Even if AVs can spread globally – once legal issues around liability in the event of collisions are resolved – they are unlikely to completely replace manually operated vehicles, But even BMW doesn’t think self-driving cars will be available globally.

Volkswagen reckons AVs will go mainstream by 2030, but whether that includes countries like Australia, or places with poor road markings and road signs, remains to be seen. A former Holden technical engineer says there are plenty of obstacles here – especially Australia’s unique road signs.

To me, AV going mainstream feels like peak oil or the Y2K bug.

Go back two decades and Feann Torr was much less skeptical in Germany, speaking to a senior engineer at one of the Big Three luxury brands who asserted that fully self-driving cars will popular in 2020.

Of course not and it may never be. In fact, I think autonomous flying cars may have a chance of becoming more ‘common’ soon. That’s why, in my opinion, autonomous cars are complete garbage.

Related: Self-driving cars may never go global, says BMW
Related: Volkswagen says self-driving cars will go mainstream by 2030
Related: Holden: Australian roads signal a major hurdle for autonomous cars

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