I think the motivation for developing and building self-driving cars is two-fold. On one hand, innovators are, by their very nature, driven (no pun intended) to produce technology that changes the world; since cars permeate modern society, obviously upgrading or changing it in some way will have a large impact on the way humans live each day. On the other hand, like with the argument of government, it comes down to safety. According to the New York Times article, autonomous driving would reduce the number of people killed in traffic accidents by as much as 40%. With the amount of auto-related deaths increasing in the US, this is an attractive statistic. However, with all great technological advancements comes great responsibility. In theory, self-driving cars could make our roads safer, but the technology is only going to be as good as it is developed. I’ve said this probably a hundred times, but technology is also hackable, so that’s a concern, as well. However, like one of the articles mentioned, high-profile cases give automated driving a bad name, and people tend to remember the fiery deaths in Mountain View as opposed to the hundreds (thousands? I don’t actually know how many people have self-driving cars and consistently use the feature) of other consumers who have used the software and have had no problems.
Like the people surveyed in the Gizmodo article, I would consider myself one who believes in a utilitarian approach to programming self-driving cars but would not want one programmed that way myself. I don’t really think I like the idea of fully-automated self-driving cars. It reminds me of when I wrote a paper for Philosophy of Technology about autopilot on airplanes. They say that the pilots of today are not as good as the pilots of the past because modern day pilots have come to rely on modern technology. In other words, an older, more experienced pilot would be able to spring into action in emergency situations when autopilot fails better than a younger pilot. Along similar lines, I don’t want to become someone who is fully reliant on a car to drive me places; I think some features are useful, for sure, like staying in your line or emergency breaking, but the idea of letting it take control of the wheel without me makes me feel a little nervous. That all being said, regardless of whether I would want a self-driving car or not, this technology is well on its way of development and completion. However, the standards of automated driving, according to the Toyota rep, has not yet been reached and may not for a while. Simultaneously, Tesla already rolls out full self-driving hardware in all of its vehicles. My Aunty recently bought a Tesla, but I believe it was an extra few thousand dollars to have the self-driving hardware activated. She’s in her early 60s, and she decided to forgo that. Not only did it not seem particularly useful to her, but since she’s been driving for so long, I don’t think she really felt comfortable with it. It’s an interesting bit to think about: what are the social, economic, and political ramifications of the mass introduction of self-driving cars? I think people will be wary, and marketers would need to throw a lot of good statistical numbers at consumers, as well as deploy examples of their technology at work, before people are comfortable with the idea of handing over the wheel to an AI.
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AuthorJulianna Yee. Archives
March 2018
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