Trump has privately voiced skepticism about driverless cars: report

Ikari said:

Yeah....they don't drive themselves. They have some hands-free driver assist, but they don't drive themselves. There have been a few cases where people have made that mistake and caused wrecks. The driver still must be present and alert, the computer cannot do everything.

There have been a few cities that had agreed to host the development of actual driverless cars (though technically there's still supposed to be a driver there in case the car goes all Terminator), but it's not something that's "right around the corner". There's a lot of development left and then tons of integration and replacement that needs to happen before it can begin to function efficiently.

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We had a video on our news station here a couple of weeks ago. People drove next to a car, on the passenger side, that was doing 70mph down the freeway. They were in a taller vehicle so they could clearly video the driver, sound asleep, with his hand draped over the bottom of the steering wheel, at his wrist. I guess he must have woke up at some point because if a car crashed at 70 it would have been on the news. As you say, there's a lot of development to do to make it safe, and in cases like this "human proof".

JacksinPA said:

Trump has privately voiced skepticism about driverless cars: report | TheHill

Trump has privately voiced skepticism about driverless cars: report

President Trump has reportedly expressed skepticism on more than one occasion about the move toward self-driving cars.

Axios, citing four sources who've heard him discuss the subject, reported on Sunday that Trump doesn't see the usefulness of autonomous vehicles. He has also reportedly said that he would never let a computer-operated car drive him.
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Skeptical or not, driverless vehicles are coming soon - first in areas such as long-haul trucking, later in big city taxi & ride sharing applications. Trump apparently doesn't listen to science advisers & futurists. How can you run a country when you have no vision?

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Not very private.

JacksinPA said:

I can see eventually a fleet of self-driving trucks connected via cell phones to a central station where a single driver can control a fleet of trucks using TV & GPS as well as other instruments. Big potential savings over having a driver in each vehicle. He would not drive the trucks but would monitor them for safety, able to hit brakes, control speed, etc.

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And I can see a hacker getting in and causing chaos. I'm not a fan at all.

FreedomFromAll said:

When do you suppose was the last time that Trump drove a car himself?

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Years. There are tons of people in NYC and other big cities that do not drive.

WillyPete said:

Dude's 72, FFS! He's past getting excited about new ideas. He was never really much of an idea guy in his professional life, either.

Sure, he's a lifelong ****heel, but this is just the generation gap in effect.

Probably isn't really up on streaming media or fidget spinners, either.

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Reminiscent of Ted Stevens trying to comprehend the internet. Time for younger leadership.

holbritter said:

Years. There are tons of people in NYC and other big cities that do not drive.

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Then his opinion is not very valuable.

Common Sense 1 said:

People don’t trust driverless cars. Researchers are trying to change that

The ad, from computer chip–maker Intel in Santa Clara, California, is aimed at overcoming what could be one of the biggest obstacles to the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs): consumer distrust of the technology. Unnerved by the idea of not being in control—and by news of semi-AVs that have crashed, in one case killing the owner—many consumers are apprehensive. In a recent survey by AAA, for example, 78% of respondents said they were afraid to ride in an AV.

People don’t trust driverless cars. Researchers are trying to change that | Science | AAAS

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IMO, trust isn't an issue. I'd say that we need more skepticism, not less.

Humans are very accepting of automation when they experience it. Most of it is scarily good,...literally scary. Sure, there's an initial reluctance to putting your life in the hands of a robot. But all of that goes away after a few minutes of watching it do exactly what you think it should. It's just so easy. This is especially true when you don't know what's going on inside. We anthropomorphize. The car is driving the way we would, we assume it's making decisions the way we would. But that's not how it works.

Put most skeptics in a current driverless car for 5 minutes and they'll be convinced that driverless cars are ready now. Let them ride around for a few hours and they'll have a different opinion.

I know because I've dealt with these kinds of systems for almost 20 years. I've spent countless hours riding in, watching, and testing various robotic systems. I've written the "brains" of more robots than I can count. I've also found the bugs and dealt with the edge cases. Demos are easy, reality is hard.

Tesla is a great example of a company that entirely misses this point. To make their cars affordable, they use cheap cameras and radar. Radar picks up a lot of false positives. What happens when you're driving down a hill with a manhole cover at the bottom? It's going to light up your radar, and from the POV of the car it might look like it's at bumper height. Slamming on your brakes here is unacceptable. You'll cause accidents. So you take advantage of the Doppler affect. If your radar system detects a stationary obstacle that suddenly appears on the highway when you're driving.. maybe you should ignore it. Now fast forward to a situation where you're in traffic, the car in front of you suddenly changes lanes. You get the same signature sensor hit..you ignore it.. and crash full speed into the back of a stopped vehicle.

JacksinPA said:

I can see eventually a fleet of self-driving trucks connected via cell phones to a central station where a single driver can control a fleet of trucks using TV & GPS as well as other instruments. Big potential savings over having a driver in each vehicle. He would not drive the trucks but would monitor them for safety, able to hit brakes, control speed, etc.

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Teleop trucks on the highway probably isn't in the cards. Unlike drones in the sky, you need sub 200 ms end to end lag in order to drive without additional aid. That means the total time to go from sensors, to signal, to operator display, plus sensing driver input, to signal, to vehicle control is under 2 tenths of a second. If it exceeds this then humans aren't really able to control the vehicle.

It's not unsolvable, but there are some pretty steep roadblocks.

Shame on Trump for not having confidence in a technology that is currently riddled with flaws :roll: