Robot Cars – Will They be That Good?
What will autonomous driving really be like? I sometimes find myself wondering about this whenever I encounter stupid, oblivious drivers multiple times a day. I figure it will greatly smooth out the stop and go of rush hour traffic, but will it really? Will cars be talking to each other so they can anticipate each other’s moves? Will they effectively create adequate spacing, allowing smooth merges and lane changes? How smart will they really be? Seems to me it’s the ultimate stretch of the Internet of Things capabilities. Will the IOT infrastructure really be able to handle that? It’s an exponential increase in computing power to be sure.
Many people think we are just a few years away from widespread autonomous cars, but you know the so-called ‘experts’ have been saying that for years already. My cynical, jaundiced eye has never bought into that. Futurists, for some reason, always overstate the rate of adoption for anything new. Read the post, Invention, Innovation & The Pace of Adoption, to learn how it really works. Factor in the complexity and safety issues involved in automotive transport and it’s not that hard to understand why things are dragging out.
Still, I’m wondering – will they really be that good? And what will it be like for us stubborn car enthusiasts who will insist on continuing to control their own vehicles? For starters, are the politicians, overlords of regulation and all things insipidly stupid, even allow us to continue driving? I don’t really see that happening, but I absolutely believe there will be a long campaign to socially shame people into abandoning the freedom to personally drive and control a vehicle. I won’t be giving into that one anytime soon, but then, it may be so many years out there I’ll be gone before it really becomes a thing.
I wonder – I’m doing a lot of wondering, have you noticed? – if it will be much easier to navigate among robot cars or if it will just be incredibly frustrating trying to outwit those dimwitted computers. And how will robot cars interact with old fashioned cars that lack sensors for them to interface with? That by itself will be interesting. In a way, I can’t wait to see that. On the other hand, what will it be like to navigate through traffic that may work only when every car is in lockstep with every other car?
So, what do you think will come first for automated driving vehicles? I think it will be interstate semi tractor trailer rigs. The economics of it are a no brainer. The expense of hiring drivers goes away and they will no longer be restricted by the 12-hour driving rule human truck drivers are limited to; a robot truck can drive non-stop for as long as it takes to get there. Refueling may be a factor, but that can be easily overcome with larger fuel tanks. Beyond that, what will happen when trucks get stuck in adverse weather, or they encounter icy conditions and lose control? Will they be smart enough to monitor the weather forecasts ahead as well as current changing road conditions, and know enough to pull over at the right time and wait it out? Will there be human dispatchers actively monitoring truck fleets and behavior, like remote military drone pilots? There are so many thousands of variables to consider. It’s amazingly complex and a real testament to the sophistication of the human brain that people routinely navigate all this input and decision making. But then, some of us do it much better than others….
Next time you’re driving down the freeway, think about all the cars around you and how differently they might behave once they are all on auto pilot. It’s comforting in a way, but scary in so many others. I think we still have a long way to go before the software and the hardware systems are nearly reliable or sophisticated enough to be safer than the average driver, much less those of us who are really skilled and courteous. Well, now there’s a minority isn’t there?
