Robots can get driver's license in Nevada

Pythagorean

http://singularityhub.com/2012/02/22...er-is-a-robot/

"An extended campaign in Nevada by Google has led to a new host of provisions which will allow automated cars to legally drive in the state. Starting March 1st, 2012 innovators like Google can officially apply for a new kind of robot driver’s license that will give them permission to openly test their cars on the road"

Ivan Seeking

When I talk with elderly people, one of the most common complaints is the loss of independence when they lose the ability to drive. Hopefully technology will progress faster than my age.

HowardVAgnew

This sounds a bit scary on some levels, but if closed track tests are successful test, then yeah, its time to take it to the next level by testing on the open road, with careful monitoring and control, of course.

Office_Shredder

Google's driven 200,000 miles on open roads in California (about 140,000 before anybody even knew what they were doing)

Ryan_m_b

I can't remember exactly who said this (a top guy in GM perhaps?) but I read recently that in the last decade there has been a substantial development in the technology behind self-driving cars.

Personally I think this is fantastic. There was always going to come a point where testing needed to go out into the world (beyond the odd experiment by one group). Hopefully widespread testing in a safe and proper manner will bring about the widespread adoption of this technology sooner rather than later.

I'm very interested to see the full ramifications of self driving cars. How will it affect the haulage/freight industries? How will it affect personal car ownership? How will it affect public transport? How will it affect our opinion of machine skill vs people skill? How will it affect town/infrastructure planing? How will the automotive industry change?

ThomasT

I think this might turn out to be a very bad idea.

dipole

Thanks for the opinion, care to justify it?

Ivan Seeking

Next comes the right to vote?

rootX

I can see robots outperforming humans in driving. I hope things don't go bad like they happened in case of Toyota recently. Even small malfunctions can get massive bad PR and undo all the progress.


Instead of getting full driving license, I guess I will just wait for my robot car I have been waiting for that for quite a few years now.

dipole

I don't understand your point Ivan, but maybe you're joking. We have machines that operate autonomously all the time, trains are capable of driving themselves, airplanes can fly on auto-pilot, most of the technology and goods you own were probably built or assembled using robots at some stage of their manufacture...

If machines can offer a real improvement to human transportation by driving on roads autonomously, why is this a bad thing? Is a robot really less trustworthy than some teenager who's texting/blaring music/chatting with friends/and being reckless all at the same time while driving? We allow them to drive, and in fact the number one cause of deaths among young people is car accidents.

Naysayers really need to justify their opposition to this sort of technology.

Ivan Seeking

Yes.

Office_Shredder

Any time my dad and I talk about welfare politics he sticks with the argument that 'they should just become truck drivers, that pays a decent wage'. I wonder if he's at risk of being out of an argument

TheStatutoryApe

I think it was about a decade ago that I read an article about self driving cars developed in Japan. I think that they had only done very limited road testing, mostly for demonstration purposes.

CaptFirePanda

It has the potential of reducing traffic fatalities by one for every car involved

Office_Shredder

This seem unlikely, unless everybody else has a chauffeur and I'm just a chump

HowardVAgnew

Admittedly, I have not followed the topic religiously, but as I confess to being a 'naysayer' -- not a denier, but a "sayer" with some "nays," I would like to communicate my concerns. Humans do stupid things, and certainly the roadway is no exception, but until I see some convincing proof, so far as I am aware, the human brain is far more capable of handling dynamic situations than an artificial computer.

How well can a robot driver identify what is ahead? Can it analyze the erratic driving of another car caused by another driver and determine the likelihood that it is being operated by someone too intoxicated or exhausted to drive predictably, and adjust a safety margin around that vehicle to compensate? Can it see and analyze a puddle, determine the risk of hydroplaning causing loss of control, and adjust driving for safety around it? Can it determine when an obstruction on a roadway or other conditions necessitate temporarily passing the obstruction into oncoming lanes when it is safe to do so? Can it read temporary 'detour' signs diverting traffic from, say, one side of a freeway to the other that cause modern GPS navigation systems to determine you are driving the 'wrong way' and must 'turn around?' Can it react to material falling off a truck or rock at freeway speeds? Can it realize when getting to a destination is impossible because of severe weather conditions, completely stopped traffic or other hurdles and it is time to give up and go home instead?

As I said, I have not followed autonomous drivers, so I do not know the answers to these. Is the answer to each absolutely, yes, the robot driver can handle all of these situations at least as well as a human driver?

CaptFirePanda

'Twas just a bit of a joke.