There is much more cheaper and safer solution, a system that detects if the driver is drunk,ill, not paying attention etc. But some fanboys prefer faked self drivers systems with faked stats because it looks SciFi rather then say force a drunk detector in all cars.
I don't understand this argument. So because people drive drunk we should accept self driving to utterly fail? Because FSD does better than a drunk driver it's safe? Why can't both be true, that drunk driving and FSD is dangerous. Moreover why are self driving cars the only solution to drunk driving? It's not like the police doesn't know where the bars are they could easily pull all these people out in a few sting operations, make penalties extremely ainfjl and things stop very quickly.
As everything, it is a tradeoff. I would personally prefer not to have neither drunk drivers, nor overhyped smart-vacuums going around the roads.
But as for the very specific emergency case while you are drunk, it could be overridden with some visible sign turning on notifying other drivers - but it would need some law background, so eg. a cop can escort you in that case, etc. But tesla’s fake self-driving doesn’t help anyone.
I see it as an issue of convenience vs actual benefits. Create a system that can tell if I am drunk with near-perfect accuracy from just me being in a vehicle and I am ok with it.
However the current systems we have imply that I'd have to blow into something every time to start my car, that straw thing would get full of saliva, and on top of that there could be false positives so it's obviously a big no.
Why is not fair to have more ways to not allow drunk people to drive and depend on having policemen stopping you?
Is your need to drive drunk more important then the life of others?
Let's assume your car won't let you start if drunk, there will be a fail-safe mode, you activate that in case of emergency and start it and drive to a hospital because there is an emergency. In case the car is broken and it is reporting false positive we could have rules so you get compensated for this issue by the people at fault for the false positive.
Your argument is like saying that forcing people to learn to drive is too much.
My point is that the bad drivers problem has more solutions not only a less bad AI autopilot.
So basically a super high tech car breathalyzer that uses some black box algorithm to decide if I'm drunk and call the police on me? The self driving car seems a little bit cooler.
Why not just install the existing breathalyzers in every car right now?
Yes drunk driving is a terrible problem but beta testing software on the open road is not the only option available. It's nothing but irresponsible.
Here's one of many: use sensors and AI in the car to detect a drunk person behind the wheel. This is HN so I'm sure readers could spend 10 seconds and think of numerous ways this could be accomplished and many otherideas about what could be done when a drunk driver is detected.
I also think the NHTSA should have prevented companies like Tesla from behind allowed to put every single control behind a touchscreen. It's extremely dangerous to have to look away for 2 seconds when you're driving. Imagine if (when?) every car in the world adopted this and all drivers are having to look at a screen to turn on windshield wipers.
We've been unwilling to eliminate drunk driving. Breathalyzer ignition lock? Problem solved. Self-driving cars are an extremely poor solution (complexity and cost) to solve this simple problem. People have fought tooth and nail to enable drunk driving - and they've won. Just like they're fighting and winning for mass shootings. Even so, drunk drivers are largely predictable. People know when it's not a good time to be on the streets.
You’re going to compare self-driving cars to drunk drivers so you can grade them on a curve?
If you’re drunk you’re going to have pay for a ride either by a person or possible by program or you can break the law. I don’t see anyone who was going to drive drunk not do it because they could pay for a robot taxi over a real taxi.
Here’s my comparison. If your self-driving car kills or maims someone in a situation where a normal sober person driving wouldn’t have it shouldn’t be on the road.
Suppose we have a lot of self-driving vehicles that are slightly better than drunks, and the worst drunks use them. Maybe they can be hooked up to breathalyzers or something.
How can we ensure that the increase in the amount of driving (riding) that drunks do, doesn't more than cancel out the reduction in the rate of accidents?
What if, the self-driving being available to non-drunks, they use it because it's fun and futuristic, and that increases the amount of accidents even more?
1) Society tolerates a small amount of alcohol for most drivers.
2) Driving while drunk impairs your physical and mental ability to drive safely and only gets worse as you drink more. Obviously a manual driver has slower reaction times than an autonomous system but they are within a level that society tolerates and far better than someone who is drunk.
There are also risks with autonomous vehicles - the potential for equipment/sensor failure, software being unable to adequately handle bad weather, the potential for exploitation by hackers etc.
I'm currently in the process of buying a new vehicle and have been test driving vehicles with various sensors designed to prevent accidents (specifically the Subaru eyesight system). One of my first thoughts was that it would be easy to become reliant on the technology and have a serious accident when a sensor fails (particularly for blind spot detection). I'm still likely going to buy a vehicle with that functionality but am not sure how much I will trust it.
Replace a breathalyzer with something that's less intruisive (like a camera with AI that would observe the person, AI with thermal imaging or air quality sensors, or another possibly-fictional-yet-believable piece of technology) and suddenly, in my eyes, the technology in this thought experiment becomes a no brainer.
If there was more of a cultural pressure against drunk driving and actual mechanisms to prevent it that aren't too difficult to maintain and utilize, things like the Daikou services ( https://www.quora.com/How-effective-is-the-Japanese-daikou-s... ) would pop up and take care of the other logistical problems of getting your car home. And the world would be all the better for it, because of less drunk driving and accidents.
But that's not the paradigm unfolding here. The reckless drivers will shun self driving because they want to show off and have fun. The drunk driver part could be reduced after sufficient rollout, but we'll have to see how that plays out - the people whonaleays use it would use it when drinking too, but you'll still have people going "I'm fine to drive" and not using it if it's not habit.
Ok I see what you were getting at now but I still don't agree with your conclusions and here's why:
1. Anti-drink driving campaigns and counter measures don't work. People make the choice to drive while drunk when their decision making powers are at their worst.
2. The issue with human controlled driving goes far deeper than just DUI. The fact is that we're (collectively) just not very good at it. Even if you are the best, most cautious most defensive driver there's nothing you can do about some idiot running a red light because he was adjusting his stereo. Your perfect driving record is intact but you're dead anyway.
3. The chance of being injured or killed while driving are astronomically higher than the chance of big brother having the motive/inclination to want to remotely control your car (although I might feel differently if I lived in Syria - even then this is getting really close to tinfoil hat territory).
The way I see it computer controlled cars shouldn't be seen as curtailing freedoms, rather as relieving us from tedium and making us safer.
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