Self-driving cars. Ten years ago, something like this would seem completely unbelievable. Now however, it’s becoming our reality. A lot of questions come to mind with this subject: how will this affect our lives? How will this affect our future? Is this good for us? Is this bad? These questions must be strongly considered and answered while looking at this subject. I think that this is a promising new field, but that makes a person ask many serious questions, and even involves the entire concept of comparing artificial intelligence to human intelligence. I think that while this type of vehicle has promise, it’s very hard to choose artificial intelligence over human intelligence. A lot of things must be figured out before this type of car can seriously challenge the people’s preference for cars that they have to drive themselves.
What are self-driving cars? Well, as is clear due to the name itself, these are cars that don’t need a driver to be driven. These cars use an artificial intelligence system to decide everything that is typically decided by the driver themselves. A person can presumably input the destination, and the car will do the rest on its own. In other words, it’s a form of a taxi cab owned by the passenger themselves. There is however much more to this than just that, these cars also make decisions normally made by human drivers, such as choosing the best routes and even calculating how to cause the least casualties in an accident. This is a very controversial subject, as these cars may prefer the owner/passenger die instead of others if it causes the least overall casualties. It’s not yet clear as to all the things that these cars will be able to do, but the general basics are clear: you sit back and let the car do the rest. An interesting question that isn’t often asked, is whether a person will need to have a driver’s license to be in this car. If the car does all the work, then why does a person need to know how to drive? Will there be an option for the person to drive the car themselves if they choose to do that? Unfortunately, these are all currently unanswered questions, what we do know for a fact, is that these are cars that drive the person themselves.
The idea that cars should drive themselves is as old as cars themselves. Putting this idea into motion however was only possible in modern times. The earliest prototype of such a car was the 1925 car made by Arden Motors, called the “Chandler”. This idea was also promoted by General Motors in the 1930’s and shown off at the world fair of 1939. It was even predicted that these cars would be common in the US by the 1960’s. In 1953, RCA Labs built a miniature prototype of such a car, again promoting this as a serious future option for consumers. The common issue with all these designs however, was that none of these were practical vehicles that people could buy or trust to work properly. These were all ideas and predictions but not practical working concepts. General Motors went a step further and created a series of cars called “Firebirds”, that were supposed to be self-driven cars that would be on the market by 1975. This became a popular topic in the media and led to many interested journalists and reporters to be allowed to test drive these cars. The excitement was there but the cars still were not able to be put on the market.
The 1960’s saw Ohio State University and the Bureau of Public Roads to continue the pursuit of putting this type of car on the market. The attempts however were again hard to get off the ground, and simple prototypes were the only thing that was able to be completed. Great Britain’s Transport and Road Research Laboratory was next to try and fail at this idea. In this version of the idea, magnetic cables were embedded in the roads, and a system called Citroen DS interacted with them to move the cars across roads. In the 1970’s, the Bendix corporation worked with Stanford University, to work on a concept involving cables that were buried in the ground, and that helped move cars on the road. I think that it is obvious why this didn’t work out in the end either. I think that it is important to mention that funding was a major problem for many of these ideas. As can be easily assumed, none of these features could possibly be done at affordable rates, and that they required large amounts of labor and large changes to the roads to accommodate these changes.
The Germans decided to get into this field in the 1980’s. Mercedes-Benz launched their own version of such a car, but their version could not move faster than 39 miles per hour, a number that was clearly far below the speed of an average car. Multiple American universities were next. Universities of Maryland and Michigan created prototypes that were able to travel on hard terrains at different speeds, but again that were not very fast. It seemed that the ability to make these cars fast was, yet another problem faced by the developers. In 1991, the United States Congress passed the ISTEA Transportation Authorization bill that pushed for a creation of an automatic transport system by 1997. By the late 1990’s, the university of Parma in Italy, and Daimler-Benz were able to create vehicles that could reach the speed of 81 mph. The issue of funding and efficient mass production however continued to plague these new advancements. The 2000’s saw even more progress, as Germany invented a “Spirit of Berlin” taxicab, and the Netherlands invented the ParkShuttle. Neither of these options was able to fully replace human driven transportation services, but they managed to be effective means of transportation regardless. By the end of the decade, most of the major car companies were working on making self-driven cars. Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Tesla, Toyota… are some of the more notable companies that were working on prototypes. Uber and Lyft began developing self-driven taxicabs in recent years to save money on drivers, and by making their business to run more smoothly and efficiently. In 2018, a woman was killed by an automated Uber vehicle, and Audi officially announced the release of a mass-produced line of self-driven cars.
What can be predicted about the future of this technology? Logically we can assume that with the current state of technology, better cars will be released, and practical self-driven cars will be readily available to the public. Will this idea take-off with the public? That is the harder question. There is really nothing that can be seriously predicted about how the public will react to this. Personally, I think that it will decades before people will be ready to replace cars that they can drive themselves, with self-driven cars. Why do I think so? I think that many people love driving and would not want to let “somebody else” do it for them. It’s also reasonable to assume that taxicabs may be less expensive than buying a self-driven car. There is also the issue with the cost. How much will these cars cost? Will the average driver be able to afford such a car? Will it be popular among the general population? There are too many unanswered and hard to answer questions about the topic. I do have one concern that comes to mind… the Industrial Revolution threatened entire industries, as many people lost jobs to basically machines. How many taxi drivers would be needed with self-driven cars in the equation? How many bus drivers would be required?
What kind of impact will such cars have on the general population? How will this affect hardware? How will this affect future software? How will it affect data? I think that this concept becoming more popular, will lead to increased funding for the development of new hardware and software pertaining to self-driven cars. It will also likely lead to new ideas for other areas. What about self-working computers? What about self-working irons and laundry machine/robots? There are a lot of concepts that can be thought of by thinking of self-operating hardware and software. There are a lot of things that can be thought of by simply thinking of self-working hardware and software. I think that it will lead to a major development of these concepts. It will also lead to major advancements in software in general, as well as artificial intelligence. If companies can successfully build artificial intelligence systems that will drive cars by themselves, a lot of other things can be made self-controlled as well. One thing that I think could be done successfully is computers that can-do things for you, for example your taxes or other accounting related tasks. I can even imagine self-driven planes and boats. Basically, there are a lot of advancements that can be made through self-working technology. It’s possibl
e that driving a car will become less of a priority for people, and getting a driver’s license might become more of a novelty than a necessity. I also think that NASCAR and the popularity of racing can be affected by the popularity of self-made cars as well as the whole culture of driving. The main question for me is the cost of these cars. The affordability or lack of it will be a major reason as to why or why not this business concept will work. I have my doubts over the topic, as I think that many people enjoy driving and would not want to give it up. There is also a wide variety of taxicab services that are cheaper alternatives to owning a self-driving car. I’m also unclear on whether sports cars will be possible to be self-driven as well. The latter is important because of the popularity of such cars.
How will this technology change the way business is conducted? The main thing that comes to mind is the lack of a driver’s license when purchasing a car? Is it possible that there would be a lack of an age limit to buy a car too? I think that businesses would also come up with new marketing strategies to sell these cars, since driving would no longer be an important part of the marketing pitch. It would also be a potential issue for Uber and Lyft, as well as other taxicab and car service companies. It might even affect limo companies, as wealthy people might prefer very expensive self-driven cars. The big thing that comes to mind is that driving would not be an important component of owning a car. I think that it’s common sense that any change in business would lead to companies adjusting their strategies and marketing campaigns, and focusing on different areas to promote their ideas. It could also affect other businesses entirely as they would focus more on self-working concepts and products. As I mentioned earlier, a laundromat can use some type of a laundry machine/robot that would be doing laundry for you. Phone companies could come up with cell phones that work automatically in some way, and come up with phone plans for self-driving cars. Why? Well, now it would no longer be illegal to talk on the phone in your car. I mean why would it be when it wouldn’t distract you from driving? What about television screens in cars? The owner/passenger now has free time, doesn’t that seem to be a new business opportunity for companies like Netflix? I think that these would be the main things affected by self-driving cars and similar technology. Every new invention that changes the way people normally do things, is bound to change the marketplace and affect the way that companies handle their business expenditures.
How would self-driving cars affect competition between companies? There would be no reason for companies to focus on driving as a major part of their selling pitches. Commercials would no longer advertise the handling and driving of cars, as the person would not actually be driving it. Companies would compete for having technology in which the person would have to do the least to make it work. Companies would try to gain a competitive advantage against one another by adding features that would make the product do as much as possible by itself. I can imagine cars that incorporate other technology, can you imagine cars that do accounting for you? What about a competing company that makes a car that can call companies and have conversations for you? What about cars that would make decisions for you? What about cars that act as your secretaries while driving you? There is almost a limitless amount of possibilities that can be accomplished by a company aiming to stand out. This type of technology can of course be applied to other technologies as well. So now we’re talking about cell phones that call for you, cell phones that make decisions for you…. Basically, companies would take this technology to the extreme to compete. The spirit of competition has driven many industries to unprecedented highs, and so this industry will likely be no exception to this rule. The question would ultimately be about which companies would stay ahead of the curve, and which ones would not.
How do self-driving cars affect society in a global way? Well if this concept takes off, then countries will try to keep up with each other by improving on the technology and by attempting to avoid being “behind” others. It will be a major driving factor in the competition between major companies, and create new forms of advancement in other technologies. The global impact of such a technology is enormous and would change a lot of things as we know them. It’s certainly not going to be an isolated idea that only affects one country and one field, it will affect the whole world and affect multiple industries, including those that have nothing to do with the automobile industry.
Is there an ethical side to self-driving cars? A major question that comes to mind is whether it is a good idea to trust so much in artificial intelligence. What would happen if someone who doesn’t know how to drive is faced with a malfunctioning vehicle? What happens if these vehicles cause a multitude of accidents? Is it a good idea for our society to become more “lazy”? Should we really try to have something else do as much of our work as possible? This is an issue that can be debated ad nauseum without a generally agreed upon answer or a solution. Personally, I think that giving so much authority to machines is dangerous, how long before we start putting machines in leadership positions and becoming completely incompetent without them? We rely on the internet, cell phones, cars, and social media daily, how would many of us survive if all these options were taken away? Why do we need a car to drive itself? Why can’t a person do it themselves? Why is this improvement even needed? There seems to be an endless supply of questions on this subject. Personally, I think that my position on the subject has been made clear. I don’t think that self-driven cars are as much a necessity as it seems to be, and that the current state of transportation is a better and more efficient way of doing things.
What are the legal repercussions of self-driving cars? What happens if the car owner gets into an accident? Is the person responsible or is the car? If it’s the car, what’s going to happen next? Obviously, nobody will arrest the car, so does this mean that no one is in trouble if their car runs someone over? How do we define right and wrong when it comes to artificial intelligence? Will any of these cars be able to both be controlled by people and artificial intelligence? In that case, could someone run another person over with a car and then blame it on artificial intelligence? How would law enforcement be able to prove what happened? Would the company itself be responsible? Once again, we enter a new reality filled with many different possibilities and new rules required to administer them. It seems pretty clear to me that self-driving cars will need a whole new set of laws to determine accidents that will almost certainly happen regardless of whether the driver is human or not.
As the advancement of self-sustaining technology arises, so does the general concern that I stated earlier. Driverless cars can either be a technology that benefits the population or that is detrimental to society. From the information that I found and my own opinion on these cars, my views are that it would be detrimental. Specifically, due to the life – death calculations that the artificial intelligence can make. An example being to avoid multiple causalities, AI may calculate that putting your life on the line is the correct way to go. I’d argue this as being something the AI should never be able to decide. More or less because it can’t use emotional intuition to make choices that involve life or death
. All things considered we came a long way with our technology, and so did the concept of cars that drive themselves. Our society is bound to be affected by a step of this magnitude, but a lot of factors must be taken into consideration, to make a true judgment on the matter. Self-driving cars will either change driving as we know it, or become a failed attempt to fix something that did not need fixing.