Google BUILDS 100% self-driving electric car, no wheel, no pedals.

[MountainsWinAgain]

-Google today announced its own design for self-driving cars, which will drive people around without a steering wheel or pedals.

-The company has already shown off its own self-driving technology, which retrofits existing vehicles made by Toyota and Lexus. However this new version, which was announced by Brin at the Recode conference, is a new design that fits two people, and is driven entirely by computer using a variety of on-board computers and sensors.

-Google says the program is currently in a prototype phase, but that it plans to build around 100 early versions of the vehicles for testing this summer.

-Google's overarching goal with the self-driving car program has been to develop vehicles that are safer than the ones driven by humans.

-This latest prototype was made using off the shelf car parts, Brin says. That includes heavy use of foam, and an electric motor.

Google's self driving car.

This was Posted By Google via Google+

Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History. We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention

Read more: http://googleblog.blogspot.ru/2014/05/ju...iving.html

[Minimalist]

Seems silly.

[zebo-the-fat]

It can drive you home after a night on the booze !

[ThePinsir]

I wonder if they can recognize a child dart in the middle is the street...then stop in time. Seems like it should have an emergency brake or something.

Also, I can imagine hackers/cyber-douches can get people killed...

[Jackalope]

I wonder if they can recognize a child dart in the middle is the street...then stop in time. Seems like it should have an emergency brake or something.

Also, I can imagine hackers/cyber-douches can get people killed...

Recognizing a child darting into the street is one thing that I would suspect they've factored in. There's still stopping time - even taking human reaction time out of the equation, it still takes a finite amount of time to stop any vehicle.

[Minimalist]

Collateral damage. The gun nuts will explain the principle to you.

http://www.donotlink.com/framed?38179

By Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher

I’m not talking here about the three tragic murders Rodger committed by stabbing before his driving and shooting spree; I speak now only to the families of the gunshot victims in Santa Barbara:

It’s a tragedy.

I am sorry you lost your child. I myself have a son and daughter and the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now. But:

As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.

[Heywood]

I wonder if they can recognize a child dart in the middle is the street...then stop in time. Seems like it should have an emergency brake or something.

Also, I can imagine hackers/cyber-douches can get people killed...

Recognizing a child darting into the street is one thing that I would suspect they've factored in. There's still stopping time - even taking human reaction time out of the equation, it still takes a finite amount of time to stop any vehicle.

I would bet that a darting kid would more likely be killed by a human driver then a computer driver.

Right now these cars are limited to 25 mph. I imagine a day will come when driverless cars are traveling at speeds over 200 mph in long trains of cars each drafting each other. I wonder if these make obsolete high speed rail.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If you've ever seen the film minority report I imagine it will look something like that. At least in my opinion.

[MindForgedManacle]

I certainly wouldn't want to be part of the dev team that has to program the cars' ethical guidelines, being the minefield that it will necessarily be. After all, when the child/adult(/animal?) darts in front of the car, what will be the general protocols the cars abide by? Will they be fundamentally deontological, where the car will essentially try and avoid the death or injury of its occupants, regardless of the potential consequences to others? Or will they fundamentally be consequentialistic, where the cars' A.I. will weigh the overall harm done (perhaps it'd, say, swerve out of the kids' way even though it must hit an elderly person in order to avoid the kid? To go further, if the cars' A.I. is forced into a situation where the most optimal consequentialistic route is to crash itself to save more lives overall, will the car opt to instead save its occupants who presumably bought the car under the expectation that it would take their lives most seriously, or will it be a true consequentialist?
This is the sort of technology where I really hope Google is taking on numerous ethicists as consultants in order to help them take such considerations to heart. They are going to be able to parse out the relevant ethical space and the hazards/benefits than any non-specialist is likely to even be able to attempt.


All that said, I think self-driving cars will be an overall net boon for us on multiple fronts once it's fully implemented (how to deal with legacy technology is another concern that comes to my mind). Aside from essentially wiping out the scourge of drunk driving accidents (assuming these don't get released with optional manual control), we are almost certain to see traffic congestion go waaaayyy down, given that these will presumably be able to coordinate so as to provide a very efficient system, and be less prone to car accidents in general. And while the ethics of a car choosing how to act when lives are at stake is a minefield, it's not like it isn't a problem with regular ol' people. Heck, when we swerve out of the way, we aren't even capable of as much deliberate consideration as these will be capable of in such little time.

[Heywood]

I certainly wouldn't want to be part of the dev team that has to program the cars' ethical guidelines, being the minefield that it will necessarily be. After all, when the child/adult(/animal?) darts in front of the car, what will be the general protocols the cars abide by? Will they be fundamentally deontological, where the car will essentially try and avoid the death or injury of its occupants, regardless of the potential consequences to others? Or will they fundamentally be consequentialistic, where the cars' A.I. will weigh the overall harm done (perhaps it'd, say, swerve out of the kids' way even though it must hit an elderly person in order to avoid the kid? To go further, if the cars' A.I. is forced into a situation where the most optimal consequentialistic route is to crash itself to save more lives overall, will the car opt to instead save its occupants who presumably bought the car under the expectation that it would take their lives most seriously, or will it be a true consequentialist?
This is the sort of technology where I really hope Google is taking on numerous ethicists as consultants in order to help them take such considerations to heart. They are going to be able to parse out the relevant ethical space and the hazards/benefits than any non-specialist is likely to even be able to attempt.


All that said, I think self-driving cars will be an overall net boon for us on multiple fronts once it's fully implemented (how to deal with legacy technology is another concern that comes to my mind). Aside from essentially wiping out the scourge of drunk driving accidents (assuming these don't get released with optional manual control), we are almost certain to see traffic congestion go waaaayyy down, given that these will presumably be able to coordinate so as to provide a very efficient system, and be less prone to car accidents in general. And while the ethics of a car choosing how to act when lives are at stake is a minefield, it's not like it isn't a problem with regular ol' people. Heck, when we swerve out of the way, we aren't even capable of as much deliberate consideration as these will be capable of in such little time.

This is a good and insightful post. I never thought about driverless cars from this perspective. Thanks.

I remember one time driving down a highway. A deer pops out onto the side of the road slightly in the right of way. I swerved just a little because I decided that losing control of the car would be worse than hitting the deer. I clipped the deer. If it was a child, I hope I would have swerved more even if it meant loosing control of the car. I don't think Google-Car can make decisions like this......but then I am not entirely sure that I always can.