Oops...self-driving cars perhaps not quite ready for prime time yet.

[High octane]

 Yup. One of my requisites for female companionship for the past several years has been "must be able to drive a three-on-the-tree". Needless to say, I'm a lonely guy. 

I'd get a ride with an automatic trans and enjoy life.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I'd get a ride with an automatic trans and enjoy life.

I enjoy several other aspects of life, and I have several vehicles with automatics...but thanks for the advice. 

[Bernard Kron]

Boy is it tempting to jump in on this discussion. The rush to autonomous cars and the internet of things is symptomatic of a high-tech industry that's struggling to get past the initial phases of consumer exhaustion on some pretty big successes over the past few decades. But this is such a huge subject with such profound implications I'd better steer clear of that and focus on autonomous cars per se.

The big buzz from a business point of view a couple of decades back was the idea of what was then called "recurring revenue" - biz-speak for selling a subscription to a service or to media. The huge success of cable television which had virtually entirely replaced free-to-air TV in the USA was one of the main drivers of the trend at the time. The key to all this is that the user must surrender their right to ownership of the contents and the means of delivery.

We've come a long way since those early beginnings and quite a few things are no longer owned by their users. For example many people don't realize that they don't actually own the songs on their iPod, just the right to the personal use of them. Your right to duplication and sharing is extremely limited. This is totally unlike buying a CD, let alone a 45 or LP (or a book for that matter), where it was virtually impossible for the publisher to keep track of the subsequent use and distribution of the material. When I went to college, for example, it was common practice to make Zerox copies of book chapters for our course work. No one said boo, probably because their were helpless to enforce the copyright.

Autonomous driving is a data play. It's all about mapping roads, intersections, etc., and about probabilistic models about what happens on them. This is very complex stuff, and yet we all deal with it every day with our humble human brains. The Big Plan is to rent you a car when you need it that will drive you where the data can get you. The various early phases are already in play. Tesla, for example, is Beta testing one part of autonomous driving, the part that scans in real time the actual situation you're in and adjusts the car's parameters accordingly. Google is mapping roads and testing driverless cars on them. Uber will rent you a car and driver, but eventually you'll just request a driverless car. Or you can rent a car from Daimler Benz's Car-To-Go scheme by the hour and just park it wherever you are when you're through using it. The data-net keeps track of their location and the subscribers who are authorized to use them. When you need one they'll tell you where it is and you just (hopefully) walk to it and, er, Go...The driverless car, or course, will drive to your door.

Meanwhile cars are getting ever more complex and dependent on automated feedback loops and the sensors that drive them. The weight, complexity and cost of cars is ever increasing as a result. Much of this trend is the result of legislated mandates, often driven by the industries that benefit from them. (Think 5-mile-per-hour bumpers and air bags for early examples.) The idea is that the "quality" is also ever increasing and that this new scheme will take the ever-escalating capital cost and distribute it over a radically larger user base. By eliminating the skill of driving, the potential user base is limited only by the cost of services as a percentage of income, and of the capacity of the network (the roads) to hold them.

The other big issue is user liability. In theory if the network and everything on it is owned and operated by a government or private oligopoly then they are ultimately responsible for what goes on there. This is definitely not what they want. Uber is fighting tooth and nail in court rooms around the world to avoid being responsible for the activities that occur in the "rides" they make available. But you can't have it both ways. How this shakes out may actually far more important than the enabling technologies being developed right now.

But ask yourself this: Are you willing to give up your ownership rights as an operator of your automobile? What if you can't afford the subscription fees? Or what if you want to go somewhere that's not on the network? Or what if that part of the network is unavailable when you want to go there? Or forbidden to you? Or.... The current network of roads already limits where you can go to a great extent, but you still own the means of transport and the use of those roads is still very open. All this will change with the Driverless Car and the business model that will accompany it.

I'm actually quite optimistic that all this will be worked out. That's because I think people are far more aware of these issues than many business and technology leaders think. It may indeed prove to be that much of this technology is simply not needed, or will be used in ways we haven't yet imagined.

Meanwhile Tesla just had a Big Problem with an unintentional beta tester in Florida.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Bernard Kron

[peteski]

With all this talk about autonomous cars all communicating with each other or cloud computing power, nobody has raised the possibility of hackers breaking into the car's computer systems or into the entire inter-car communication system and creating havoc (maybe even causing accidents).  If we look into any current computer devices, they are all prone to hacking - even the super-secure government network. The problem to me seems that the size of the software (in millions of lines of code) has become way too complex to manage properly.  There are many people or entities creating various pieces of the code and then someone else integrates them together (or uses set of libraries from another source). This is just ripe for back doors or vulnerabilities.  I don't want someone hacking into my self-driving car's computer and forcing it to slam into a bridge abutment at 60 MPH!

Even now (remember Toyota's self-acceleration bug?) cars have buggy software for their non-autonomous systems. Imagine a system 100 times more complex. . .

[Ace-Garageguy]

With all this talk about autonomous cars all communicating with each other or cloud computing power, nobody has raised the possibility of hackers breaking into the car's computer systems or into the entire inter-car communication system...

I mentioned earlier the need for hardening the systems against malicious hacking, and the fact that it's not even really understood fully what it's going to take to do it.

System vulnerabilities are rarely all known until well after systems are in operation.

You're right. It's a very real problem with potentially deadly consequences and not one that should be taken lightly.

[Quick GMC]

With all this talk about autonomous cars all communicating with each other or cloud computing power, nobody has raised the possibility of hackers breaking into the car's computer systems or into the entire inter-car communication system and creating havoc (maybe even causing accidents).  If we look into any current computer devices, they are all prone to hacking - even the super-secure government network. The problem to me seems that the size of the software (in millions of lines of code) has become way too complex to manage properly.  There are many people or entities creating various pieces of the code and then someone else integrates them together (or uses set of libraries from another source). This is just ripe for back doors or vulnerabilities.  I don't want someone hacking into my self-driving car's computer and forcing it to slam into a bridge abutment at 60 MPH!

Even now (remember Toyota's self-acceleration bug?) cars have buggy software for their non-autonomous systems. Imagine a system 100 times more complex. . .

You can already hack into cars and control them. It's happened several times. Jeep had a recall because of a vulnerability like this. 

[Harry P.]

Seems to me that the single biggest hurdle to overcome if self-driving vehicles ever became the norm would be the implementation of one universal operating system, so that all vehicles on the road would be "thinking" the same way. I think Bill mentioned this point in one of his previous posts.

But with various different manufacturers spending millions of dollars to develop their own proprietary system, it seems about impossible to imagine that all of these competing companies would agree on one standard.

It's like Mac vs. PC or VHS vs. Beta... only worse. You're not affecting the other guy's computing if you are on a Mac and he is on a PC. You don't affect your neighbor's TV viewing habits if you are on Dish Network and he is on Comcast.

But if your driverless car is running on operating system X and the other guy's car is running on operating system Y.... what happens in the event of an impending collision if the two cars are "thinking" differently?

[Quick GMC]

Seems to me that the single biggest hurdle to overcome if self-driving vehicles ever became the norm would be the implementation of one universal operating system, so that all vehicles on the road would be "thinking" the same way. I think Bill mentioned this point in one of his previous posts.

But with various different manufacturers spending millions of dollars to develop their own proprietary system, it seems about impossible to imagine that all of these competing companies would agree on one standard.

It's like Mac vs. PC or VHS vs. Beta... only worse. You're not affecting the other guy's computing if you are on a Mac and he is on a PC. You don't affect your neighbor's TV viewing habits if you are on Dish Network and he is on Comcast.

But if your driverless car is running on operating system X and the other guy's car is running on operating system Y.... what happens in the event of an impending collision if the two cars are "thinking" differently?

Musk has made several of his patents free and open for everyone to use, I wouldn't be surprised if he eventually made this available as well. 

[Spex84]

Pow! Bernard, you have very eloquently described a number of issues that have been bothering me for a while now.

  The idea is that the "quality" is also ever increasing and that this new scheme will take the ever-escalating capital cost and distribute it over a radically larger user base. By eliminating the skill of driving, the potential user base is limited only by the cost of services as a percentage of income, and of the capacity of the network (the roads) to hold them.

 

When I imagine that this might be the future, all I can think is...uugggggh. I'm moving to a third-world country where I can do what I want.

[Bernard Kron]

Hmmm... (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZHRupjl5E&feature=youtu.be )

Edited July 7, 2016 by Bernard Kron

[GT4494]

I have an automatic for the DD.  The 5 speed is for having fun (no computer systems in that car).  and the 3 speed non synchronized is for profiling. 

I have yet to have a blow out experience at 70mph, but I have spun two different cars on the interstate at 70+mph. Not totally my fault, people around here don't look when they merge they just change lanes in front of you.

I kinda like the pucker and hold on experience.    Keeps me young.

 

[High octane]

Seems to me that the single biggest hurdle to overcome if self-driving vehicles ever became the norm would be the implementation of one universal operating system, so that all vehicles on the road would be "thinking" the same way. I think Bill mentioned this point in one of his previous posts.

But with various different manufacturers spending millions of dollars to develop their own proprietary system, it seems about impossible to imagine that all of these competing companies would agree on one standard.

It's like Mac vs. PC or VHS vs. Beta... only worse. You're not affecting the other guy's computing if you are on a Mac and he is on a PC. You don't affect your neighbor's TV viewing habits if you are on Dish Network and he is on Comcast.

But if your driverless car is running on operating system X and the other guy's car is running on operating system Y.... what happens in the event of an impending collision if the two cars are "thinking" differently?

I used to belong to a radio control club back in the 90's, and what you're saying is like having two vehicles running on the same frequency. That won't work.

[Joe Handley]

I used to belong to a radio control club back in the 90's, and what you're saying is like having two vehicles running on the same frequency. That won't work.

It could, use the same basic operating system on everthing (like OBD2), so that all the codes match and the different cars understand what each other are talking about when the info is sent out to advise the rest of the autonomous cars (anf maybe those of us that are still driving) of weather and/or road conditions/obstructions, while each individual car would handle it's own basic needs as it's doing what we need them to do at that moment.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Quote from Tesla: "Autopilot does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility". 

[High octane]

It could, use the same basic operating system on everthing (like OBD2), so that all the codes match and the different cars understand what each other are talking about when the info is sent out to advise the rest of the autonomous cars (anf maybe those of us that are still driving) of weather and/or road conditions/obstructions, while each individual car would handle it's own basic needs as it's doing what we need them to do at that moment.

Now your dreamin'.

[Art Anderson]

Check me if I'm wrong, but really, do we truly need robots driving cars on public roads--mixing it up with living, breathing human drivers?    Not yet, in my opinion.

 

Art

[Joe Handley]

With the way some of the people I've shared the roads with are, I'm kinda looking forward to the robots.  I don't still have full coverage on my 18 year old, rustbucket Jeep  because it's just so cheap to insure that the extra cost doesn't matter to me.

[Jim N]

Hubris seems to be something that is hard wired in humans.  We tend to think we are greater than we are and need a kick in the pants to find out that we are not as wonderful as we think.  Self-driving cars, which is a component in the wider universe of the internet of things will be next.

We once thought a ship was unsinkable and it sunk on its maiden voyage.

We once thought it was safe to put civilians in space and then a space shuttle blew up.

We will find out that the internet of things is not all that it’s cracked up to be long before self-driving cars hit the roads in large number. 

I saw a commercial the other day for a television show that I do not remember, but the person doing the voice over for the commercial stated that the most dangerous person in the world is a hacker who is bored.  That may be a bit over the top, but one day soon a car will become a 1.5 – 2 ton brick because a hacker will render it useless.  A home with a thermostat that is internet capable will be hacked and the home’s HVAC system will become non-functional.  If this happens to a few cars or homes it will be a blip in the news.  However, if the hackers can do this on a wide scale, it will cause mayhem. Only then will the hubris surrounding the internet of things and the sliver that is the self-driving cars will be put in its place.