05-21-2020, 11:55 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-21-2020, 11:56 AM by danbrotherston.)
(05-21-2020, 11:33 AM)clasher Wrote:(05-21-2020, 08:07 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: As for when self driving cars are coming, I think it's a lot sooner than you folks think, I suspect they are already safer than average human drivers (remember, humans are a very very low bar) and as soon as it's feasible (i.e., as safe as a professional human driver) you can bet that the T&L industry will stop employing drivers--who are very expensive and cannot drive 24/7, whether you choose to buy a self driving car or not, they're coming.
I doubt that self-driving cars are safer than humans right now, Autonomous vehicle safety myths and facts. The blog is full of great information and analysis of whatever solid data the author can find. In that link near the bottom is a little blurb about Tesla autopilot and a flawed study the NHTSA. There is a link on the sidebar to the 2020 numbers, and a lot of other interesting stuff that I don't really understand since I'm not a tech person.
Elon Musk said a few years ago we'd have self-driving cars in 2020, so did a lot of people in 2010 and 1995, and so on. It's been "coming" for a long time apparently but it's still not here and probably won't be for decades.
The article you linked is at the URL: https://blog.piekniewski.info/ which is a big tip off that this is not a rigourous evaluation. The author has basically just assumed that a self driving car, when it requires the driver to take over, would instead have crashed, this is clearly a nonsense assumption, since the vehicle could instead have "stopped".
All of the statements you make are related to Elon Musk are true, he is at this point, at best a snakeoil sales man at best, and a raving lunatic at worst, only true fanboys do not realize this yet. Yes, he has done some great things, he has been able to effectively run an EV company and a space launch company, but he has not proven himself beyond that. I used to respect him, I don't anymore.
Waymo is by far the most advanced self driving system, and comparisons with it are what we should talk about, as it demonstrates what is possible today with today's technology. Now I'm not saying that self driving cars are ready today, I'm saying that they are so close as to be clearly foreseeable soon.
As for their actual safety right now, they absolutely are safer than humans, remember, humans are TERRIBLE they kill tens of thousands of people every year in the US seriously injure hundreds of thousands and get involved in millions of collisions--MILLIONS. Even per mile, self driving cars are doing better than that right now, waymo by far.