How self-driving cars will change our future and put millions of people out of work

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Six years ago, Google surprised the public with the news of the development of self-driving cars. And this year, Uber has already launched several self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh. For the foreseeable future, this technology will have a huge impact on our lives.

A person will be forbidden to drive a car

Let's face it, people are lousy drivers. The very idea of giving every adult the ability to drive a two-ton death machine is pretty stupid. More than 1.3 million people are killed by cars every year. worldwide.

Computers can drive much better. Firstly, they do not drink and are not distracted by correspondence and other matters while driving. Secondly, the multitude of sensors gives them superhuman abilities: radars, lasers, cameras, online navigation and computing power for instant decision making.

According to a recent study. The widespread adoption of self-driving cars can reduce road accidents by 90%. This should save thousands of people.

The facts support the hypotheses. Google's self-driving cars have driven more than two million miles, far more than the average human driver drives in a lifetime. So far, they have only one accident on their account, the culprit of which was a computer. What happens when self-driving cars are everywhere and the authorities realize how much safer they are? Legislators will simply ban people from driving.

Elon Musk angered many when he publicly admitted this scenario. But his critics fail to realize that outrage solves nothing.

Once upon a time, no one wanted to see seat belts and airbags in a car. Now they are present in all cars, which confirms the priority of public safety over the opinion of individuals.

After all, accidents are big losses. In the United States alone, it is estimated that self-driving cars will save more than $ 190 billion a year in property damage reduction. And this is a very powerful argument in their favor.

Diffusion of technology will lead to massive surveillance

If you enter the query "accidents" in the YouTube search, the service will display thousands of videos with terrible accidents and situations close to them. This number of recordings is due to the popularity of DVRs that help people defend their rights in corrupt countries. That is, all the previously imperceptible chaos of roads is being brought out for everyone to see.

The advent of camera phones has shed light on another important phenomenon - police lawlessness.

Recently, a video of police brutal behavior towards African Americans has raised media attention to an issue previously overlooked. This led to national protests. Although such violence has been present for a long time, the cameras have changed the awareness of it.

Self-driving cars are cameras on steroids.

On the one hand, the staggering amount of data collected can significantly improve public safety. Self-driving cars will be able to detect obstacles, accidents, potential threats and will inform the necessary services about them. And the software is to calculate crimes using special algorithms in real time and report them to the authorities.

On the other hand, such constant surveillance brings us closer to a totalitarian society. For example, unmanned vehicles connected to the Internet will be able to regularly track the coordinates of passengers. And facial recognition technology will allow a network of such vehicles to detect and track pedestrians.

Imagine the kind of debate about privacy and security that will erupt in a world already fueled by Snowden's revelations!

The concept of "personal car" will cease to exist

Nearly every tech giant, including Google, Baidu, and Uber, is working on its own version of self-driving cars. Most likely, these companies will start a business that follows the same model as standalone ridesharing services.

It's like Uber without a driver. A self-driving car arrives at the request of the client and delivers him to his destination, and then leaves for new passengers.

In addition to convenience, such a system will be able to offer a low fare. For this, most of the listed companies develop electric cars.

Savings on gas and drivers could make driverless Uber services cheaper than using public transport.

We get all the benefits of having our own car, while we pay less and stop worrying about car support and parking spaces. If self-driving cars became so cheap and convenient, the idea of a private car would be pointless.

People will be delighted with these changes when you consider that the car has a very low efficiency. The average car owner spends only 4% on car use. of its time. This is a waste, considering that just gigantic sums are spent on the maintenance of a car. At the same time, the autopilot optimizes the transport system, removing up to 90% of unnecessary cars from the roads.

Traffic lights and traffic jams will disappear

Apart from the obvious environmental benefits, having fewer cars on the road is the first step towards eliminating congestion.

In 2008, a team of researchers showed how traffic congestion can come out of nowhere. Scientists have launched 22 cars on a looped road lane 230 meters long at a speed of 48 km / h. After a short period of time, a plug formed.

This phenomenon is called a traffic wave. It occurs as a result of a decrease in speed by one of the drivers in the queue of cars and causes a chain reaction.

The cleverly edited video below shows how myriads of cars avoid collisions at an intersection with incredible ease. A person cannot drive a car like that. But in a world where cars communicate at tremendous speeds, advanced traffic management systems can make such traffic a reality.

Such systems will make traffic lights unnecessary. This is another change for the better, as this technology is 150 years old. Now it is only capable of roughly coordinating traffic.

Bad news: self-driving cars will take millions of people out of jobs

In this photo, a police officer is fining a Google self-driving car for driving too slow.

This picture is a great metaphor for our automated future. In a world without drivers, parking lots and traffic lights, there isn't much work left for the traffic police. The idea of no fines sounds appealing, but not so appealing to people who will lose their jobs. Think about taxi and public transport workers, and truck drivers.

Money is a critical factor in social change. Self-driving cars don't need to pay a salary. They can work 24 hours, seven days a week. By using them, the employer may not think about the problems of hiring and managing employees. All these are huge savings for transport companies that they will not neglect.

… and transform the economy we are used to

The introduction of self-driving cars is part of a large-scale phenomenon called "automation". As a result, artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies do work in place of humans. The transport sector is only the first victim, followed by others.

There is nothing wrong with automation as such. This process has been going on for centuries. History knows many professions that have disappeared due to progress. So future generations will think about drivers the same way we think about elevators and city heralds.

But today, there are still many obstacles in the way of self-driving cars. They need to be prepared to work in different weather conditions, protected from hackers, taught to adequately respond to all traffic situations. However, the potential benefits outweigh the disadvantages and challenges ahead.

If self-driving transport brings at least a tenth of the promised benefits (be it lives saved, money saved, or an improved environment), it is our moral duty to make it all happen.