#Driverless cars

[kropotkindersurprise]

September 2, 2023 - a San Francisco local disables a Cruise self-driving car. If you live in a place where Silicon Valley bullshit like driverless cars or autonomous delivery robots or doorbell cameras are becoming commonplace it might be a good idea to follow the example of this trendsetter and start carrying around a skimask and a hammer, just in case. [video]

[probablyasocialecologist]

The widespread adoption of self-driving cars will create a major bump in carbon emissions without changes to their design, a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found.

The study found that with a mass global takeup of autonomous vehicles, the powerful onboard computers needed to run them could generate as many greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centres in operation today.

These data centres currently produce around 0.14 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the entire output of Argentina or around 0.3 per cent of global emissions, according to the researchers.

A similar amount would be generated by one billion autonomous vehicles – fewer than the number of cars in the world today – each driving one hour per day with a computer consuming 840 watts of power.

[nando161mando]

Big rigs should not be driverless WTF

[dweamofsweep]

ok this is so random but I was watching a video that had a section on self driving cars causing trouble for the police and… I couldn’t help but think Lupin would definitely find some way to exploit one (or many) for an over-the-top heist and/or getaway

[transpondster]

This isn't just a problem driverless cars don't solve. It's actually a problem driverless cars enable. The passenger inside is helpless and there's no way to tell the car to keep moving and no driver to help.

[zee-man-chatter]

Of all things, the WIFI went down and the cars stopped in their tracks. People have in the past been locked out of their Tesla cars when the servers glitched. The problem with smart devices is that they build on a lot of technologies, if any one of them in the chain breaks, you get failure. So think of a crocodile, it's simple and rudimentary, and it's survived millions of years, sometimes simple is good.

[wtstsgalor]

Thanks to Guns 'n' Bacon for this great meme.

[ralfmaximus]

The Fire Department has tallied 44 incidents so far this year in which robotaxis entered active fire scenes, ran over fire hoses or blocked fire trucks from responding to emergency calls. That count is double the figure from last year’s informal count, which Nicholson said does not include all incidents.

Things are going just great in the driverless car industry.

[feckcops]

Self-driving cars are here and they’re watching you

“‘For years we’ve had growing numbers of features that are turning our cars into policing tools,’ said Albert Fox Cahn, an anti-surveillance activist and director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. ‘Now that we can no longer deny that this is going to be a way people are tracked, we have to ask if the car companies are willing to make the sort of investment it takes to prevent their cars from driving us straight into authoritarianism.’ ...

“Privacy experts warn that surveillance technology and systems which collect user data that are vulnerable to law enforcement requests disproportionately harm marginalised groups and are a violation of constitutional rights to privacy.

“When it comes to self-driving systems, cameras play a crucial role. The cameras on the outside of the cars help vehicles navigate the streets they’re driving on and manufacturers say the cameras inside the vehicles allow them to support customers as needed. Surveillance is hard to ignore when you’re in one of these vehicles. On a recent test drive of a Cruise driverless car in San Francisco, friends and I were confronted by cameras staring down at us from all directions as soon as we got into the car. One of my friends was so uncomfortable that she covered her face throughout the ride.

“Unsurprisingly, police have started to wise up to the potential for the footage these cameras capture to help them in investigations ... There’s also precedent for police to ask for footage from systems that record inside and outside enclosed spaces, according to Cahn. ‘We already see examples of people getting police warrants for Ring camera data from both outside and within their homes,’ he said. ‘Where there’s a camera, it’s just one court order away from being used against you in a court of law.’”

[aifyit]

The DARK SIDE of AI : Can we trust Self-Driving Cars?

Read our new blog and follow/subscribe for more such informative content. #artificialintelligence #ai #selfdrivingcars #tesla

Self-driving cars have been hailed as the future of transportation, promising safer roads and more efficient travel. They use artificial intelligence (AI) to navigate roads and make decisions on behalf of the driver, leading many to believe that they will revolutionize the way we commute. However, as with any technology, there is a dark side to AI-powered self-driving cars that must be…

[scripted-downfall]

Inverted Ask 7

Pleaseeee answer this. I'm curious about stuff in general but even more curious about this stuff.

How do y'all feel about driverless cars? Pro or anti, and why?

-- -- --

For an explanation of the concept, see Inverted Ask 1.

[don-slade]

Automatic trains are not what we need or can build right now, as much as I love Amtrak's tumblr.

I once asked why trains aren't automated, as surely that would make sense, on the german rail-enthusiasts subreddit. For closed lines, like freight or airport shuttles, it can work, but not so much for passenger travel.

The first major problem is that the biggest advantage a train has is also its biggest problem: hauling ginormous mass at above highway speed is efficient, but there's almost no chance to brake in time. Trains do have to emergency brake a lot more than you'd think, and sometimes they stop in time. But that only happens because a human train conductor knows his route and can look ahead far enough, like 1km, to properly identify problems. There's no sensors yet that can do this reliably.

Another thing is that you wouldn't even save on employees, if that's even something you want to do. Trains don't magically appear in the first station. They're at loads of trainyards just outside the station or entirely somewhere else, and need to be prepared each day. Checking and reporting damages on technical things and interior, testing doors and brakes, starting the damn thing, putting gas in it, and much more. So even if it were automated, you would still need like half the amount of conductors but now as "train checkers". There's no amount of sensors you can argue to replace a person.

Lastly, in passenger transport there's more to do than just drive. Conductors have to check if all doors are closed and people are safe, and might even wait an extra second to let someone in who's late, and must be on the lookout for people crossing the tracks directly, and just things only people can do. Yes, train attendants can do this, too.

Automating trains is not our goal! We need just more. More trains in well-planned and laid-our lines, with train stations that actually lead somewhere and not to the outskirts.

Me at a Gay Bar talking to the nearest person who will listen to me ramble: Okay so you see self driving cars are a fucking scam you hear me, there are too many variables on the road to trust a machine and they still will take just as long as a human to get places and they aren’t capable of making the same split second decisions a human can make, so we really shouldn’t be studying them in all honesty, if we want to pursue driverless transit we should focus on building automated train lines due to how since they function on a set track they decisions rarely need to be made, additionally the technology for them is proven having existed since the 60s, so if we really want good driverless transport we should do what every transit expert has suggested and just focus on building modern reliable public transit

[rabidhiss]

Kimmel’s end to his monologue featured a prank on his Aunt Chippy who has ZERO FUCKS TO GIVE. Aunt Chippy loses her shit in a Waymo (driverless cab) and becomes our nations savior!

[brightartsworld]

A story from John Edwin on Medium

Read “Become a Product Description Writer for Autonomous Cars“ by John Edwin on Medium: https://johnedwinabutu.medium.com/become-a-product-description-writer-for-autonomous-cars-0c35eaa7951a

[defost]

Electric car concept

You can buy it as a 3D Model