Fall LC thread

Lol “You full of hate!” says the guy threatening to shoot Veterans.

General MacArthur also pretty atrocious tbh.

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So kaep to redskins!

It is a pretty egregious oversight.

I would be for all self driving tests to be removed from public roadways at this point and require much more advanced close testing environments.

That being said Uber is the worst so I would be okay if that penalty is for them. Waymo seems to be much better managed.

Not accounting for pedestrians on roads is so basic though, that these systems are not ready for public testing.

Tesla’s driven almost 2 billion miles so far without hitting any pedestrians that I know of.

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If computer cars are less likely to kill people, I’m ok with them going ahead and not having accidents treated as homicide.

Otoh, and this really isn’t just a joke, we are speeding headlong towards the rise of the machines.

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The problem with self driving cars is that they are destined to be another means of rent extraction.

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Because it’s going to be cheaper and more efficient for most people to not own a car, right?

I think the relevant question is were they being reckless? If that could be established then past safety record is somewhat irrelevant. Obviously it could be used as part of an explanation as to why it wasn’t reckless, but equally a perfectly safe driver for decades could break the law.

I’m not against self driving cars, but if they did not account for pedestrians in a situation that they actually occur, then prima facie that seems like recklessness to me. Perfectly prepared to have it explained why they reasonably thought the precautions in the software would handle it anyway. It just surprised me that the story seemed to imply there wasn’t any legal implications whatsoever.

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It’s going to put a lot of people out of work, and the people who own the technology and the assets are going to make a lot of money. I think that’s what MrWookie is getting at.

A big part of the problem here is that we, through patents, have the government creating monopolies for people. It doesn’t matter that they are the ones who originally ‘invented’ the tech (although I suspect that if you look deep enough you’ll discover that most of the basic research that they are working off of to develop the application was government funded) the result for society is going to be rent extraction at the expense of people who work for a living.

Capitalism + Technology + Patents to protect the capitalists who own the technology really is turning out to be super super toxic. There are an absurd number of businesses that have 500M+ dollar barriers to entry because of IP laws alone… and those businesses predictably have crazy margins.

I think there’s nothing inherently wrong with making cars self driving, and I think it’s ridiculous to threaten criminal charges against someone for not thinking of jaywalking. The reality is that it wasn’t negligence, it was just the thing they didn’t think of. They made a mistake, and ultimately when you’re talking about creating something as complex as a self driving car you’re going to miss something that seems obvious in hindsight. In the case of Uber’s stolen Google tech it was jaywalkers. Probably should have stolen a later version lol.

Regardless there are going to be some deaths as this tech rolls out. But probably fewer than there already have been with those scooters littered everywhere. And way way less than died with the introduction of the car. It was still legal to drink and drive for a very very long time ffs. Auto fatalities used to be way higher, and today a lot of people get killed in cars. Let’s not clutch our pearls and pretend like there isn’t something worth getting to wrt safety here. Self driving vehicle technology needs to happen, to save lives if nothing else.

Now the fact that it’s going to drive inequality instead of just raising everyones quality of life and safety is a problem with capitalism that needs to be fixed separately. Trying to slow down technological advancement because there are some downsides is the wrong approach. We need to fix how we distribute wealth in this country… that’s not the self driving car people’s fault.

Why would the inevitable monopoly or oligarchy that gets regulatory approval to produce self driving cars price them below current ownership costs in a more open market?

To boost the top line. If margins are super high it makes sense to price the self driving tech just below the cost of ownership of a car today to gain maximum adoption. That’s how a monopoly would make maximum profit.

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I doubt non-self driving cars will disappear until self-driving cars (that people don’t own) cost less for the vast majority of people. It’s not like there isn’t already a huge industry that wants to sell cars to people. But, I guess it is possible that Uber or a company like that (probably Amazon-Uber) buys out the car makers or something. But then again, the problems with these new industries, so far, has never been that they are charging customers too much. They have either bilked investors (Uber etc) or they have been so cheap that they have driven out competition (Amazon etc).

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

I think driving yourself is going to be banned far before self-driving car prices drop to the $20k range.

Maybe. I don’t think driving yourself is going to be banned anytime soon. But, the above discussion, I think, has been more about how a lot of people won’t own cars and will use services like Uber which, not having to pay drivers, will be able to put most people’s costs of transportation lower than owning a car.

South Korean college admission scandal expands.

Apparently researchers and scientists have been adding their kids names to paper and research to build up their resumes.

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Uber isn’t going to be a player.

The front runner in self driving car technology is Google, and they plan to partner with the car manufacturers. They’ll do the software and charge the car companies a licensing fee basically. It makes the most sense for everyone.

There’s no good reason for the people who make the software to also make the cars. Making cars is a super complex business with established players and low margins. Why would any software company willingly try to compete on manufacturing cars when they could just compete on integrating software with those cars?

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I don’t disagree, but it’s not really the point. Either Uber will fail completely or maybe Google, Amazon or Toyota buys them out - who knows.

Grunching, but if it hasn’t been mentioned - I’d go with the reveal scene in The Crying Game.

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