[audioholic]

I see that this news is being discussed everywhere. Though I have great respect for the man with respect to other reforms, I guess this is baseless and was made randomly. Much has already been told on this thread already about various aspects like how suitable or not suitable driverless cars would be in our country. I dont want to comment on that. Not only in our country, but across the world there are now major schools of thought, one for and another against driverless cars. That debate can continue here as well.

But talk about job loss? Why waste an individuals effort on driving a car throughout his life as a driver? Instead, throw this idea away and encourage workers at he bottom levels to skill themselves and improve their conditions too. Instead of letting a driver be like that for a lifetime, why not educate them and make them do something better? If our country has to develop, we should improve the average skill of every person here. That should be the vision for a person at such a position. Drivers are not even educated about basic traffic rules, car troubleshooting and are given licences to go and drive the way they want. These people are better off the road with the duty being done by a driverless car.

But I dont understand why we actually have to bother about this statement. For, when the driverless car is mature enough to reach the Indian market, I doubt that this generation of politicians will even be remaining in the field. There is still a long way to go

[GTO]

Originally Posted by ReluctantRebel

I would say eliminating humans altogether from the role of a driver will lead to safe roads in India. Human intelligence and AI can't co-exist on our roads.

You nailed it. Either 100% humans or 100% AI (which luckily is a l-o-n-g time away) on our roads. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Imagine what an autonomous car will think when it encounters something like this on the wrong side of the road . All systems down, software FREEZE!


Driverless cars need a 'perfect' environment and they aren't even totally ready for the 'almost perfect' driving conditions of the developed world. It's going to be a long time before they'll be able to handle the haphazard Indian roads, if at all.

Our transport minister might as well have said that the Airbus 380 won't be allowed to land on the Mumbai-Pune expressway tomorrow. His comment is irrelevant in 2017.

[Nav-i-gator]

Relatively simple tech like auto park/park assist is still more or less rudimentary, need a certain gap between cars, a certain distance from where the auto park system can take over etc, all this when other cars in the vicinity are all stationary (parked).

Driverless cars are essentially sentient computers, capable of learning on the go, driving the cars. as some posters pointed out, they can learn to drive dangerously too, looking at how humans drive. Add to that - it is still too early for AI to develop a conscience/rational thinking, it makes things trcky.

While I am pretty sure in future, driverless/autonomous cars would be a reality, I think that future is still far away. Early adoption and success of driverless cars is possible if govts allow ONLY driverless cars to be driven, possibly starting with some busy areas in a city, and then slowly expanding the network. The push that autonomous cars need is a ban on "traditionally driven" cars to start with.

[Mohan Mathew A]

I was deeply disappointed by the statement. He was seen as a progressive minister who welcomes changes and does things with farsight but this is definitely a regressive statement.

I don't think anything can stop driverless cars, not even the minister. As they say 'no force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come' and i firmly believe the time is around the corner for this idea. But the signalling is wrong and it shows that the government intents to restrain this rather than create an enabling environment to do more to suit this technology to our realities. Thats not good.

Yes, there are huge challenges, very few people drive properly, infrastructure is bad, signages and road markings are non existent or unscientific but all these can be corrected and it is 'doable' in the medium term (except driver behaviour)

Driver behaviour is one thing where i am pessimistic and it is exactly for this reason that i believe driverless cars are the panacea. Driverless cars will take human driving out of the equation and there is no question that it will reduce, hugely, the deaths due to road accidents and the economic as well as emotional cost associated with it. For this alone i think driverless cars should be welcomed.

There are significant other benefits too like less congestion, huge savings on fuel, cleaner environment so on and so forth. This job loss thing is bunkum like similar fears expressed during computerisation and industrialization

Although, personally, i am sad that my kids may never experience the joy of driving-something which i hold dear to my heart.

[Dry Ice]

This is the same guy who wanted to build a ropeway from Delhi to Manesar. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...a-gurgaon.html

I wouldn't read much into his comments. A populist remark to get credit for "being concerned about common man & his livelihood".

Most new swanky malls these days have automated parking slip dispersing machines, but you are likely to find a person standing there, pushing the button for you and handing you the parking slip. The cost of labour is cheap in our country, so, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a guy in the driver less car to brake in case of emergency. It will be an expensive piece of tech after all

Secondly, even in the west, this tech is struggling to take off. In a place which has predictable road behaviour. In a Jungle like our streets, it will take a lot lot longer. Then they have to handle the road-rage, moving to the side for a v-i-p kinda situations too.

[suresh_gs]

Change should be accepted as part and parcel of life. My father passed his X std by using lanterns for studying in the night as his village did not have access to electricity. I faced no such issues.
By the time I finished by M Tech, I was introduced to computers. Today my sons play around with smartphones and tabs. No one taught them. Change is inevitable
Now coming to Driverless cars, this may see the light at the end of the tunnel in about 3 decades. For this our basic road infrastructure should improve in terms of uniform width and proper lane marking.
Let the transport minister focus on improving road infrastructure. Things will automatically fall in place.

[poised2drive]

Classic Example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_a..._of_a_molehill

A Posteriori , it is quite pointless to discuss about the performance of 'Driverless' Cars in the Indian Road Scene , which is haunted by the problem of 'Brainless/ Senseless' Drivers.

It is akin to discussing whether to attack with Infantry or Cavalry in an assumed alien attack .

There is at least a decade to go for such technology to take root in the Indian context.

If the point is about the attitude of the Government towards implementing the latest technology, it would be an useless assignment to talk in favor of a tech that is clearly non-executable and is also not such a wise political deal.

[charanreddy]

I don't think the minister in question meant as much about the jobs as about the existing infrastructure that prevents autonomous cars. He was probably scoring 'social' brownie points by mentioning jobs.. after all elections are only two years away

Right now this question is hypothetical and atleast some years away from being key to the future direction..

Per me when the time comes I think the Govt. will take a more practical and future looking decision.. Just like they did a U turn on Aadhar.

[livetodrive]

This is called to be politically correct. Rather than admitting that India cannot provide the infrastructure for driverless cars anywhere in future, its better to pass the ball to unemployment.

Yes, it definitely reminds the analogy (particularly marxists in West Bengal) that computers will snatch jobs, so no computers. But, that had a different aspect. It was to keep people of Bengal as a frog which cannot jump out of a well. Apart from computers, English as a language was also thwarted in schools and offices.

[aadya]

A prudent path is to say "At present our country does not have infrastructure for driverless car and we have a responsibility to give employment" rather than just blindly refusing the idea itself.
Human errors are the most common cause of accidents and can be eliminated by technology. For example reverse cameras and sensors have reduced the stress while reversing to a great extent. Having said that driverless technology has to go a long way in evolution and safety.
Saying that "I will never use such technology because i dont believe safety of machines" is just an ignorant view point. Simply put "Are we ready to killed by that Half sleepy, Pan chewing, mobile chatting cabbie or the AI with a bug in it". Both are not desirable, but training and disciplining AI would be much more easier than disciplining the entire cab/self driving populations.
The minister would do well if he concentrates on making the licensing exercise corruption free and transparent, remove road tax barriers between the states, make automated or sufficiently manned tolls and traffic policing efficient.
We are still a decade away from driverless technology seeing daylight in India. Probably our minister would be cooling his heels and writing memoirs at his home, by then.

[AbhisheKulkarni]

Another perspective to look at this from is from the point of view of acceptance of driver-less cars as a technology. Let's say there is an avalanche of driverless cars launching from tomorrow, how many of us would book such a vehicle say - to go from Pune to Mumbai!?

Would we really entrust the safety of our familes and loved ones to a technology that is not yet stable and mature?

I'd rather pay a good driver and rest my life in his/her hands than become a guinea pig sitting in a driverless car.

And yes, it is very easy for us to relegate employment issues as branding them as archaic ideas that aren't with the times, but it's true. Ask the driver of the cab that you get into next as to what are his alternatives for making a living and you'd know what the reality is.

I for one am looking forward to active safety features to make their way into our cars here, and hope that driver-less cars don't become mainstream. I'd rather that driver less cars prove their worth and safety in other nations first and then reach India - which is how it's going to happen anyways.

So our ministers need not start worrying about stuff that's not really going to be relevant at-least for the next 15 years! there are more pressing things to spend time on in the near future.

[aniketi]

All things apart, i am really doubtful of success for driver-less cars here in India. In traffic like India where people drive in centimeters and millimeters, i see those cars get stuck in traffic for long time. Just Imagine you are in one such car in traffic jam, car will not move at all as it will always be crowded by hundreds of 2 wheeler's and 4 wheeler's around it, not to forget autos, pedestrians, cycles and bonus of animals in some cases as well. Also here in India, there are many crossings, turns where you need to take a risk and put your car in upcoming traffic to cross the road, take a turn, U turn, etc. Just imagine driver less car waiting at such junctions for hours as traffic will not stop at all from opposite direction. I daily need to cross 3-4 such junctions where you have to literally intervene upcoming traffic else you have to wait for long long time as traffic keeps coming. In driver less car we cant do anything in such cases

[landcruiser123]

No surprises at all!
Our traffic patterns are so bad that it'll take a few decades to build an AI to power a driverless car in India.

While I agree to an extent that protecting jobs is necessary in the sort term, I don't think the government will allow for driverless cars in the first half of this century due to security reasons.

Even if driving discipline (in India) today on par with the developed world, our government would not allow driverless cars. If you allow driverless cars, there are going to be multiple cameras and the video feed will go back to the home country for data analysis and software updates. Street data in the wrong hands (Too many hackers out there) can really cause major problems in our country.

Remember how Google Street View was banned in India stating 'security' as the main concern? (It is a valid concern IMHO, let's not steer this debate in the direction of our international relations)

Ever wondered why going to sensitive areas near the border require a permit and you're required to give a few ID proofs?

[Anuruddhs]

This has no meaning as of now , No country still has fully autonomous cars running still , Currently US and Europe are in process of making rules to support the eco system of driver less cars. If it happens as assumed that driver less cars will eventually reduce accidental deaths then we can not let people die. Data on road accidents in India will tell you over 1,37,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2013 alone which is almost similar to people dying from diabetes in India in one year which we can avoid. This is just a statement has no meaning in real world when technology will be matured India will also adopt it.

[SmartCat]

Indian driverless semi-autonomous truck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS5kHnk6zok