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-   -   About Autonomous / Self-Driving Cars (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/89961-about-autonomous-self-driving-cars-9.html)

@ speedmiester : If everyday cars can progress from rickety Padminis to no-fuss Hondas & Toyotas on Indian roads, if Diesel mills can progress from smoke-belching chimneys to efficient-than-Petrols, why can't Driverless car technology be perfected to deal with infinite variables! What Apple has created in last 5 years makes Bond's gizmos of 30-40 yr old movies look like baby toys. This too is going to be a reality & it sure is not an idiotic thought! May be India gets it much later than the West but it's very much on a distant horizon.

@Speedmiester, Yes, you cannot program every single emergency situation. But if everybody uses a driverless car, then the "emergency situations" are reduced to a very very low/negligible figures. You won't have idiots driving on the wrong side of the road, no under-aged drivers, no learners, no cellphone-using drivers, no drunk-driving, no drivers with kids on their laps, no drivers having an argument with their spouse etc. And then it largely becomes a controlled environment.

Is this really possible? I would think, yes. And in the near future itself. The computing power has now increased so much that millions of variables can be processed faster.

And I am waiting for the day. It will make travelling on Indian roads much more safer.

The programming of self driven cars is only limited to the car and it has very little influence on the environmental parameters.
I will take back my words, if it can stop or evade a dog or a child or a moron running onto the open highway like we encounter on our roads.

Fully agree, I often joke that once Google's Driverless Car passes all the American traffic norms they are most welcome to challenge their technology by driving it to some of the Indian cities. Then I proudly wonder how much advancement we have made in automobile world! Lakshmi Road from Pune will be one of them, needless to say we do have ample cities for them.

I'm sure the auto mode will immediately buzz off "Could not proceed" with the warning that "A highly skilled (human) driver assistance/intervention required!"

Jokes apart, we the humans extend technology for our ease and pleasure. So one day Driverless car will be a reality (in India too!) but the thrill to drive has its own space and that too will be there irrespective of the automation.

Sir, you have been underestimating technology a lot!

If the above technology is already available to help drivers in case of emergencies, only a matter of time it gets filtered down to the lower end cars. If (some of) these technologies can be used to give a warning beep, this same technology can also be used to power corrective measure algorithms. Ford is already working on its version of these safety systems for its mainstream cars. The only bits remaining now are the autopilot bit which google is working on as an OEM.

Of course, I agree that braking for each and every dog on the highway is not possible. Some have to go as collateral damage in order to avoid bigger tragedies (read: pile-ups). But even those decisions, a computer can well and truly make by itself by using relevant data from sensors/lasers/radars mounted on all sides and take an informed decision to minimize damage to all parties involved using pretty much fixed algorithms.

Programming collateral damage into a computer!!!! :Shockked:

If this programmed into the computer how will it differentiate between a dog or a deer or a child or some other obstruction. We will be giving the computer the power to run over obstacles. I shudder to even think of such situation.

After Nevada, California has passed laws to allow driver-less cars.

Its matter of time the technology in car is transferred to trucks. So there will be millions of trucks on highways without any drivers.

In cities, probably people will stop owning cars and will rent a driver-less car to get around places. Why own when renting is cheaper (no human driver cost) & ubiquitously available?

But few questions remain. How will a policeman flag down a car & get information? What happens when a car breaks down?

A modern Smartphone is capable of giving you restaurant reviews by just pointing your camera towards it (using apps like Wikitude, Layar, Nokia City Lens). It has to be smart enough to differentiate between babies and puppies.

Simple conditions are required eg:
1. No Human should get hurt under any circumstances. Brake/Swerve/go off the road but save a human life.
2. Dogs without collars are expendable as long as it won't happen at speeds that the radiator/intercooler would break behind the bumper.
3. Pedestrians, Blackbucks, Chinkaras, Tigers, Peacocks and Pandas must be saved at all costs (because killing any one of these can land you in jail) lol:
4. Cows/buffaloes/camels/elephants on the road are equivalent to walls. Call "Collision Warning with Full Automatic Braking" routine if swerving to avoid collision is not possible.

Isn't the above exactly what we intend to do? Its really not that hard to program :)

So in order to save a human life on the road, is it okay to go off the road and cause an accident and risk the life of the people inside the car?

I don't know whether to laugh or to be sad at your logic.
What harm did the dog without collar do that it needs to be run over.
I sincerely hope that you are just kidding.

Who goes to jail here? Is it the owner of the car or the company who designed it or the company that incorporated it in their cars.


All said and done, there is no point in continuing the debate here until these cars starts selling in the market.

I would like to see a few cars operating under everyday driving conditions in US first. But with an average American customer behind the wheel.

I do not trust what Google says about it's record on it's self driving cars as no company want to publish their failures to the world.

No, its not! But that was the point of point#1 and the pedestrians bit in point#3 being written separately. People inside your car, the car in front, the car coming on the other side are all humans.


So would you rather prefer the bus driver to kill 40 people in the bus and 4 people in the car coming from the other side in trying to save a rogue dog?

This is a topic for discussion elsewhere. It would be better if you continue your argument on the relevant thread. You are more experienced than me on this forum so you would know better than me where this thread is.

That depends on what the court decides on seeing the video footage from the car involved in the accident. I am not court. I cannot decide on that bit. But definitely not the driver (since he wasn't driving).

My point was, a well written software aided by sensory aids like ultrasonic radars and infra-red cameras is as much capable (if not more) to avoid accidents than a typical human driver is while maintaining superior speeds and fuel economy. There will still be accidents, but roads across the world will be a bit safer for everyone if/when this becomes mainstream.

The funniest part is, many here are so skeptical of trusting computers programmed to drive like the safest and sane drivers, but we trust our life with morons who have no regard for life and property when we take public transport/taxis/auto-rickshaws, etc.

Bingo.

I do not foresee many google cars listed under the "Bad Drivers" thread on team-bhp :)

If a computer has the potential to eliminate a fool from the road, then it is well worth it for the dozens others who are directly affected by the incoherence, negligence and ignorance of the moron on the wheel. Don't the alarming number of human time bombs on the wheel that we see every day make you think of a better alternative ?

In India you will see this happening. Over here the drivers who follow all the rules are supposedly the bad ones. You can find them being cursed by all the taxi and rickshaw morons for something as simple as sticking to our lanes and following the speed limits. :)

Exactly. Just yesterday when I was travelling by a Indica taxi, the moronic driver kept cursing the "white board" drivers ( for not gunning their engines before the signals turn green )!! He was driving like a maniac on Bangalore city roads despite our pleas. Most of the "emergency" situations are created by morons.

No matter how safe our roads will become and all such good things, I can only wonder how boring travelogues would become to read in the era of computer driven cars. Imagine, a Ladakh trip in such a car.

Within city limits with all the morons at the wheels and two wheelers, it would make sense. But outside city limits, this technology would fail. Except for trailers, trucks and buses connecting cities.

Tbhp would become a tech forum then. Conversations would be something like, "Hey I overclocked the processor on my car" or "Hey I jailbroke my car...Now i can drive it on my own."

I really wish driving out of town on a weekend doesn't become extinct with the advent of such technology.