# Bullshit about unmanned driverless Cars



## Jeremy Joe (Jan 16, 2015)

with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??

The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.

I've seen lots of posts on this site with some clowns alleging that such cars are possible by 2017, or by 2020.

Dudes, this is impossible. It is not just impossible, it is ****ING impossible. We are nowhere near close to solving the technical complexities in making this a reality.

Irrespective of all the marketing hype, all I can say is, if anybody on this forum genuinely believes unmanned driverless cars are gonna replace Uber drivers in 5, 10 or even 15 or 20 years, then that person seriously needs to have his or her head examined.

Only someone seriously braindead can imagine there being unmanned driverless cars cruising the busy freeways of Manhattan or LA anytime within the next 20 years.


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## Uber-Doober (Dec 16, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.


^^^
Lol @ 'drop them off'. 
Kinda reminds me of the dump truck scene from Soylent Green.


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## puber (Aug 31, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??
> 
> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.
> 
> ...


Why is that?
It rolls along the road and stops where it's instructed to.
It might use an improved app on both passeger and "partner" sides, but taxi is a simple task.
They are sending a nuclear submarine to a jupiter's moon, that's gonna swim in a see of liquid methane.
What do you think about that?


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

but its not that easy going from A to B with no driver in the car
for the most part,you may have a simple trip
in some cases, the driversless car, will have to make an actual-driver type decision
before they hit the streets, they need to be able to handle any situation appropiately as a human would
just one accident is one huge lawsuit
humans can have accidents,but humans are capable of perceiving real life things better than a computer can
however a computer can drive better than a human, as long as there are no unknown variables thrown at it
plus, cars will end up like subway cars: grafitti and vandalism
most of which doesnt happen to uber cars these days simply because there's a human driver in the car

i mean, have they even figured out how to check after each ride the car is clean for the next rider?
do you like to go to the restaurant and the table is still messy from the previous customers?
the cars gonna have sensors to detect puke and smell? or scanners to make sure nobody took a crap on the seats or a piss on the floor? Nobody would want to ride in a filth car. Uber has to gurantee in a pure driverless car that it will be clean after each ride, HOW,when the car is driverless?


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Bart McCoy said:


> i mean, have they even figured out how to check after each ride the car is clean for the next rider?
> do you like to go to the restaurant and the table is still messy from the previous customers?
> the cars gonna have sensors to detect puke and smell? or scanners to make sure nobody took a crap on the seats or a piss on the floor? Nobody would want to ride in a filth car. Uber has to gurantee in a pure driverless car that it will be clean after each ride, HOW,when the car is driverless?


When the car pulls up and the new passenger looks in. If it not to their standards they simply press a button to refuse the car for cleanliness reasons. The car then goes off the Uber system and travels to the nearest contracted maintenance and cleaning station (mechanics will still have something to do) . It parks in their parking or staging area and sends a message to the contracted mechanic what it is there for. Mechanics give it a cleaning, then on the the mechanics app put it back in service and send Uber their invoice for services rendered.

This same scenario could be for if a check engine light comes on or if a TPMS tire light comes on.

Uber could have mechanic stations under contract in every city they wanted because after all with car ownership on the decline these business that have invested lots of money into assets will still have to find income somewhere from the self driving car revolution.

And of course the last person to ride in the car before it got flagged for cleanliness would get charged a cleaning fee because of course it is assumed since they did not report a major mess they were the ones that caused it. Or Uber might just eat it since at that point they would be making so much money it would be ridiculous.


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??
> 
> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.
> 
> ...


I agree..not happening in our lifetime. So many infrastructure changes that have to be made in order for this to work. We don't even have a full HD 1080p signal yet after all these years so how in the hell does anyone think we're suddenly going to get driverless cars out in the streets. Travis will go broke believing in this dream.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> Only someone seriously braindead can imagine there being unmanned driverless cars cruising the busy freeways of Manhattan or LA anytime within the next 20 years.


Funny you mention freeways because those will be the easy parts to drive it's the city streets that are tough. In fact the first step to driver less cars might look something like this: You get in at your drive way and you have to self drive until you get on the freeway then you can put it in auto mode to get you to work. On the off ramp you have to take over and get yourself to the office on the city streets. This will be possible by 2017 in a large scale. The fully autonomous (like no steering wheel at all) cars will be a bit longer.

I used to work at JPL in pasadena and the google team that did their self driving car came and gave a lengthy presentation along with actual footage and data from their 100K plus miles of driving in CA. The freeways were nothing, straight lines and lane changes no problem. The only thing that stopped them one time in 100K miles was at a city stop sign intersection. The radar somehow picked up a plant in the center divider as a pedestrian on the far end of the intersection and so it stopped and would not move. One of the engineers in the chase car had to get out and cross the street to fool it into thinking the plant moved. Point was what this proved was the worse that can happen is the car won't move. They can adjust the aggressiveness and defensiveness of the car in traffic situations in the programming. Of course for this testing they had it set very cautions.

The technology for self driving is solid. I think what the hold up is is having $200k worth of equipment strapped to the outside of vehicles and not getting it stolen. I mean hell people are cutting out catalytic converters for $50.00 these days. In the future with millions of people losing their jobs because of self driving cars it's a safe bet many of them will be targets for homeless scavengers.


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## Rich Brunelle (Jan 15, 2015)

Jeremy Joe said:


> with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??
> 
> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.
> 
> ...


Travis Kalanick believes those autonomous cars could be on the road in a matter of weeks. Why else would he have us working for so cheap that we cannot afford to drive.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

rtaatl said:


> I agree..not happening in our lifetime. So many infrastructure changes that have to be made in order for this to work. We don't even have a full HD 1080p signal yet after all these years so how in the hell does anyone think we're suddenly going to get driverless cars out in the streets. Travis will go broke believing in this dream.


They work fine now without a single infrastructure change. They of course would work much better if certain changes occurred. And cities would be willing to do those changes if it meant they could get rid of their bus service (or bus drivers) they spend millions on every year. Put that money into some new lane and crosswalk striping with highly reflective paint the cars can recognize easier. But like I said it is not necessary, they work fine now even with no markings on the road.


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## Simon (Jan 4, 2015)

Walkersm said:


> Funny you mention freeways because those will be the easy parts to drive it's the city streets that are tough. In fact the first step to driver less cars might look something like this: You get in at your drive way and you have to self drive until you get on the freeway then you can put it in auto mode to get you to work. On the off ramp you have to take over and get yourself to the office from on the city streets. This will be possible by 2017 in a large scale. The fully autonomous (like no steering wheel at all) cars will be a bit longer.
> 
> I used to work at JPL in pasadena and the google team that did their self driving car came and gave a lengthy presentation along with actual footage and data from their 100K plus miles of driving in CA. The freeways were nothing, straight lines and lane changes no problem. The only thing that stopped them one time in 100K miles was at a city stop sign intersection. The radar somehow picked up a plant in the center divider as a pedestrian on the far end of the intersection and so it stopped and would not move. One of the engineers in the chase car had to get out and cross the street to fool it into thinking the plant moved. Point was what this proved was the worse that can happen is the car won't move. They can adjust the aggressiveness and defensiveness of the car in traffic situations in the programming. Of course for this testing they had it set very cautions.
> 
> The technology for self driving is solid. I think what the hold up is is having $200k worth of equipment strapped to the outside of vehicles and not getting it stolen. I mean hell people are cutting out catalytic converters for $50.00 these days. In the future with millions of people losing their jobs because of self driving cars it's a safe bet many of them will be targets for homeless scavengers.


Thank you... people think this is not close to reality are braindead. I suggest people get a news aggregator like flip board or something and put technology as a topic. Read up on it.


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## Rich Brunelle (Jan 15, 2015)

Like I said, Travis believes it . . .


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

In fact a good program to watch is this one about the early development of driver-less cars through the DARPA challange. They cross a desert with no lane markings at all, well some do. Very interesting stuff:


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Walkersm said:


> When the car pulls up and the new passenger looks in. If it not to their standards they simply press a button to refuse the car for cleanliness reasons. The car then goes off the Uber system and travels to the nearest contracted maintenance and cleaning station (mechanics will still have something to do) . It parks in their parking or staging area and sends a message to the contracted mechanic what it is there for. Mechanics give it a cleaning, then on the the mechanics app put it back in service and send Uber their invoice for services rendered.
> 
> This same scenario could be for if a check engine light comes on or if a TPMS tire light comes on.
> 
> ...


now this could work,but would cause serious financial problems, that normally Uber would charge off to a HUMAN driver, US
a car could be called into inspection after every trip,that would tie up cars, and cost money to clean,create more surges, and Uber so no where near cheaper than owning a car
also, when Pax puke ,break, and rip things in our cars, they are NOT charged
but all of a sudden now you're going to start charging pax for damage?
people will just take taxis where you can do what you want in it


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Walkersm said:


> Funny you mention freeways because those will be the easy parts to drive it's the city streets that are tough. In fact the first step to driver less cars might look something like this: You get in at your drive way and you have to self drive until you get on the freeway then you can put it in auto mode to get you to work. On the off ramp you have to take over and get yourself to the office on the city streets. This will be possible by 2017 in a large scale. The fully autonomous (like no steering wheel at all) cars will be a bit longer.
> 
> .


Agreed, use of driverless cars to some extent will defintely come soon
but to be 100% driverless with zero human input.....?? will take much much longer to be anywhere near common


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Bart McCoy said:


> a car could be called into inspection after every trip,that would tie up cars, and cost money to clean,create more surges, and Uber so no where near cheaper than owning a car
> also, when Pax puke ,break, and rip things in our cars, they are NOT charged
> but all of a sudden now you're going to start charging pax for damage?
> people will just take taxis where you can do what you want in it


Well think about it. Maybe your app would say. "your car has arrived, is the cleanliness acceptable to you? Another Uber is 25 minutes away." People might not mind kicking away a few burger wrappers if it means they get a quick ride they really need. Puke, of course not. But as they become more unreliable as a transportation option people will buy their own driver less car. Then they will put them on the Uber system to pay for them. Or pay the premium of owning your own car knowing you will always have a clean ride. Or maybe cooperative will develop where 20 people will go in on the purchase of a driver less car for exclusive use only by them. That way they know who's in it and they all keep it nice for each other.


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Walkersm said:


> Well think about it. Maybe your app would say. "your car has arrived, is the cleanliness acceptable to you? Another Uber is 25 minutes away." People might not mind kicking away a few burger wrappers if it means they get a quick ride they really need. Puke, of course not. But as they become more unreliable as a transportation option people will buy their own driver less car. Then they will put them on the Uber system to pay for them. Or pay the premium of owning your own car knowing you will always have a clean ride. Or maybe cooperative will develop where 20 people will go in on the purchase of a driver less car for exclusive use only by them. That way they know who's in it and they all keep it nice for each other.


driverless cars will happen
but using them to Uber is still light years away since you have to deal with total strangers
something that wouldnt be in your car if you personally owned your own driverless car


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Bart McCoy said:


> a car could be called into inspection after every trip,that would tie up cars, and cost money to clean,create more surges, and Uber so no where near cheaper than owning a car


Then think about where the evaluation process would shift to. Not the drivers anymore but the mechanics and cleaners. The contract with Uber would state you have to have enough manpower to start processing a vehicle 5 minutes after it enters your staging area. Then the most important measure would be how fast the mechanics and cleaners turn around the vehicle and get it out on the road. Perhaps even monetary incentives (or penalties) for how quickly the car is put back in service.

Get a monthly report:
Our high performing mechanics got a brake job done in 45 minutes on average. Your average this month was 75 minutes. This puts you in the bottom 15% of our service providers. Please attend our training session to improve your time or your company will be deactivated from the uber system.

Hopefully if Uber would to invent their own cars there would only be one set of replacement parts everyone could keep in stock. Along with all the same size of tires etc. Everything would be common and economical. Just like in all the movies set in the future everyone is wearing the same cloths. In the future all cars will be the same You will either have the Uber bug or the Apple van.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

A few years later DARPA did an urban challange with city driving:


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## Jeremy Joe (Jan 16, 2015)

Simon said:


> Thank you... people think this is not close to reality are braindead.


So....when do you think cars are gonna drive themselves? LOL, love hearing the opinion of Uber drivers!


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## Simon (Jan 4, 2015)

Jeremy Joe said:


> So....when do you think cars are gonna drive themselves? LOL, love hearing the opinion of Uber drivers!


Next year you will see partial (caddilac super cruise)

I say in 10 years they will be on the road and 20 to 30 years until full on.


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

Simon said:


> Next year you will see partial (caddilac super cruise)
> 
> I say in 10 years they will be on the road and 20 to 30 years until full on.


but partial driverless cars technically have already been on the road for over a decade
so next year wont be anything new


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## Bart McCoy (Nov 4, 2014)

I keep saying this, computer has to account for ANYTHING

"It’s critical that it works flawlessly every single time,” Barra told reporters. “When you look at what has got to come together to make this happen -- not just for straight driving on a section of highway, but for every city situation you can imagine -- there’s quite a bit of technology that has to come together to make this work.”


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## Simon (Jan 4, 2015)

Bart McCoy said:


> I keep saying this, computer has to account for ANYTHING
> 
> "It's critical that it works flawlessly every single time," Barra told reporters. "When you look at what has got to come together to make this happen -- not just for straight driving on a section of highway, but for every city situation you can imagine -- there's quite a bit of technology that has to come together to make this work."


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## Ubermon (Aug 19, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> Only someone seriously braindead can imagine there being unmanned driverless cars cruising the busy freeways of Manhattan or LA anytime within the next 20 years.


*Self Driving Google Car First Ever Test Drive in Manhattan*
Published on Apr 3, 2013
James Kalm spends a lot of time on the streets of the city. With video camera in hand, when he comes upon things of interest he turns it on and tries to capture events of interest. While returning from a gallery visit in Chelsea, your reporter noticed a gaggle of pedestrians ogeling a google car. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that this was a brand new "self driving" Fiat. We follow the car, observe its operation, and ask a few questions of the driver. This program was recorded April 2, 2013 in the Meat Packing district of Manhattan.


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## Jeremy Joe (Jan 16, 2015)

There is a HUUUGGGGGEEEEE difference in timelines between when the technology starts to actively get researched into, and when it actually goes mainstream.

Actual technology for mobile phones were developed int he 1940s but it wasn't till the 80s that it became available to the public. Source.

Research into creating the Internet began in the early 60s, but didn't go mainstream till the mid-90s. source.

And these are just Internet and cell phones, harmless stuff that doesn't have the potential to kill people like driverless cars.


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## stuber (Jun 30, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??
> 
> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.
> 
> ...


It doesn't matter if they're here and fully functional and instantly embraced by everyone. The question is: who is going to own them? Who will maintain and insure them? Not UBER. UBER is not a transportation company. Not you and me. There's no profit in it. How could there be?


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## Simon (Jan 4, 2015)

stuber said:


> It doesn't matter if they're here and fully functional and instantly embraced by everyone. The question is: who is going to own them? Who will maintain and insure them? Not UBER. UBER is not a transportation company. Not you and me. There's no profit in it. How could there be?


Your nutz.. you would own a whole bunch of them and make killer money by sitting back in your garage and cleaning puke out of the ones that are soiled. Think beyond your shallow one car though process.


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## getFubered (Feb 18, 2015)

Simon said:


> Your nutz.. you would own a whole bunch of them and make killer money by sitting back in your garage and cleaning puke out of the ones that are soiled. Think beyond your shallow one car though process.


Not at 75 cents a mile.


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## Guest (Mar 22, 2015)

Driverless cars. They can't even fix the potholes now.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Cross country trip planned for this week:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/driverless-car-begin-cross-country-trip-sunday/story?id=29807224


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## uberThere (Feb 22, 2015)

I worked on computer vision, and AI - got my MSc in it, and I can tell you, don't believe the hype. Yes, the technology is ready for the highways, but for urban traffic, I'll pass. I've been following the debate for awhile, including the talks by Nvidia with their new Titan GPU, and I still don't trust these things.


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## Simon (Jan 4, 2015)

getFubered said:


> Not at 75 cents a mile.


No I mean in realistic markets... like mine.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

Walkersm said:


> Cross country trip planned for this week:
> 
> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/driverless-car-begin-cross-country-trip-sunday/story?id=29807224


Just arrived in LA.


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## subliminal (Apr 21, 2015)

Driverless cars are possible in the near future, The problem with uber utilizing them is the government will require the vehicle to still have a driver that is capable of taking over in the even of an equipment failure or an emergency. We currently have the technology to make all airline planes pilotless, planes pretty much already just about fly themselves. The pilot will always have to be there in case of an emergency or equipment failure.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

puber said:


> Why is that?
> It rolls along the road and stops where it's instructed to.
> It might use an improved app on both passeger and "partner" sides, but taxi is a simple task.
> They are sending a nuclear submarine to a jupiter's moon, that's gonna swim in a see of liquid methane.
> What do you think about that?


The rocket to jupiter doesn't have to interact with clueless riders that vomit in the ride, etc etc, so ..... apples and oranges.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

subliminal said:


> Driverless cars are possible in the near future, The problem with uber utilizing them is the government will require the vehicle to still have a driver that is capable of taking over in the even of an equipment failure or an emergency. We currently have the technology to make all airline planes pilotless, planes pretty much already just about fly themselves. The pilot will always have to be there in case of an emergency or equipment failure.


And, given that the driverless car will not get rid of the driver, the cost has increased to accommodate the expensive driverless car, the warehouse and infrastructures worldwide to maintain them.

Nope, I'm not seeing this happening, it's a fantasy. They'll come up with antigravity devices long before the come up with driverless cars.

check out www.moller.com for the "skycar" They are driverless, computer controlled. That's the future, not four wheel driverless cars.

In the air, where the path ways easily be computer controlled, that's the future.


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> with regards to driverless cars, what's really relevant from the perspective of an Uber driver??
> 
> The only thing that's relevant is whether a driverless car can REPLACE him - in other words, an "unmanned" car that will arrive on it's own to pick up passengers and safely drive them and drop them off at their destination.
> 
> ...


City planners will be jumping over each other to have reason to legislate Driven cars OUT of cities.

Way too many advantages of having robots take over Taxi Driving for cities to ignore.

2020 will see the first cities trialling. Once operating new scenarios are uploaded to the rest of the fleet, you'll accelerate the "learning" process amongst the robots. There will be little need for remote human operator intervention.

Any robot that gets in trouble will have a bunch of onboard cameras and sensors to relay the situation to a human operator. Within seconds other Robots in the area will be diverted to the scene to "intervene" by taking on the rider or simply observe through 3rd/4th/5th party cameras and transmit back to an operator.

Once the situation is sorted, multiple views of the incident will be reviewed, a fix strategy worked out and sent out to the whole fleet in a upload that teaches all the robots to be better drivers.

They will NEVER have nose to tail accidents like dumb-ass humans for instance. And will learn from another Robot's mistake on the other side of the world.

In Australia multi million dollar mining trucks are now DRIVERLESS, the Dude in the front seat got too expensive (150k p/a) and Mining Companies developed the technology to do away with drivers.

2020 these Robots will be running at a Commercial profit - there are many "non taxi functions" that they can fulfil that have Governments around the world salivating.

Programmable Robots, complete with face recognition, tracking and response capabilities developed and paid for by private enterprise. Wow! Once UBER provides Government agencies with a pipeline to All the data its robots collect that allows Government to control its citizens, Government will give UBER full access to its citizens to make what TK is interested solely in - PROFIT - mark my words.


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## Jeremy Joe (Jan 16, 2015)

Sydney Uber said:


> City planners will be jumping over each other to have reason to legislate Driven cars OUT of cities.
> 
> Way too many advantages of having robots take over Taxi Driving for cities to ignore.
> 
> ...


Keep dreaming.....

...and certainly no need to mark your words, because it certainly isn't happening by 2020 as you claim


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> Keep dreaming.....
> 
> ...and certainly no need to mark your words, because it certainly isn't happening by 2020 as you claim


I apologise Jeremy - i got it totally utterly wrong!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-time-in-four-towns-and-cities-10037737.html

Trials in 4 UK cities have begun

http://qz.com/402732/googles-driverless-cars-have-been-involved-in-three-car-accidents/

AAmerican trials haven't gone so smoothly
http://qz.com/402732/googles-driverless-cars-have-been-involved-in-three-car-accidents/

considering that the 1st cars required a person to walk in front with a red lantern whilst screaming a warning to pedestrians of the following dangerous machinery, I think the implementation of Driversless cars is progressing at a surprisingly faster rate than even I thought.

Jeremy Joe don't focus on what you think driverless cars are going to take from you. But think like a Government regulator and see ALL the advantages of having these paid for Robots unleashed on our roadways.

Firstly there are the overt functions they will carry out better than human driven cars. There will be fewer accidents and injuries caused by them - robots do not repeat mistakes once a lesson is uploaded to the fleet. (Learner Robots).

But the much more powerful motivator to Government of having these Robots roaming around is the covert roles they will carry out.

Face recognition cameras will be standard in these cars to allow them to identify the correct person to unlock the door to. Those same Cameras will be scanning the sidewalks & looking into cars 24/7. If a wanted Felon, tax cheat, child support dodger, library book thief is spotted, their exact location will be immediately uploaded to enforcement authorities. If the driverless car is unoccupied it may be tasked to do more, that being to follow, observe and report until RoboCop comes along to carry out the arrest of the Library book thief.

The operator of the driverless car will get a small bounty to assist with the capital cost of these mobile robots. ($20 p/hr guarantee, 6 days a week, 48 weeks a year is all these robots need to self fund and breed).

Casuale Haberdasher our furry friend & others understand how important it is to Government to keep an eye on all its Citizens. This is the deal UBER and other private organisations will offer Governments - allow us to steamroll the Taxi industry and others that have a monopoly that we want to take over, and we will give you all the tracking, surveillance & behavioural data we collect for nothing . Worcester Sauce do you see governments salivating over these possibilities?

UberLuxbod I'd like your input coming from the most heavily covered city in the world with CCTVs about the level of surveillance Government wish to implement.


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## Ubermon (Aug 19, 2014)

Sydney Uber said:


> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-time-in-four-towns-and-cities-10037737.html
> 
> Trials in 4 UK cities have begun.


Dang, I was holding onto the UK trials until some results were available.


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## UberFrolic (Sep 18, 2014)

On the radio yesterday I kept hearing a news headline that self driving cars were crashing in California.
Bahahaah


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

UberFrolic said:


> On the radio yesterday I kept hearing a news headline that self driving cars were crashing in California.
> Bahahaah


Yep, 3 crashes- 2 the proven fault of other drivers the 3rd there is no report. And that is how they will play it. Release the good news.

The extraordinary dilemma I see is when things go really wrong and someone is killed by a Robot. Government approval of these trials show that they have decided that the rewards to them far outweigh the risk to other road users.

I guess UBER could change its policy in regards to insurance. Accepting that their facilitation of the public commercial role that Robots will take by providing Full insurance and accepted liability when accidents happen.

Robots would be easily defended in court if "fault" had to be attributed. They are PROGRAMMED to operate in the safest possible way. Whereas humans are known to drive erratically, dangerously, whilst tired or texting.

But Government support of Robots has even surprised me


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

Sydney Uber said:


> Yep, 3 crashes- 2 the proven fault of other drivers the 3rd there is no report. And that is how they will play it. Release the good news.
> 
> The extraordinary dilemma I see is when things go really wrong and someone is killed by a Robot. Government approval of these trials show that they have decided that the rewards to them far outweigh the risk to other road users.
> 
> ...


Not only are driverless cars being tested, but so are driverless trucks.

http://mobile.extremetech.com/lates...self-driving-trucks-in-nevada-hardly?origref=


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

observer said:


> Not only are driverless cars being tested, but so are driverless trucks.
> 
> http://mobile.extremetech.com/lates...self-driving-trucks-in-nevada-hardly?origref=


Yeah, huge multi million dollar mining trucks here in the open cut mines have been driverless for years.

Drivers kept demanding huge salaries (120-150k + super+ benefits) and free flights home and back every 2weeks. Mine operators developed technology that freed them of that human expense and liability.

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/rio-s-driverless-trucks-move-100-million-tonnes


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## Jeremy Joe (Jan 16, 2015)

Sydney Uber said:


> I apologise Jeremy - i got it totally utterly wrong!
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-time-in-four-towns-and-cities-10037737.html
> 
> ...


You're talking about face recognition and all that - I don't know what sort of fantasy wonderland you live in, but today for example, even the most advanced smartphone cannot get spell check to work reliably. Developing fool proof face recognition is god knows how many decades away, and you make it sound as if this is going to happen in a decade or less.

As of today, even Google's "driverless cars" cannot tell the difference between tumbleweed rolling across the road and a cyclist falling off his bike. The car brakes, gets rear ended and Google claims "accident was not our car's fault".

Will such cars work in rain, or snow when road markings are covered with snow?
Will the sensors work reliably in extreme weathers, like for hours of driving in Phoenix in July, or -20 defrees F in the Northeast windchill?

the point is all this stuff has to work flawlessly - it cannot afford to work 99% of the time - a five second freeze will kill occupants. Even now, my phone GPS freezes, loses signal, not an issue, I just wait a minute and it comes back - what's gonna happen if a driverless car software freezes on the highway?

All this technology is extremely expensive. The LIDAR used by Google itself costs 80,000 apiece. adding all the other sensors, the cost crosses $500,000. america is supposed to be the richest nation on Earth, and still half the people are living paycheck to paycheck. Even with costs decreasing due to economies of scale, I mean, it's not like the technology is gonna drop to 5 bucks, it may fall from 500k to maybe 50k, but even 50k is too much for most folks + cost of the physical car itself.

The whole goal of car makers in saying a driverless future is 5 years away is to get free publicity, free marketing, their stock price goes up, and the idiotic public swallows every word of their shit talk. These CEOs must be wildly amused thinking just how dumb and moronic the people are to believe the garbage they spew out "in five years, you can sleep in your car while it drives itself."

My suggestion is instead of listening and believing all this garbage, get your info from credible cources like read articles on driverless cars say by technologyreview.com which is the MIT official site - there, you will get honest estimates of when we realistically can expect driverless cars, and there, the most optimistic estimate is 50 years from now.

Even on this site itself, some forum members who actually have the capacity to engage in critical reasoning, have stated that it's decades away - I don't recall their names. don't listen to the rubbish other fulltime Uber drivers tell you - if they had the capacity to actually think, they would have made progress in their lives and not be stuck driving for Uber full time and earning close to minimum wage.

Think for yourself - think long and hard about the technical complexities, costs, reliability issues, instead of spewing out some science fiction tales of facial recognition and such.

And on a side note, ALL those links you provided are hype and marketing drivel by car makers trying to look cool - they do not depict real world driving conditions. Show me even one case of a car driving itself in bumper to bumper MANhattan traffic without any human driver in the car, in a deep snowstorm, and then I will take my words back.


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## Casuale Haberdasher (Dec 7, 2014)

Sydney Uber said:


> I apologise Jeremy - i got it totally utterly wrong!
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...t-time-in-four-towns-and-cities-10037737.html
> 
> ...


POST#39/Sydney Uber: Hairy Ungulate
is Honored to be Among
Tagged Notables on this Topic. Bison DOES
have two 1st Cousins with Past Career In-
telligence work (CIA &USAF) so I look for-
word to some Intriguing Convos, when we
next get together.

As for Worcester Sauce, the ONLY 
Notable that's been more scarce is
Your combative pal @DeepVallied or
@Long time who is in his 8th Week in
the UPNF Clink, please God, not for
much longer.

Notable Alumnus UberLuxbod has now
been Twice Issued Invitations to "Cross
the Pond" to no avail. I even reminded
him of his Chief Antagonist's extended
Internet Incarceration. Perhaps with
Your Current Status as Ultimate Pro-tem,
a gentle coaxing him into Replying may
be Successful. Sure hope so!


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

Casuale Haberdasher said:


> POST#39/Sydney Uber: Hairy Ungulate
> is Honored to be Among
> Tagged Notables on this Topic. Bison DOES
> have two 1st Cousins with Past Career In-
> ...


Yeah missing @long nyc as well. I fear he has left our planet as i can't find his profile.

Me thinks our resident British Bulldog is way too busy for the prepubescent conversations that go on here - but they breed 'em tough in England and UberLuxbod shows you why they can bare their collective arses to the EU and come out on top. It would be good to get his input on Robot cars and covert surveillance from the land that is the most proficient at it.

Driverless cars as cabs are a smokescreen for their real role on our streets.

They are sophisticated robots that can be tasked to track, follow and report to enforcement agencies. The amount of rolling handovers that a mission could employ when targetting an individual would be huge. Different robots, coming in and leaving from different angles so often and so accepted in the streetscape that most subjects simply wouldn't know they're tagged.


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## Sydney Uber (Apr 15, 2014)

Jeremy Joe said:


> You're talking about face recognition and all that - I don't know what sort of fantasy wonderland you live in, but today for example, even the most advanced smartphone cannot get spell check to work reliably. Developing fool proof face recognition is god knows how many decades away, and you make it sound as if this is going to happen in a decade or less.
> 
> As of today, even Google's "driverless cars" cannot tell the difference between tumbleweed rolling across the road and a cyclist falling off his bike. The car brakes, gets rear ended and Google claims "accident was not our car's fault".
> 
> ...


Jeremy - lets take this 1 step at a time.

I said that they would be trialling in cities by 2020 - I was wrong.

How about YOU admit a point that you were wrong on?



Jeremy Joe said:


> Keep dreaming.....
> 
> ...and certainly no need to mark your words, because it certainly isn't happening by 2020 as you claim


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## Ubermon (Aug 19, 2014)




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## WhiteWalker (May 23, 2016)

The problem for Uber will be financial, not technical. Why would Uber want to invest all of the upfront and ongoing costs into a self-driving fleet when it can get that fleet for free from us? I understand that Uber will keep 100% of the fare instead of the current 25%, but realistically Uber has a great thing going right now and I don't believe that 75% will justify taking on the cost of owning a fleet. This is why the taxi business can not compete with Uber.


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## Tequila Jake (Jan 28, 2016)

I think driverless cars will be usable for commercial delivery use within 7-10 years and personal consumer use in about the same time. However, rideshare (and taxi) is completely different. I think it's more like 20 years if ever.

Driving down the freeway is easy to solve.
Driving through normal urban streets is fairly easy.
Congested urban streets with roads closing with little or no notice is difficult.

However, our job is not to drive down the streets. Our job is picking up passengers and safely delivering them to their destinations.

Every day I work I drive to apartment complexes with hundreds of units with seemingly random numbering patterns. Every day I have to find a gate code or wait for someone else so I can tailgate in. And every day I have to reach out my window and dial in a gate security code.

How is a driverless car going to enter a gated community? Are there going to be Uber codes just like there are fire department codes? Is there going to be an UberFob that can get through any gate in the universe? If so, what is the point of the security gate?

And most importantly, who is going to make sure passengers only take one mint and one bottle of water?


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## Mr Magoo (Aug 2, 2016)

Caught a pax last night from Pittsburgh who told me that he had run into the Uber "driverless" car. It had an operator who could override the car if the car was about to hit something and that Uber was offering the first rides in that car at no charge. I can't confirm this as it was just spew from a pax that could have been total horse shit.

Sparked a conversation between him and his buddy in the car starting with "would you get into a car with no driver?" His response "Hell yes" The questioners response, "You're ****ing nuts"

It was a fantastic $3.00 trip with no tip, one I will cherish for all time.


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## PHXTE (Jun 23, 2015)

I've seen the driverless car here in Phoenix too. Although it had a driver in it at the time.


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