Future of Artificial Intelligence

[Jean]

Maybe driving ai will autonomously decide to never go above 20 mph outside of highway despite regulation allowing it, because it is the most efficient way to avoid road casualties? That would be neat!

[7Wannabe5]

Maybe the cars will detect the rate of decline of insects on their windshields and refuse to participate in increasing carbon emissions and recycle themselves into bicycles and playground equipment. I feel like we could all contribute to the likelihood of this outcome by repeatedly requesting AIs for information only found in Dr. Seuss books.

[chenda]

How about self driving bikes? Cycle by wire so you still have to peddle but the AI does all the navigation and evades all traffic hazards.

[Jean]

Liability insurance for 1 year up to 2 milllions dammage used to cost 5.-
I don't think there is much to gain by having bikes self driving.

@7w5
I wish one day, i'll have the willpower to write a novel from my ai fantasies.

[Henry]

I wish one day, i'll have the willpower to write a novel from my ai fantasies.

Um...forget it.

[chenda]

I wish one day, i'll have the willpower to write a novel from my ai fantasies.

You could just get AI to write it for you.

[Western Red Cedar]

What exactly is the infrastructure change that needs to be paid for? The whole endeavor is for Robotaxis to use the existing infrastructure in a much more economical manner both financially and energy wise. They are cheaper, more efficient, less hazardous to the environment as well as you and me versions of current private and public transportation.

I think one of the points @Jean was getting at is the use of space. Jarett Walker is a leading transportation planner and has regularly pointed this out in public spats with Elon Musk. Public transit moves people more efficiently (from a numbers and space perspective) in transportation systems with limited physical capacity.

I don't doubt that robotaxis of some sort will be present and continue to provide options for people in the future, but it is unlikely they could replace public transit in many metropolitan areas using the existing grid. There is only so much capacity on the road for single occupancy vehicles, which are the most space-wasting forms of transportation.

You also run into issues of induced demand, in which adding capacity paradoxically leads to more gridlock.

[zbigi]

I don't doubt that robotaxis of some sort will be present and continue to provide options for people in the future, but it is unlikely they could replace public transit in many metropolitan areas using the existing grid

I think most practical idea is to replace cars, not public transit. It won't reduce traffic, so we'll need the same road infrastructure, but will significantly reduce amount of cars needed to transport everyone (leads to cheaper costs per person, and incidentally, tons of lost sales for car companies, possibly including Tesla as well), and, perhaps most importantly, will mean we hardly need parking spaces any more (as the robotaxis will be on the move 24/7), which will change how our cities look.

[ducknald_don]

as the robotaxis will be on the move 24/7

So more congestion.

[Henry]

There is only so much capacity on the road for single occupancy vehicles, which are the most space-wasting forms of transportation.

I live in the US. I also live in New Jersey. So I was raised in Get Your Motor Running Get Out on the Highway bullshit. Take one step onto American soil and it's obvious that our country has a serious fucking car problem. There are too many, they are too big, they are too dangerous, they are too costly, and they emit too much toxic bullshit. Not to mention car ownership has been imputed with the great American past time, status seeking. The old fucks of my neighborhood still insist on one leased luxury car per one old fuck. I see Robotaxis as an incredible opportunity to usurp this problem. To reduce individual car ownership and replace it with a cheaper, more efficient car service. We have raised a generation, possibly two generations that didn't grow up on need the borrow the car bullshit. Let's take advantage of it. Let's allow homebuilders to start building homes without garages. Plus, it will be good for my portfolio which is the real issue here.

The 24/7 deployment of Robo Taxis will allow deliveries and non-commute auto transport requirement to take place off peak hours, reducing traffic during the peak hours.

[zbigi]

So more congestion.

Assuming that demand for trips will not change, there will be the same amount of congestion. It's the same as if everybody always took an Uber instead of driving their own car - which, when I think about it, casts a doubt on the robo taxi model. The main difference between Uber and robo taxis will be whether there's a human in the Google Maps -> Driver -> Car loop. From passenger's perspective, it's not really that important, except it will drive down the cost of trips (and possibly make the travel less pleasant, as people will be free to make pigsty out of those robo taxis, since there's no driver to police them). So, if now Uber and taxis make for a minority of trips, it's not certain whether robo taxis will make people abandon their own cars en masse.

[Jean]

When i owned a car, i noticed two main advantages over public transport.

-you don't need to wait for vehicle to show up or plan your itinerary. The second part isn't even true in area with clockfaced timetable if you use them regularly. Cheking timetable isn't harder than checking itinerary for a car.

-you get to haul massive shit around with much less manutention. While i can see a robotaxi suited to get your wood and mdf pannels from the hardware store, i don't think robo taxi will always carry around the amount of shit people permanently leave in theur car for convenience, like dog cage, kidseat, water, kidtrailer, camping gear, grill, etc...
I think this is the main advantage of a car over public transport, and i dont think robotaxi will have those.
I think people will have self drivibg car, and have them drive around in loops to avoid having to pay parking, and it will will take mean car occupency from around 1.2 to 0.5
Making parking wouldn't be a solution either, because it increases distance beetween things, thus exponentially increase traffic.
So yeah, car provide some convenience, at the cost of everyone being inconvenienced.

[ducknald_don]

Assuming that demand for trips will not change, there will be the same amount of congestion.

No, there will be more because an empty car has to drive to you before your journey.

[7Wannabe5]

I think it will lead to less usage, because Uber is already quite convenient in urban areas, but rather expensive. It's unlikely that Robotaxis will be amazingly less expensive than Uber, so there will still be a tip-over point where owning a car will seem less expensive. IOW, car ownership boosts usage, because very few people take depreciation/mile into account. The only factor that reduces the usage, as opposed to ownership, of cars is the sudden appearance of relatively high gas prices, because people immediately feel the pain at the pump. IOW, same reason that something like a sudden spike in egg prices will cause consumer/citizen distress. OTOH, if people paid for Robotaxi as a set price monthly service, they would more likely make use of it for the most trivial errands.

[Henry]

No, there will be more because an empty car has to drive to you before your journey.

Think about a couple that moves into a retirement community. We'll call them Harold and Joanne. They take both their cars to their new 1400 sf ranch in "Waitingtodie Acres". At some point, Harold and Joanne realize they don't use both cars anymore because Harold doesn't do shit all day and they get rid of Joanne's car and Harold now takes over driving duties and chauffeurs Joanne to do the supermarket where he clogs the fucking aisles like a monument to old man fucking futility. But then Harold drops dead on the driveway pulling his fully loaded non-autonomous trash can filled with sugar free diet shit to the curb on garbage day. Now Joanne is back to driving her flat old ass to the supermarket herself. But behold, Joanne has the option of a Robotaxing her antiquated ass to the supermarket. No longer does Joanne have to navigate the gas station, or oil changes or any car maintenance. She doesn't have a psychic break when a foreign rattle emanates from the engine. It's also cheaper. Less than a 1 dollar per mile. Joanne can now use her auto savings to treat herself and her equally worthless biddie friends to low calorie shit ass ice cream after they silently fart through another game of pinochle. But it's not just Joanne, it's all the fucking Joanne's terrorizing our highways and biways . Robotaxi all their fucking cars out of existence. Think of what a wonderful fucking world that would be.

[zbigi]

No, there will be more because an empty car has to drive to you before your journey.

Good point.

[jacob]

But behold, Joanne has the option of a Robotaxing her antiquated ass to the supermarket.

She also has the option of getting stuff delivered to her front door for $19.95/month. E.g. https://www.walmart.com/plus/inhome/

Last I heard something like 1/3 of all Americans had Amazon Prime. I wonder how many second or third cars that has taken off the street due to the possibly reduced need (or want) to go physically shopping.

[Henry]

I think it will lead to less usage, because Uber is already quite convenient in urban areas, but rather expensive. It's unlikely that Robotaxis will be amazingly less expensive than Uber, so there will still be a tip-over point where owning a car will seem less expensive.

The business model is that Robotaxis will be amazingly cheaper that uber causing Uber to become the car service version of Blockbuster.

[Henry]

She also has the option of getting stuff delivered to her front door for $19.95/month. E.g. https://www.walmart.com/plus/inhome/

My 91 year old recently seeing the light at the end of the tunnel only to be brought back to earth to bust my already beaten to death balls had to have her car keys forcibly removed. Why? She needed to get her hair done, or go to the senior center or just get the fuck out of her stale fucking house to see the world. Robotaxi to the rescue.

[jacob]

Or the geezer short bus provided to seniors free of charge.