Do YOU prefer a manned vehicle or driverless car?

As it stands today, unmanned vehicles (entirely operated by AI with no human intervention) still has shortcomings from accidents or collisions. Also, how would society react to AI being the driver? If there’s no steering wheel on an entirely AI operated car: how can you override its protocols when it becomes rogue? There are “self driving” cars, but how many use that as their main mode of transportation than driving a car?

The technology for it exists, but remains rather niche since there’s still more cars driven by people than cars operated by AI. Do YOU want to replace your own car with an AI operated one or rather keep one meant to be used by humans? As of now, it’s rather rare unless you happened to spot one whilst on the road. Most car dealerships only sell “normal” cars intended for humans, even Teslas still require a human driver.

21 points · 74 comments · view on lemmy.world

74 Comments

modernangel@sh.itjust.works · 45 pts · 4d (7 replies)

less of both; more mass transit

Zachariah@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d (3 replies)

driverless train/bus or human piloted?

ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 7 pts · 4d (2 replies)

Driverless, which mass transit is actually a better fit for our technology anyways, especially at its current level. However, we as a species seem to be very intent on doing the wrong thing at every point possible.

Zachariah@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d (1 reply)

I don’t oppose automation of many of the piloting tasks, but I’d say it’s great to have a human there, too.

ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 4d

That's understandable, and it really depends on the environment. A street car would benefit from a human driver a lot more than a subway or peoplemover would (which is why so many are automated already)

M137@lemmy.today · -5 pts · 4d (2 replies)

Which are vehicles.....

How did you fail at figuring that out?

measureyoucanpleasure@piefed.social · 6 pts · 4d

is elevator a driverless vehicle 🤔

jobbies@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4d

Yes, but they aren't all driverless and they are better for the environment.

And the ones that are driverless are way safer than cars.

h0tbeef@lemmy.zip · 25 pts · 4d (3 replies)

I’m a good driver, and AI is fucking stupid.

The only way you could possibly convince me to even get into a self driving car would be if my only other option was to get into a self flying helicopter.

Also, just to nitpick, the self driving car can’t “go rogue”, that would imply that it has consciousness, sentience, an understanding of what it’s actually doing, judgement, etc. a bunch of shit it doesn’t have. Self driving cars can and do “malfunction” frequently, but they can’t “go rogue”.

Don’t let the techno fascists’ constant anthropomorphic descriptions of their fuckware chat bots confuse you.

animemann80@feddit.online · 1 pts · 4d (2 replies)

Mainly, that point is about the software a modern electronic car driven by a human is reliant on can get hacked by a hacker (as in them taking full control virtually but in reality they're controlling someone's vehicle).

h0tbeef@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 4d (1 reply)

Gotcha, well that’s a different issue (one I believe expands beyond self-driving cars to all new cars that are way more computer integrated than they should be).

Getting hacked is a good reason to be skeptical tho, it’s probably the slickest way to kill someone and make it seem like an accident.

animemann80@feddit.online · 1 pts · 4d
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RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 4d

Considering the driverless car doesn't yet exist, I'll go with human operated.

Pat_Riot@lemmy.today · 16 pts · 4d (5 replies)

I think automatic transmissions were a mistake. There'd be a lot less shit drivers if you had to pass the driving test with a manual.

lath@piefed.social · 8 pts · 4d (1 reply)

I passed the driving test with a manual. You do not want me on the road.

jobbies@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 4d

Same. I'm a menace to society when behind the wheel.

But if I ever went to US (god forbid) I can pretend I'm all cool and be like 'I can drive stick'. Which we all know means 'I'm good at sex'.

Polisheocket@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 4d

You sure about that?

measureyoucanpleasure@piefed.social · 3 pts · 4d (1 reply)

i recommend visiting the balkans, your belief may get challenged

Pat_Riot@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4d

All manuals, no drivers?

yessikg@fedia.io · 14 pts · 4d

Trains

ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 12 pts · 4d (4 replies)

By the time you solve all the issues with self driving cars you'll always end up with some form of train. So I would suggest skipping the extra steps.

wedge@multiverse.soulism.net · 3 pts · 4d

This is the real take. The problem with traffic is that it’s elastic and based on a lack of information. If all vehicles accelerate at the same time and don’t have to slowly increase the distance between the next vehicle due to safety / uncertainty - you get a train.

MBech@feddit.dk · -1 pts · 4d (2 replies)

The train has, at least to a lot of people, its own issues. Mainly not bringing people straight to their home or work. Fix that, without being a longer commute than by car, and without being more expensive, and I'm sure a lot of people will be happy to do it.

ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 3 pts · 4d (1 reply)

At least 60% of the world population live and work in dense urban areas where rail can leave them on walking distance of both work and home. 20% more live in places dense enough for urban buses. So 80% of the world population doesn't need a car.

As for costs, the day drivers are forced to pay the externalities of their driving is the day cars die as a form of regular transport.

MBech@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 4d

Really depends where their job is. I wouldn't be selling my house or moving apartment just because I got a new job, so I could walk there instead of just driving. Just because someone lives in a city, doesn't mean their job is right next door.

For the aditional 20% who can use busses, the problem continues to be travel time. Fx. I could take a train, and a bus to get to work. But it'd take about 1 hour. I'm in country with a comparatively great public transportation system, but I can get to work in a car in 15 minutes instead. Sure, if you get anough people to switch to public transportation, maybe you can run more buslines, because there'd be enough people to fill those lines, but you'd need an astounding amount of lines to avoid people having to switch busses, and wasting time by not going a direct route. I have a car because I'm not going to waste 1,5 hours per day on transportation.

The problem is convenience. If the transportation system isn't at least as convenient as a car, people won't use it willingly. They'd even pay a premium to avoid it. You can force people by banning cars, but good luck with that. We've seen how the french react when a few speedcameras are installed (Spoiler, they burn them).

I want car-free cities, with the exception of transporting goods and work that absolutely requires a car. It'd be utopic! But I just don't believe we can cater enough to everyone's needs in any kind of satisfactory way, without going completely authoritarian and removing people's ability to live and work where they want to.

Witchfire@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d

I prefer public transit

Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk · 8 pts · 4d

Until EVERY vehicle is self-driving then no, I'll drive myself

NoTagBacks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 4d (4 replies)

Less cars, less parking, less roads, less sprawling cities.

Trains, pls.

cRazi_man@europe.pub · 1 pts · 4d (3 replies)

What do you think of e-scooters?

KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 4d

I wasn't asked but I have a very passionate opinion on them. So if you'll allow:

::: spoiler spoiler The way they're utilized in Germany fucking sucks. It was advertised as a "last leg of the road" kinda vehicle. And where are they overproporionatly available? In cities.

Where do you have good infrastructure and public transport? In. Fucking. Cities.

Meanwhile people who really really need a way to get around in rural areas remain to be dependent largely on cars. There usually are busses driving to villages, but only few a day.

They use resources such as batteries that I'd rather have used for other e-vehicles. In the beginnig they caused new low pay/exploitative jobs: juicers, i.e. the people who collected the scooters and recharchged them at their home.

And lastly the users. Thet zip through pedestrian zones at ridiculous speeds, drive on busy streets, park them in the middle of the walkway or throw them into nature.

I hate them and they have shown very little upsides imo.

The only thing I can think of was my buddy getting home after we hung out faster at night.

:::

yessikg@fedia.io · 1 pts · 4d

I support all types of micromobility but personally I prefer eSkate

NoTagBacks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 2d

I don't think I have a well-informed opinion on them, but from my current understanding, they seem to be poorly deployed as it is. There's more to explore about them for me, such as whether or not we have a good understanding/ proposal of an optimal deployment, environmental impact, cost/benefit versus other methods, how much of this is a cash-grab by opportunist dickheads, is/will/can there be earnest good-faith deployment as a solution, is this just another solution looking for a problem, is this a viable stepping stone to something better, are the premises of advocation sound/valid, are there other factors that aren't obvious that merit consideration, what does current world implementation(s) look like, is it working, what does the data look like, is it good data, is it adequate data, etc,etc,ect. I'm less so trying to make the point that I don't know enough so much as making the point of what it takes to bring into consideration yet another variable in an already saturated conversation about transportation, especially considering the poor dissemination of information of what we already know/understand well.

I'm not trying to be dismissive, and I'm sure e-scooters have their place in an ideal world, but given the current social/political context, I don't think they're relevant as a public topic if the goal in mind is to improve the glaring transportation issues we have today. And I suspect that part of the point of pushing e-scooters is indeed to create another red herring in the fight against fossil fuels and car-centric everything, though I will admit that such a notion is speculative on my part since, again, I haven't done an adequate amount of looking into it to form a worthy opinion.

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 4d (1 reply)

I hate self driving cars for 2 reasons:

1, they don't work well. They're out there causing accidents.

2, who is in command? Who do we jail when it kills someone?

KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 4d

Well clearly the coorporation for shipping faulty/incomplete softw... Huh what's this green stack of paper?

Sorry, I lost my train of thought. What were we talking about?

Reality_Suit@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d

Whatever can move the most people the safest and the fastest. Would love some great mass transit.

Meatwagon@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 4d

I have intense driving anxiety and only drive around my area willingly, so self-driving cars (or just more trains) would help me a lot.

KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 4d

Modern day AI models? Nononononononono

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 4 pts · 3d (1 reply)

Bruh, I don't even like being a passenger with a human driver. I need to drive myself or I walk.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 1 pts · 3d

I don't even like driving myself. walk, bike, transit all the way.

Danika7@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d (4 replies)

The more skills people acquire and use throughout their lives, the better. I prefer people behind the wheels of cars. Some automated commuter trains already exist, and that's cool, but driving is a skill that should be kept by the masses.

GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 4d (3 replies)

I can appreciate useful skills, like how to make rope or make a meal or change a diaper, but being able to drive is only useful because we have made it necessary. I'd rather people have time to learn skills that have some inherent use than have to waste time learning how to drive.

Danika7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d (2 replies)

Every skill learned is a big plus for each person who learns it. All skills are pricelessly precious.

GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 3d (1 reply)

But every person has a finite amount of time, and being required to learn a skill to function in society simply because society has decided to require it is a waste of the most valuable resource we have.

Danika7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d

I've stated my preference. Yours is yours, I respect that.

village604@adultswim.fan · 4 pts · 4d (3 replies)

even Teslas still require a human driver.

That's because musk is a moron who made Tesla ditch LIDAR for optical sensors.

Waymo taxis are fully autonomous and are already safer than humans.

Humans are absolutely horrible at driving. It's a major cause of death. Computers don't get tired, distracted, or intoxicated.

MBech@feddit.dk · 4 pts · 4d

Or angry for no apparent reason.

animemann80@feddit.online · 1 pts · 4d
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jobbies@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 4d

There is no amount of money that could persuade me to be transported by one of musks deathmobiles.

BigPotato@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d

I like to drive. I like being in control of my car and, although I don't really care about "owning" it, I don't like the level of connectivity "Driverless" cars have. I'd never want one.

That said, I hate other drivers. Staring at their phones, not signaling, speeding, generally driving like a jackass. If giving up driving meant that no one else was driving either? Maybe. I just might.

I'd much prefer trains and buses, with reasonable cycling infrastructure nearby (to include lockable bike garages).

bizzle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d

I'm a "car guy", I'll give up driving when they put me in the ground. I don't trust an AI to make snap decisions, I don't trust it to prioritize human life over property damage, and most importantly I like to drive.

wedge@multiverse.soulism.net · 2 pts · 4d (6 replies)

There are zero human transportable vehicles driven by AI today. The current breed of driverless cars are based completely on Machine Learning - a deterministic technology as opposed to an LLM which is non-deterministic based on noise and randomness.

I’m absolutely certain all of the idiot takes will be corrected 🙄

moonlight@fedia.io · 1 pts · 4d (5 replies)

This isn't really accurate - "AI" is a somewhat meaningless term that just means machine learning, basically. Also LLMs are deterministic, but usually use a 'temperature' setting to add randomness. And any self-driving system is probably enough of a chaotic system so that sensor noise is enough to make it non-deterministic.

That being said, I don't think LLMs belong anywhere near a car.

wedge@multiverse.soulism.net · 0 pts · 4d (4 replies)

The University of YouTube Shorts proudly presents the Dunning-Kruger Effect

ieGod@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 3d (3 replies)

As someone ago has worked in the autonomous vehicle industry, you are confidently incorrect. Machine vision and learning has a long history of being firmly within the AI space.

wedge@multiverse.soulism.net · 0 pts · 3d (2 replies)

And you’re lying lol. AI is derived from machine learning, but Machine Learning is not AI, and AI is not in cars. To be clear, AI currently being LLM technology. AI as a field includes a ton things, but machine learning and machine vision are not the classical definition of an Artificial Intelligence.

ieGod@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 3d (1 reply)

Your ignorance is dwarfed only by your arrogance. I don't have the time to even try with you, but you might want to start with the basics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

wedge@multiverse.soulism.net · 1 pts · 3d

This is simple semantics and your inability to understand English is second only to your Dunning-Kruger. Artificial Intelligence as a field is vast - saying Machine Learning is Artificial Intelligence is the same as saying Linear Algebra is Artificial Intelligence. Both go into what we call functional AI - not the field, but our current LLM based AI models. Grow up.

ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 2d

A long drive gives me time to think without the distraction I get when I don't have to keep my eyes on the road. I'd just grab my phone in a FSD vehicle and waste my time door scrolling as usual.

IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d

I’ve been driving for a few decades now and I’ve seen plenty of edge cases during that time where driverless cars likely wouldn’t do very well. A few recent examples:

  • A car on fire in the middle of an intersection. Cars drove around it on the red light to make way for approaching fire trucks.
  • I stopped at a red light at a construction zone and was watching for the light to turn green, and didn’t see a police officer standing next to the construction crew trying to wave me through. I finally noticed him when he yelled at me.
  • There’s a traffic light near me where two roads intersect at about a 30 degree angle. You regularly see both the red & green signals for both roads when stopped. I’ve seen Teslas that misread red signals as green be cause of this.
snooggums@piefed.world · 2 pts · 4d

I don't trust the currently available autonomous cars any more than I trust other drivers so I prefer to drive myself. Even if it was perfecr I would want the ability to take over whenever I wanred to address some scenarios where I don't think autonomous would ever be reliable enough in rural areas. If it was good enoigh I would be fine with it on well marked highways or well maintained urban areas, though I'd rsther use mass transit in those situstions.

Quite a few other drivers should be replaced with autonomous driving as soon as possible.

apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d

Neither but no driverless cars is the preference.

chocrates@piefed.world · 2 pts · 4d

Humans are bad at driving our multiton death machines. We have slow reaction times, we get distracted, other humans don't react logically, a true self driving system would be amazing.

Sadly none of the players on the market seem to actually do self driving good at all.

Probably we will crack fusion before we have true self driving.

the_q@piefed.social · 2 pts · 4d

Neither. People are dangerous, selfish idiots and robots are created by dangerous, selfish idiots.

Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d (4 replies)

I want the self-driving car because I would be a really bad driver.
AI enables me to do stuff at a quality level I couldn't reach myself even if training the skill would be fun. And for driving that means I could get more freedom of movement without being able to drive.
AI is also about accessibility.

BigPotato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d (1 reply)

I saw a dude with no arms drive a car.

Kaligalis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d

I got all the parts. My reaction time is just dangerously bad.

bizzle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d (1 reply)

That's really sad. You should believe in yourself more.

ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 2d

Actually, I'm good if someone that's pretty sure they'd be a bad driver doesn't drive. We could do with more of that instead of the willful stupidity I witness daily on the road.

BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world · 1 pts · 4d

The concept of a driverless car is good, the reality is not. The technology isn't there yet, despite all the money and resources being pumped in to it.

Driverless cars were THE big thing a few years ago, and all the big companies were putting money into it and hyping it. Tesla's value was predicated on it being big in driverless cars. Now a few years down the line, everyone has gone quiet on driverless cars and AI is THE big thing. It all just seems like examples of tech stock market hype. We don't have driverless cars, and it remains to be seen when they will be fit for purpose. We don't have AI, and it remains to be seen when that will be fir for purpose.

I don't doubt it will come, but it feels it's still "a few years off". The industry likes to talk about "regulatory hurdles" but the reality is it's too unsafe and unreliable to be deployed. So instead the tech industry is deploying something else unsafe and unreliable, but also unregulated: AI.

farmgineer@nord.pub · 1 pts · 4d

I've never been in anything self-driving, and I'm not sure the tech is fully there. I do expect a future where various vehicles and such are all communicating with each other and able to move more efficiently, but I still think we should reduce the number of single-occupancy boxes on the road.

I'd rather take public transit as my first choice in any case.

Object@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d

I don't think it would be that bad. Whenever I need to get on a car, most of the drive occurs on a motorway, and driving there seems (disclaimer: not a driver) simple. Being able to sleep through that would be great.

My guess is that it would require a driver, but there would be sections where you can enable automatic driving.

dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2d

I like being able to intervene (especially for parking and minor repositioning and stuff), but I have to say FSD on the newer models of Tesla with lidar is pretty good: it is actually less convenient to actually drive than to let it drive you. Of course that's both because the self driving is very decent AND because by removing the gear stalks it's sort of less convenient to drive manually IMO.

You still have to be more or less engaged which is how it should be, but it doesn't get tired or distracted and drift in lanes, it doesn't look out the window and forget to brake or brake too hard, and it effectively raises the quality bottom line.

Now, of course, just like everyone else, I'm an above average driver and also NN driven vehicles aren't PERFECT so why the hell would you let them drive anyway?

I all seriousness I like the option to offload to a more or less functional autopilot, but I wouldn't be comfortable in a car with no controls or overrides at all at this point.

jobbies@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 4d

We don't have driverless cars here but that doesn't matter. No way would I get in one.

Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 1 pts · 4d

Do YOU want to replace your own car with an AI operated one

Of course not.

The current question is elsewhere: whether to replace taxi services by driverless cars? And that is hard enough, still not possible for these so-called AI thingys.

RBWells@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d

Until cars can talk to each other and all are self driving, I prefer to drive. When they know to cooperate and not crash, self driving cars will be better drivers than people I think.

But mostly I take the electric bike. Like, driving a car is lazy enough, I don't need the car to drive me.

pedz@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 3d

I have no car and will not get one. Those things are horrible for the environment and humanity. Driver or not. Cars sucks. Fuck cars.

EDIT: If I have to choose those around me, I want them driven by humans. A human will learn (some) when you yell at them that they are in a bike lane. I trust humans much more than I trust, say, a Tesla, coming from behind while I'm cycling.

A car nearly ran onto me recently while I was stationary at a traffic light. I suspect the driver was battling against his "auto-pilot" system as the car kept trying to drive on me in the bike lane, and the driver kept trying to correct it. It seemed like the computer thought the bike path was a car lane. Fuck the cyclists in it.

Plus, we have proper winters where I live and I'd like to see them self-driving during snowfall and snow storms.

EDIT2: A car is a multi ton vehicle that can easily kill other people. I want humans to have responsibility over this. A death caused by a car can't be easily dismissed, just because some kid or a deer didn't follow what the programming intended them to do. There should be less individual cars and more buses, trains, trams, driven by responsible people, professionals, that are accountable. The only sort of acceptable automation/self-driving are trains if they have a dedicated right of way.