We started with Google’s co-founder Larry Page.
From several sources it can be learned that Larry Page has been desperate for the development of the company's self-driving cars. The automation of some functions will undoubtedly reduce the driver's attention as a driver. However, when a sudden situation occurs, the car cannot be handled by the built-in algorithm, and the driver must be quickly and accurately intervened. This kind of response based on a sudden momentary awakening is very unsafe and unreliable. The lack of driver attention in the autopilot mode is precisely the main cause of the recent fatal accident that caused Tesla in Florida.
|"Perfect" standard
What Larry Page wants is a perfect self-driving car that will never be disturbed by drivers and passengers, and not dangerous goods that endanger people's lives and damage the company's reputation. Of course, nothing is perfect. Instead, we must give a clear figure as the perfect standard we can accept. In this regard, we can first look at the traffic-related death statistics compiled by the World Health Organization. I extracted some figures from the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, as shown in the following table:
The driver and road conditions in the UK seem to be better and safer, and the United States is a little inferior. Some sections of the German freeway have no speed limit and look safer than the French radar-monitored highway.
For self-driving cars, the "perfect enough" criteria may be to reduce the death toll by a factor of 100, at least two orders of magnitude more safe than fatigue, anger, distraction, or drunken drivers. For an average American driver, driving an average of 13,000 miles (approximately 21,000 kilometers) a year, the conversion is about 0.15 percent of the death rate for the entire year. Actual possibilities often vary with external factors, weather, traffic conditions, and auto-driving algorithms.
The tech fantasy of my childhood imagined video phones, fully automated houses from the laundry room to the kitchen, flying cars and more. These are all slowly becoming reality. We have already begun to eagerly describe the third traffic revolution that will occur in the near future. By 2025, “private cars will disappear in all major cities in the United States.†(We should note that this author, John Zimmer, is Uber’s Competitor, co-founder of Lyft, a car sharing company) We learned from Uber that its self-driving cars have been tested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Singapore.