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Week 5 [23.11-29.11] What a driverless world could look like

 Many of us cannot work from home and still must get to their workplace by car or public transport and often those situations are the most stressful and frustrating minutes of our day. But what if we could find some solution to the cities being clogged up? Please listen to the ideas presented by Wanis Kabbaj and answer the questions below:




1.       What do you think about idea with detachable buses presented by the speaker? Do you think it could replace current public transportation on the surface

2.       Do you think the idea of driverless city is possible? If yes, then in how many years?

3.       Hypothetically speaking if it were possible would you trust this technology/ transport?  Or maybe you would be afraid of using it? Would you prefer driverless city than current city transport?

Comments

That’s a very entertaining presentation! It was interesting to see this comparison of city’s traffic to vascular system in live organisms. However, I’ve found the idea of detachable busses amusing, because of its utopian and idealistic projection. While it might be possible to change all of the public transportation in one city, I doubt that all of its citizens would be eager to exchange their vehicles for the ones that don’t require drivers. It could be possible to create this line of buses with its own infrastructure, so that citizens would still have the ability to drive their own cars.

Personally, I don’t think that driverless city are possible as long people have their own will. Humans tend to be unpredictable, so even with advanced and constantly learning algorithms I think it’s impossible to create universally safe system for all. Testing of driverless cars has raised many ethical problems and questions. For example, should and autonomous car protect its passengers or a pedestrian? Furthermore, it created this need for evaluating the value of human lives, such as should car like this try to save a reckless drunk driver or bus with schoolchildren when predicting a car crash. Another question is who should decide what the algorithm should do, and should the people that programmed it be responsible for accidents when they occur.

As I mentioned when answering the previous question, trusting this technology would mean trusting the people that have created it, and the ones that took it upon themselves to make such decisions. I probably would like to try and ride this detachable bus once, but I don’t think I would like to use it as my everyday commute. There are downsides and advantages to both solutions, and I think it would be best to find a compromise between those two ideas. The positive aspects of driverless cities are, as mentioned in the presentation, lack of traffic jam, a more economic management of space on the road, and with use of electric cars lack of air pollution. As for negatives, driverless cities exclude bikes, which are a healthier and more eco friendly solution that electric cars, that still use up energy, whether it’s from a renewable source or not. What I like about current city traffic is the ability to spontaneously adapt my route and change destination depending on my needs, but I definitely hate the amount of pollution that old cars and busses produce.
Karol Michalak said…
1. What do you think about idea with detachable buses presented by the speaker? Do you think it could replace current public transportation on the surface
It could by I sadly believe that many goverments focused on their own needs and not people will never do this. Hell the one person per car is really frustrating and I cannot understand why people do this to themselfes. I was driving with my father once and we where stuck in a traffic jam. After many busses that drove on the bus lanes we finally get to our destination and then another horror started. Parking. Wasted almost 10 minutes to find some place you have to pay for! I know cars are useful especially when travelling between cities but inside of them? No one will tell me that during work day it is faster, better or at least cheapier. Yes you sit in your car but what's the point when it generates so many problems? Not mentioning you cannot simpy go for a beer with friends after work because you have to drive, sounds sad as hell. Not only driving cars in cities can be pain in the ass that many people don't want to see but also it's hurtful for others. Every car with only one person between 15 to 18 in a work day is a disaster of it's own in traffic and there are thousands of them on every road. Many drivers I spoke with throw the shitties argument I've ever heard "I don't drive public transport because it is slow and not precise on time". First things first I remember how driving to pjatk by car was faster by 5 minutes then bus and 15 minutes slower then train. Also much more frustrating. Second public transport, especially buses is slow because of this drivers, but propably they will never understand.

2. Do you think the idea of driverless city is possible? If yes, then in how many years?
Everything is possible but in case of humanity it will take many decades before driverless city will be possible. Many people will fear such cars and not trust them. There can be even revolution because of such thing.

3. Hypothetically speaking if it were possible would you trust this technology/ transport? Or maybe you would be afraid of using it? Would you prefer driverless city than current city transport?
I would not trust such machine at the begining but I would prefer this then current chaos that we can see on our street. So after some time it will be normal for me to use such car.
Jakub Parteka said…
@Gabriela Szesna

I agree with statement that people can be unpredictable but they are also imperfect, especially as drivers. Based on research data it turned out that automatically driven car (Tesla) turned out to be more safe than typical human driver so I think we could avoid many collisions in driverless city. Interesting thought about driverless city excluding bike traffic, I must say I did not think about it, that is a big downside to whole idea.
Viktor Ryś said…
1.
I think it's a very ambitious concept, the mere idea is very good. As the speaker has stated it combines the concept of a public mass-transport with personal transportation. Such modularity would be really useful in trying to stop the huge problem which massive traffic in big cities presents.


2.
I would say that not sooner then 20 years from now. Right now there are some self-driving cars but they consists of only a tiny fraction of all the cars that currently can be seen on our roads. I think that in the next 10 years it will become more mainstream causing the price of a self-driving car to be more affordable.


3.
The self-driving car technology is still in early development so it means a lot of tests are being conducted as of now. Those tests show a high efficiency of that technology. Of course there were some crashes while a car was in a self-driving state, but looking at it distance wise, the technology in this moment causes less accidents then human drivers. I believe that this efficiency will only increase in the future with bigger computation power of the cars and having everywhere high bandwidth connectivity delivered by 5G. So answering the question, I wouldn't be afraid.
Jakub Parteka said…
@Viktor Ryś

The concept indeed is very ambitious but, in my opinion it could be done. The truth is that because of corona public transportation is not the biggest issue because many work or educate themselves from home. 20 years from now is an optimistic assumption, I would say more like 30 to 40 but we shall see. I am glad to hear that you would not be afraid because as you said it was proven (in tests) that self-driving cars tend to be more safe than ones driven by human driver.
1. What do you think about idea with detachable buses presented by the speaker? Do you think it could replace current public transportation on the surface

I really like the subject of this presentation. In my opinion it is not possible to replace current public transportation by detachable bused, maybe in future it could be possible, but for me now - it is impossible

2. Do you think the idea of driverless city is possible? If yes, then in how many years?

Maybe in the future yes, to be honest I don't like the perspective of a driverless city. Currently it is not possible in my opinion, maybe in the next 15 years it will be :)

3. Hypothetically speaking if it were possible would you trust this technology/ transport? Or maybe you would be afraid of using it? Would you prefer driverless city than current city transport?

I think that at the beginning I could be afraid of using it. I don't prefer the driverless city idea to be honest as i said before :)


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