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honestly, the whole concept of self-driving cars is fundamentally stupid in the way they’re trying to build them here. if there are specific cities where they can go on specific roads, the simple answer would be to install a positional tracking system on those roads (just like lane markings, but for computers), along with some pedestrian safety features and the right interfaces to respond to emergency vehicles and such. that could have been built by a couple of undergrads from stanford like five years ago. but no, we have to use far more overengineered solutions, for… why exactly? to be able to sell the tech later to individuals who can’t just upgrade their whole city?
It’s an imaginative way to protest, but what exactly are they protestors opposing about self driving vehicles? I get there might be safety concerns about this new and somewhat unproven technology, but it’s not as if human drivers are wholly reliable either.
Ultimately self driving tech has to “hit the streets” at some point to get real world testing experience and feedback.
They’re not protesting self driving cars. And this has nothing at all to do with the reliability of human drivers. They’re protesting the way the development and testing of self driving cars has put corporate interests ahead of civic safety and community consent. The people in these test cities have become non-consenting test subjects in an experiment that clearly puts corporate profit ahead of safety. When new drugs “hit the streets” there are well regulated systems of test subject consent and safety accountability to get real world testing experience and feedback. Why should this auto industry experiment be exempt from experimental and scientific ethics?
