According to "Progress in Self-Driving Vehicles" by Chris Urmson, self-driving vehicles do have some advantages over a traditional one; however, there are some negatives which may cause serious problems on self-driving vehicles.According to Urmson,self-driving vehicles with which people can avoid human error will make driving safer. There are, however, two problems that Urmson didn't take into consideration.
First one, error that caused by machine itself. As we all know, machine may be not always right due to some software or hardware problems. For example, it is common for PC crashing. Sometime this may caused by bugs of software and sometime this is due to some component of PC being damaged. Though annoying, it is acceptable for most people when their PC is crashed. What if the control system crashed while driving? What is the feeling of the guys who is sitting on that uncontrolled car? And it is an obvious that the more complex a system is, the more likely a bug appears. For example an analogy control system is more simple than a digital one, thus it is more stable in many conditions, thus in some area that need high disturbance rejection, analogy control system is still in use. Obviously a self-driving vehicle control system is far more complicated and subtle than a personal PC or cellphone, so there is more likely exists "bug" in the system which may cause serious problems.
What is worse, there may be some problems that caused by humans. Hacker, for example, may invade control system of a self-driving vehicle which may cause the vehicle lose control and people lose lives. The technology of protection nowadays is like some sort of a piece of fragile glass for some talented hacker. I don't think the anti-virus software can defend our lives from hackers.
In conclusion, a self-driving vehicle can not make nothing but make it more dangerous since the technical and artificial issues. I don't think most people can accept a self-driving vehicle.
Since the potential machine and system problems, you think self-driving vehicle is not a good idea for the future society. It may make the traffic more dangerous than today. In this sense, it may be true. However, along with the development of advanced technology, it can be imagined that the machine and system approaching perfect, such as airplane. Today, the most of operations of airplane can be completed by system, especially Air Bus. So the hardware and software are most probably solved by the talented engineers, and self-driving may have a lighter future than what is described in your article.
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