Pain and suffering

Autonomous cars are an upcoming fad. Personally, I think they are extremely dangerous and the infrastructure isn’t there yet. Autonomous cars use a vast amount of sensors to map the surrounding area to identify objects. The use of AI is then implemented to simulate a human-like driving. This is a huge liability as AI is a new technology and can be easily manipulated. There are many examples of object identification mistakenly identifying people as traffic cones due to the clothing they wear. Autonomous cars have been in the makes for almost 8 years, this isn’t a long time for such an impeccable task. Another issue that comes to mind is accidents, Who is liable? It is a major liability risk to introduce self-driving cars into our society. For example, if the autonomous car hits a regular car and hurts someone within the vehicle who is determined at fault, the car or the passenger? In the future Autonomous cars seem like a great idea but the current infrastructure isn’t there. It is a danger to society to implement them into our daily life the way they are now. Although the technology involved is being used currently for many great things. The technology is being used for food deliveries via sidewalk roombas. They still get tripped up when they are driving around, but they aren’t endangering the lives of innocent people as they navigate the sidewalks delivering food. The same technology is used for roombas because vacuuming your own floor is overrated. These tasks are a great test of the technology but they further prove that they aren’t sufficient enough to roam our lands on their own just yet. Cyber attacks are on the rise as technologies advance, what happens if the cyber attacks spread to autonomous vehicles? The dangers that could ensue from such attacks is a huge problem with autonomous cars. If they can be breached then the cars are a danger. A plus side to autonomous cars would be the local authorities could shut down cars involved in a high speed chase. 

In my opinion, I personally think that autonomous cars are a danger and I will not pursue owning such a vehicle. The dangers of the cars are so high that they outway the positives they produce. I personally don’t think the amount of crashes would be reduced, as Ai is still flawed and isn’t perfect just yet. I also enjoy driving myself as it gives me a sense of enjoyment as a car enthusiast. Autonomous cars would scratch my itch that a performance car would. Maybe in the future if they perfected the Autonomous cars I would buy one for commuting purposes but still own a normal car for my soul. The idea of self driving cars sounds really cool but I think that losing the skill of driving would negatively affect society. Innovations that make human life easier I feel are limited us humans as a race and we would be devolving as humans into lazier less able people. 

I see this opportunity to perfect the vehicles before introducing them. They are a really awesome idea but they aren’t technically perfect yet. Automobiles have been around since the 1880s and we are still finding ways to perfect them. autonomous cars were let loose in 2015. Something of this magnitude I feel shouldn’t be developed in such a short time and released to the public. There are so many outcomes in traffic and the autonomous car has to account for every single one of them, which is why I do not feel safe enough to commit to driving an autonomous car. I hope that someday our society can perfect autonomous driving so that maybe my children can own such a cool vehicle. But I do not feel as if they are ready for the public as of 2024 and the AI is so new. I think it would be better if we studied the tendencies before we try to implement it into society, which is why I’m gonna stick with my super awesome 1986 Iroc-Z that has barely enough torque to spin a hamster wheel, because why buy a new vehicle when you can buy a vehicle that is underdeveloped and does not meet current safety standards.

“CHRYSLER PACIFICA (RU) SELF-DRVING TEST CAR IN CHINA (3)” by Dinkun Chen is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.