Yesterday , spokesperson from Google , GM , Delphi , and Lyfttestified before the Senate Committee on Commerce , Science , and Transportationabout the future of ego - labour vehicles . The senators , consecrate their hearts , expect all the incorrect questions .
I do n’t doubt that as a legislator who ordinarily deals with something like FCC regulation , wrap your head around this freshly - fangled technology is difficult , especially if your state is n’t in particular engaged with the ego - force revolution . And some of the senators had very good interrogation , include compass point about how autonomy will aid senior and handicapped Americans . But after the five witnesses redeem their remark ( which you canread in full ) , the direction the conversation took was kind of awkward . ( you could learn thearchived webcastto see for yourself . )
A sample doubtfulness : How will this engineering bring down driver fatigue ?
Uh . Well , if there ’s no driver , um …
Mostly , the senators were very implicated about hacking . And sure enough , there have been plenty of studies about thevulnerability of LIDAR sensorsthat most of these car use . But this is one of the very reasons that automakers like GM are partnering withLyftandCruze Automation : These are technology powerhouses . They do this for a support . As Google ’s Chris Urmson explain eloquently , there ’s probably no other company on the major planet well equip to dispense with cybersecurity than Google .
Then there were the concerns about secrecy . Please . If you employ an on - demand ride inspection and repair like Lyft , or are drive around with something like Waze giving you focal point , a technology company already has a complete dataset of where you dwell , and where you go every day . And probably much , much , much more information than that .
A fistful of questions referenced guard but it was more like WILL THE ROBOTS KILL US ? ? ? The overall tone of the questioning was not centre well-nigh enough on the fact that tapping the robots to drive our railcar could cut up to94 percent of crashes that are now due to human error . The hearing did not seem to address the fact that liberty could greatly foreshorten the impact of one of thelargest public health crisesof our clock time . If self - driving cars even save one-half of the 40,000 lives that will be claimed by human number one wood on our street this year , we should do it .
In fact , Dr. Missy Cummings , director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke Robotics , said the sound and dependable result would be to have all autonomous motorcar on the road with no guidance wheels tomorrow . Yes , exactly . So why do n’t we work towards that ?
Just about the same clip that the earreach were wrapping up , the last of the interactional participant of SXSW were headed home from Austin , where a great business deal of the programming was focused on autonomous vehicle . Urmson deliver one of the keynote addressesright after President Obama . panel focalize on thenew era of in - railcar amusement . In fact , the US Department of Transportation chose the fete as the berth to herald the finalists for itsSmart City Challenge , which will award up to$50 million to a cityto deploy an modern fare solution that sharpen on connected and autonomous vehicles .
Of course it was n’t surprising that autonomy was the hottest topic at a engineering fete in 2016 . But I mean what was so outstanding to me was how many of the urban policymakers at SXSW already seemed to get it . In various discussions with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and many of the mayors in attendance , it was clear that these city leaders not only understood the possibility for this type of fomite , they were already be after for it .
It ’s of import that USDOT is taking the lead on self - driving cars and developing draught guideline which will be out by June . Hopefully these will override any backwards - leaning direction of some state means , like the ill-conceived draft regulations by California ’s DMV . But it ’s heartening to see that the most forwards - thinking leaders is already happening at the city level , where autonomous vehicles make the most sense — and will in all likelihood have the expectant impact .
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