What do all the drivers do? — Part 2

Ashim D’Silva
Aug 28, 2017 · 3 min read

This is an ongoing series thinking through repercussions of AI.

Do we stop doing things if we don’t need to
Will new AI tech be for everyone
What do all the drivers do? — Part 1

Two: Cars always on the move

We already have an example of this with taxis and ride-hailing apps. One of the biggest advantages of taking a cab over driving, is not having to do anything with your car when you reach. Even self-drive car shares still need you to find a parking spot at the very least.

Street parking is prime real estate. Parking lots aren’t useless pieces of land, they need to be near the densest parts of the city, and are then some of the most expensive parts of the city. That’s using 25% of cities to leave a productive machine lying idle.

Additionally, the act of looking for parking is pretty disruptive to traffic flow as well. Drivers brake more often, drive at inconsistent speeds, reverse to parallel park… all of which stops movement behind them.

Side note: Traffic

It feels significant, but I don’t think there much discussion here. AI would crush traffic like a boss. Let’s go to videos:

Phantom Traffic Jam
A real recreation
The Simple Solution

So, less parking means more reclaimed space for people. In the comments of the last part, Kiran introduced me to the word “protopian”, which is the subject of his work understanding upgraded cities. We want a smart utopia, but we’re not starting from scratch. We’re making progress from an existing space designed for problems of the past. Parking, mutiple lanes, traffic lights, flyovers, …, are all attempts to make bad human drivers better. We will, in time, be able to reclaim that space and infrastructure. Barcelona, that is implementing “super blocks”, is a great example.

Apart from reclaiming real estate, there’s also a lot of value in utilising cars more. Parked cars don’t do anything. Moving ones however, well, move. We’re already increasing the utilisation of cars with ride-sharing, but cars can realistically move anything. I’m going to get into more things we can move in the next part, but moving cars can also move sensors.

If you’re using Google Maps, your phone is already tracking how fast you’re moving in comparison to the average for that street to estimate traffic congestion. It’s a side effect of having your phone on you while you drive, and cars all over the city are contributing to a live traffic map. Movement isn’t the only sensor we can have though. We measure temperature, humidity, air quality at a city level, but with those sensors in cars, we could get a much more detailed map. Self-driving cars have 360˚ cameras and infra-red depth sensors to analyse the world around them. That could result in a live 3D street view. And the on-board AI recognises objects and pedestrians, so we could get an idea of human density as well as traffic. Cars could also analyse the streets and mark out potholes, busted street lights, road obstructions, or a cat stuck in a tree. If we required cars to be equipped with first-aid they could be an easily accessible EMT resource or a mobile mechanic to jumpstart another car or share fuel. Cars could witness crimes, alert authorities and have video of everything.

Granted that last one is suddenly very worrying; #RightToPrivacy

The way we’re currently going, we’re going to have competing companies not willing to share all this rich data. In my socialist utopia, multiple car companies feed into a shared platform that improves AI and provides data for better government policy. That could move cars from being a utilisation of roads, and become a transport layer that is in itself a public good.

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Ashim D’Silva

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Half sentence philosopher, and lover/hater of cake

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