Autonomous cars: not so soon

Given my research on the topic of self-driving cars, I ascertain that we are at least a decade away from utilizing autonomous vehicles in society, and we are unlikely to experience autonomous vehicles commonplace on roads any sooner. While the autonomous vehicle market size was valued at $20.3M in 2021 and is expected to reach $62.4M by 2030, I believe safety concerns and media coverage over the last few weeks have made it clear that the automakers have a long way to go in ensuring proper safety, regulation, and judgement these cars can have, in addition to the extra time it will take to obtain regulatory approvals and receive widespread public acceptance. (https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/near-autonomous-passenger-car-market-1220.html).

The autonomous vehicles industry is currently comprised of many main companies such as Tesla, GM, Ford, Waymo, Uber, and startups like Zoox and Aurora, which are currently actively developing self-driving technologies via conducting tests and trials in controlled environments (“Examples of companies using self-driving cars” prompt. ChatGPT, Open AI, 9 November 23). Waymo (subsidy of Alphabet/Google) has been a frontrunner in the autonomous vehicles department, along with Tesla deploying autopilot and self-driving features in its vehicles currently. In the mainstream automotive market, GM and Ford have explored subsidiary divisions working on autonomous vehicles, aiming to incorporate this technology into future models. Uber has long been exploring self-driving technology, however has paused such testing after an accident in 2018. Nvidia is also involved in providing AI and computing solutions for self-driving cars through collaboration with car manufacturers (“What are companies currently developing in the self-driving cars space” prompt. Chat GPT, Open AI, 9 November 23).

There are definitely benefits of self-driving vehicles: including additional convenience and mobility, which can revolutionize transportation for those who cannot drive or have access to a car. Autonomous vehicles also creates new job sectors including maintenance, remote monitoring, software development, and more which are just starting to take off due to the electric vehicles industry. Productivity and convenience are improved as passengers and commuters will gain time back to use more effectively rather than driving, and the technology could also lead to cost savings over time once the tech is mature and widely available. Additionally, if embedded in an electronic vehicle, environmental impact is lessened, and land use could become more efficient if there is reduced need for parking spaces due to optimized vehicle utilization and increased use of ride sharing in urban areas (“Benefits of self-driving cars prompt”. Chat GPT, Open AI, 9 November 2023)

While there are many benefits autonomous vehicles provide, there are also significant challenges the self-driving cars industry faces, including safety concerns, regulatory concerns, and public trust. On the safety front, recent accidents have proven that autonomous cars do not currently contain the necessary safety features and judgement models to be road safe, and as we discussed in class, Cruise (GM subsidy) suspended driverless operations in California after a crash on October 2nd earlier this month (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/08/cruise-recall-self-driving-cars-gm). In terms of safety, as AI models rely heavily on past experiences to dictate future actions, it seems nearly impossible to train cars enough to prevent the exponential amount of potential accident scenarios. Cruise’s suspension definitely doesn’t seem promising. Additionally, as we have just seen in the news with Biden’s AI Executive Order, there are currently no or limited guidelines and laws governing the use of autonomous vehicles. In my opinion, these regulations are necessary prior to any widespread use of self-driving cars, and while Biden’s EO is a step in the right direction, it feels like a “chicken and the egg” scenario where lawmakers are stuck in the unknown until an issue arises, and at that point might be too late (if accident proves fatal, and we have no precedent to unwind who is at fault). Lastly, even if autonomous vehicles accomplish these first two challenges, it will take many years after this to convince the public of how safe and reliable these vehicles are.

In class, we have directly discussed self-driving vehicles in lectures 1 & 2 when we covered tech news and also when we covered at a high-level back-end AI and how AI is used to produce live photo and video of a car (spatial awareness). These discussions prompted my interest to further explore the field. From this research, I believe this market is likely to continue to see further investment, collaboration, partnerships and technological advancements, which will hopefully lead to safer and more environmentally viable solutions. However due to all of the challenges listed above I strongly believe we are at least a decade away from these vehicles becoming commonplace. I’ll stick with a manual person Uber driver for the foreseeable future!