Signal 3: Is autonomous always good?
As AI plays a larger role in our world each day, we hear the word “autonomous” more and more. Society views it almost as a magic wand that will serve us for the better, once it is implemented. Autonomous vehicles are at the forefront of these conversations and are also discussed in a positive light. Engineers have been hard at work for the past couple years, developing the technology behind autonomous vehicles. Leaders expect AV to immediately benefit cities, including road safety, aging populations, and sustainability, and are ready to set them live as soon as possible.
However, the adoption of AV is highly complicated. People are speculating benefits on complete automation, but only partial automation can be expected in our near future. A 62% of vehicles will not be fully autonomous by 2035. When you consider partial AVs, the 1.4 billion people who will be over the age of 60 by 2030 will probably have even slower than normal response time. While complete automation may ultimately resolve distracted driving, partial automation will make it worse. Moral questions resulting from how AVs should be programmed are even less clear when it comes to partially autonomous vehicles.
So, are the foreseen long-term benefits worth the damage to get there? Maybe, if there were no other problems to solve. Here, in NYC, we are still dealing with fundamental problems like segregation, homelessness, and access to healthcare. Let’s try finding AI solutions to these issues first.
Source: [1]https://www.bbhub.io/dotorg/sites/2/2017/05/TamingtheAutonomousVehicleSpreadsPDFreleaseMay3rev2.pdf
