RE: Welcome to Your Driverless Future!
I'm one for helping to usher in new technologies, and any type of innovation on any front is always pleasing to me. But there is one thing that this sort of thing poses great difficulty for. While self-driving seems good in theory, and I definitely support it, and hope to see more of it, but one place that poses difficulties is for folks such as myself who are blind. I mention this especially in terms of services such as Uber and Lift. They are great services, better often than the government-subsidized ride services offered, and if I could get the subsidy for Lift without having to be signed up for the MBTA Ride, I would. But that is neither here nor there. The problem that I see with self-driving technology not in control by the user is, how on earth would they make the AI reliable enough to find a blind person who can see neither car color, nor read the license plate number? Both are questions tht first need to be answered before I will ever consider having a self-driving lift vehicle.
I would think it would be quite easy to have your phone alert you when the car had arrived and for the car to toot its horn in a particular way or beep when the app subscriber set that as a preference. If they don't have that already you should suggest it.
You would think, but the bigger issue with that is the often inaccuracies of GPS. I get lift drivers all the time, humans, mind you, and if the GPS parks them across the street from where I am, how on earth would I see a self-driving car if I can't even distinguish a car driven by a human? They better have AI built in that's as intelligent as a human, or, at least one intelligent enough to understand directions.
it's an interesting problem, you should suggest it to the engineers now so when this actually comes out they will have solved it. I think there will be a lot of funny stories of these things driving off the road or far afield where there is an inaccuracy in the map or bad data. As someone who can't drive themselves besides the problem of knowing exactly where the car is this should be great for you since it will be much cheaper than a human driver. How do you avoid getting hit by electric cars you can't hear?