01/22/2018
GM is taking a giant step into future tech with its new self-driving car that has no steering wheel and no brake pedal. Will the public accept such a startling lack of control? Many would want their self-driving car to have a “Manual” button that allowed a human to take charge. It’s not like computers don’t crash occasionally, plus a mass hack of self-driving cars would be an appealing project for all sorts of troublemakers from anarchists to ISIS.Below, the interior of GM’s new self-driving car looks rather sparse without a steering wheel and brake pedal.
In fact, a recent poll showed substantial suspicion among the public about self-driving cars in general:
But the CBS article below hinted that consumers may not be the main target when it mentioned Cruise Automation, a San-Francisco start-up purchased by GM in 2016, referring to it in connection with a “service.” So perhaps GM is planning to set up an Uber-style ride-sharing company rather than aiming at the general public for sales. GM’s 2016 purchase of Lyft also aligns with that direction for its automated future.
Still, the important point is that GM’s automated car shows the destruction of human driving jobs is getting closer. As of 2012, the total number of US taxi drivers was 233,900, so the eventual job loss will be significant.
Furthermore, it makes no sense to continue immigration of low-skill foreigners when jobs for them are disappearing fast, and cabbie is a popular gig for such people. A 2014 New York Times American-Born Cabbies Are a Vanishing Breed in New York reported, “Today, only 8 percent of New York City taxi and for-hire drivers were born in the United States.”
Immigrants replaced citizens and now self-driving cars are about to replace the immigrants. So we shouldn’t import more immigrants who will soon be unemployable.
GM is dropping the steering wheel in autonomous cars, CBS News, January 12, 2018General Motors (GM) says it is mass-producing autonomous cars that give complete control to the machine by taking away both the steering wheel and pedals.
The company says it has filed a petition with the federal government seeking permission to put the vehicles on the road sometime next year with no human backup drivers.
GM’s Cruise Automation unit has announced plans to carry passengers in self-driving cars that won’t have a backup driver in 2019. The location of the service has not been revealed. GM and other companies have tested autonomous cars on the road, yet the vehicles typically have an engineer behind the wheel, reading to take over in case the need arises.
“What’s really special about this is if you look back 20 years from now, it’s the first car without a steering wheel and pedals,” Kyle Vogt, chief executive officer of Cruise Automation, told Bloomberg News. Cruise Automation is developing the software for GM’s self-driving cars.
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