Right: the light side; cartoonists are having a field day with new technology, but the imminent arrival of "robot cars" is being taken seriously by governments .
Arguments against Australia adopting fully- and semi-automated vehicles
1. There are numerous on-road situations automated cars cannot manage It has been noted that there are many on-road situations that automated vehicles cannot deal with. John Dolan, principal systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute has noted, 'Heavy snow and rain tend to confuse LiDAR sensors and also cameras.' (LiDAR refers to the light sensing radar that allow the vehicle to 'see' what is around it.)  Indeed, anything that confuses the vehicle's cameras is a problem. For example, when the sun is immediately behind a traffic light, most cameras cannot recognize the colour of the signal through the glare. The first human fatality involving a semi-automated vehicle occurred when a lorry joined the road from a cross street. Unable to distinguish the white truck against the brightly lit sky, the self-driving system failed to apply the brakes. It has also been noted that poorly or unclearly marked stretches of road create significant problems for semi-automated vehicles. Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, noted the problem of unmarked or ambiguously marked highways in California, complaining '(Y)ou have the true lane position and the sort of fake-lane position, and they're diverging. The camera system would then follow the diverging system and go into the wrong lane.' Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Baidu Research and Yuanqing Lin, director of Baidu's Institute of Deep Learning, acknowledged in a comment and analysis published in March, 2016, that automated vehicles are not able to assess complex situations involving multiple subtle cues, nor respond to human verbal or non-verbal cues. They noted, ' If we see a truck with a "Makes Wide Turns" sign, we know how to adjust our driving accordingly. If we see children distracted by the ice cream truck across the street, we know to slow down, as they may dash toward it. Today's computers aren't nearly as skilled at interpreting complex situations like these.' 2. Self-driving cars are vulnerable to the limitations of their navigating systems Currently most semi-automatic cars rely on the interaction of their on-board sensory systems and global positioning system (GPS) to locate the car in time and space and direct it on the road. The current limitations of GPS make self-directing cars unreliable. Robotics expert David Bruemmer has noted, '[D]ependence on GPS can limit efficiency and reliability. GPS can't direct a robot through a narrow doorway or prevent a collision inside a parking garage. It can't slide your car into a parking space or allow a convoy of trucks to keep a meter apart. We have tried to solve this problem by adding sensors onto vehicles that build up maps and localize, but we can't put these on most of the things we'd like to track and control because the sensors are either too big, too power hungry or don't work in dirty, dusty, dynamic environments.' Any situation where the satellite signal upon which the GPS relies is blocked makes the system unreliable as a means of navigation. Obstacles to the signals such as buildings, trees, mountain ranges and extreme atmospheric conditions such as geomagnetic storms can all disrupt its operation. One of the measures being developed to overcome some of the limitations associated with GPS navigation is a different type of mapping system loaded within a vehicle's computers which interacts with the vehicle's sensors without relying on global positioning. The autonomous cars developed by Google and Oxford University use these rich, 3D maps of the road known as 'prior maps' that are installed within the car. On-board sensors then compare what the car sees at any point in time to what it is stored in its memory. Though this system is more robust than GPS it relies on a myriad of 'prior maps' being stored in the vehicle's computers. To-date, most of these prior maps do not exist. 3. Semi-automated cars will de-skill drivers There are currently many concerns that semi-automated cars are making drivers complacent and degrading their driving skills. Current driver-assist technology is able to keep cars in their lanes, maintain a safe distance from other vehicles, warn of unseen traffic and apply the brakes to avoid rear-end crashes and this technology is rapidly spreading from luxury cars to widely-purchased Hondas and Nissans. The apprehension is that with the increasing use of these devices a growing number of drivers are forfeiting skill and alertness. Adrian Lund, president of the United States Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states, 'There are lots of concerns about people checking out and we are trying to monitor that now. Everything we do that makes the driving task a little easier means that people are going to pay a little bit less attention when they're driving.' Mike Harley, group managing editor at Kelley Blue Book a car-shopping site, shares these concerns. He states, 'Without question, technology is making drivers lazier and less attentive. Most of today's digital "driver assistance" features are designed to overlay basic driving skills, which relaxes the driver's sense of responsibility.' A recent University of Michigan study investigated how people are using blind-spot detection systems. The study found a significant increase in drivers failing to look over their shoulder to check for themselves when changing lanes. Shan Bao, associate research scientist at the university's Transportation Research Institute, stated, 'The more [drivers] are exposed to these systems, the more they trust the systems.' Shan Bao further suggested that, in emergency situations ' they'll trust the systems more than they'll trust themselves.' There has also been concern expressed that in addition to over-reliance on the automated features, drives might actually lose some of their skills. This possibility was explained in a 2016 Swedish study which stated, ' In absence of practice, driver will lose these skills to control the vehicle manually...which could lead to wrong decisions.' Possible complacency and skill loss when driving a semi-automated vehicle are very concerning to experts because the current recommendation is that the driver has to be prepared to resume control of the vehicle whenever a circumstance arises with which the automated system cannot deal. De-skilled drivers are unlikely to be able to respond appropriately in emergency situations. This point was made in the 2016 Swedish study which found, '[I]f the [automated] system has low failure rate and high reliability, overreliance on the automation system will reduce the readiness for transition to manual control of the vehicle.' A federal investigation into the 2016 fatality in a Tesla Model S travelling in semi-autonomous Autopilot mode showed the driver had his hands on the wheel for just 25 seconds in the final 37 minutes before crashing into a semitrailer. 4. The cost of fully-automated cars will be prohibitive for most drivers A report released by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute on December 22, 2017, noted the probable costs associated with automated cars. It stated, 'Current new technologies can add thousands of dollars to vehicle purchase prices. For example, a package of optional electronic features such as remote starting, high beam assist, active lane assist, adaptive cruise control and top view camera typically increases new vehicle prices by more than $5,000, and navigation and security services, such as OnStar and TomTom, cost $200-600 per year. Since failures could be deadly, autonomous driving systems will need robust, redundant and abuse-resistant components maintained by specialists, similar to aviation standards, further increasing costs.' The report continued, 'Level 4 and 5 autonomous driving capabilities will probably increase vehicle purchase prices by many thousands of dollars, and require hundreds or thousands of dollars in additional annual services and maintenance costs. Experience with previous vehicleinnovations, such as automatic transmissions and airbags...suggests that autonomous driving capability will initially be available only on higher priced models, and will take one to three decades to be incorporated into middle- and lower-priced models.' Estimates made in the United States are more specific and suggested that fully automated vehicles will be far outside the price range of many potential consumers. In an article published on January 31, 2014, Fast Company noted, 'According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the average American spends around $30,000 on a new car or light truck. In contrast, Interest.com's 2013 Car Affordability Study says that the average American can only afford to spend $20,806 on a car. The featured Prius [one shown in a popular advertisement for automated cars], which starts at around $24,000, is optioned up with a $75,000 to $80,000 Velodyne LIDAR system, visual and radar sensors estimated to cost about $10,000, and a nearly $200,000 GPS array. Not to mention the cost of the driving computer and software. Put into context: The staid-looking Toyota Prius [driven] around in the video costs more than a Ferrari 599. At $320,000, that's an exclusive purchase, and well above the mean cost of a car, truck or SUV.' It has been estimated that even with improvements in technology, affordable self-driving cars are some way into the future, An opinion piece published in the Huffington Post on April 7, 2017, stated, ' Today's autonomous vehicles are what hybrid cars used to be; a more efficient means of driving that costs way more than the average person can afford. As is always the case with technology, constant refinement and the availability of cheaper materials will eventually make autonomous vehicles more affordable to the masses but that day is still a few years away. It's estimated that even in 2025, having self-driving features in a vehicle will drive up the cost to the consumer by at least $7,000-$10,000.' 5. Fully automated vehicles will cost many jobs Critics of vehicle automation have warned that this development will create large-scale job losses, particular in the transport of goods and public transport. In a report published in The Australian on June 1, 2017, the newspaper's economics correspondent, Adam Creighton, noted that more than 100,000 truckies - the fifth most common occupation in Australia - face redundancy over the next decade as driverless technology spreads to Australia's highways and ports. The impact on employment in Australia will be significant as almost 190,000 Australians (almost 1.6 per cent of all employed people) are truck drivers, according to recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data. Creighton further explained the world-wide ramifications, adding that between 3.4 million and 4.4 million drivers were likely to lose their jobs if emerging technology started to be rolled out from the early 2020s. These predictions are contained within a report by the International Transport Forum, which estimated the demand and supply of truck drivers up to the year 2040. The report states, 'Even accounting for adverse demographic trends and prospective truck drivers being progressively dissuaded by the advent of driverless technology, over two million drivers across the US and ğEurope could be directly displaced by 2030.' Within Australia fully automated trucks are already being used on a limited scale on West Australian mining sites and in the Port of Rotterdam. Not only drivers employed in the transport of goods, but also those in public transport will have their jobs at risk. A report published by Smith's Lawyers on August 11, 2016 stated, 'Taxi drivers, Uber drivers, and bus drivers will all be affected by the dawn of the technology that will see autonomous vehicles becoming the norm.' Phillipa Power, executive director of policy and research at the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, has stated, 'The reality is that automation, whether it be for vehicles or other things, has the potential to impact in quite significant ways on Australia's labour market, particularly in areas where automation begins to replace what we would consider lower skilled or unskilled jobs.' In addition to reducing demand for drivers, another area in which fully- or semi-automated cars is likely to result in reduced employment is in vehicle repair. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources released a report on the social impact of automated vehicles in August, 2017. The report stated, ' Another sector likely to change as a consequence of increasing automation of vehicles is vehicle repair - mechanics, panel beaters and similar occupations - where a decrease in the number of road accidents would lead to a reduction in the need for people to carry out those repairs.' |
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