Driverless cars shouldn’t be a race

I grit my teeth when the metaphor of “a race” is used in discussions about self-driving technology.

Companies developing computer-controlled car technology, including Tesla, China’s Baidu, and Waymo, a sister company to Google, are frequent described as present in one Race to create self-driving vehicles Ready for widespread use. Some United States policy organization and elected official talks about America’s need to demonstrate “leadership” by defeating China with autonomous technology.

There are risks to moving too slowly with a technology that can make people’s lives better, but we shouldn’t buy gossip that a technology will take years to develop – and can has both profound benefits and deadly pitfalls – should be treated like a race.

The danger is that a false sense of urgency or eagerness to “win” can create unnecessary safety risks, allowing companies to collect more of our personal information and prioritizing the self-interest of corporations over the public interest.

When you read that a company or country is accelerating, rushing, racing or winning in an emerging technology sector, you should stop and ask: Why is it a race? What are the potential consequences of this sense of urgency? Who is this message for?

Most self-driving car technologists now think it can take decades until computer-controlled cars became commonplace. A month, a year or two more years may not make much of a difference, and it’s not clear that all races are worth winning.

So why does this self-driving car story exist? First, companies find it helpful to be seen by their employees, investors, business partners, regulators and the public as having the best chance of creating controlled transportation technology. computer control is safe, useful and profitable. Everyone wants to support a winner.

Pioneers are credited with showing the direction of a new technology and building a network of business and user allies.

But winning the technology “race” doesn’t always make sense. Apple is not the first company to make smartphones. Google did not develop the first online search engine. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company did not produce the first advanced computer chip. They are tech superstars because they did it (supposedly) best, not first.

Second, the “race” narrative is like a joke to convince the public or elected officials to go faster with rules and regulations, justify lax rules and regulations, or causing people to take unnecessary risks to “win”.

The Wall Street Journal report last week about concerns that self-driving trucking company TuSimple is putting people’s lives at risk “in the rush to bring driverless trucks to market.” The Journal reported that a truck equipped with TuSimple technology veered off course on an Arizona interstate last spring and crashed into a concrete obstacle. TuSimple told The Journal that no one was hurt and that safety was their top priority.

Apple’s self-driving test cars veered onto a curb near the company’s Bay Area headquarters, and earlier this year one nearly hit a jogger who had permission to cross the street, The Information report last month.

Driverless cars could eventually make our roads safer, but each of those incidents is a reminder of the threats these companies pose as they develop roads. in the field of self-driving cars. Developing an online video app doesn’t kill people.

“We’re letting these companies set the rules,” Cade Metz, a New York Times reporter who writes about autonomous vehicle technology, told me.

Cade suggests redefining the story of race. Instead of trying to win the popularization of driverless cars, there could be a race to steer the technology in the public interest, he said.

Characteristic for the emerging technology is “race” with China Not great either. There are advantages if an American company is the first to commercialize a new technology, but it is also dangerous to treat everything as a superpower competition.

In one interview Last year along with Kara Swisher, who hosted the Times Opinion podcast last year, 23andMe chief executive Anne Wojcicki lamented that the US was “behind” China in an “ongoing information war related to understanding the human genome”. Then Swisher asked, “Is this the war we want to win?”

Good question. If China is collecting large amounts of people’s DNA, does that mean the US should be doing it too?

In addition, the heavy focus on driverless cars can also make Alternative ideas to improve transportation.

Perhaps the racial metaphor we need is from Aesop’s fable of hare and tortoise. Slow, steady, sensible, keenly aware of the benefits and drawbacks – that’s the way to win the self-driving car race. (But it’s not a race.)

Tip of the week

Folding phones are great or amazing?

Samsung this week announced a new set of foldable phones that combine elements of a smartphone and a tablet. Brian X. ChenThe Times’s consumer technology columnist, tells us what he likes and (mostly) dislikes about foldable phones:

A foldable mobile phone is basically a smartphone with a hinge to open and close like a book to expand the screen size. Samsung has been improving this technology over the years, but overall I’m skeptical of it.

Here are my impressions of the pros and cons of the previous models after testing them years ago (starting with the cons):

Defect

• When folded, the foldable phone is thicker than a regular smartphone, which adds more volume in your pocket or hand.

Advantages

To do the same: David Pierce, a writer for The Verge, Written that folding phones seem like a great idea but are annoyingly intrusive.

Before we go…

• It was the twilight of Silicon Valley boy bosses: My colleague Erin Griffith report on why some founders of young tech companies are leaving. Surprise: Running a company isn’t much fun when investors’ money is harder to come by, the economy is tough, and cost-cutting is cooler than the “vision”. (Bonus points for the glittering unicorn illustration.)

• Poor government technology is a symptom, not a cause, of dysfunction: Washington Post has an interesting and angry article Photo essay shows the IRS’s outdated technology and cumbersome bureaucracy in processing tax returns. The cafeteria is just a sea of ​​paper. (Registration may be required.)

• Hobbies of war drones: Drones used in combat zones are no longer just large and expensive weapons. The Ukrainian military is also using modified hobbyist drones in makeshift workshops to drop bombs and detect artillery targets, says my colleague Andrew E. Kramer report.

Hug this

NO ONE can resist doggy Martha with pleading eyes.

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