AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
A story about an automated taxi confirmed my worst suspicions about the perils of technology taking over from humans. This rogue AV ( autonomous vehicle) lost the run of itself with a passenger on board. It went ceaselessly round and round a car park while the hapless man trapped inside was unable to stop it.
Funny in the telling, but not so funny if you happened to be the unfortunate passenger. Mind you, I can see some advantages in having an AV. I could head off in my driverless car, go to the pub or out to dinner and ask it to come back for me later without worrying about drink driving or finding a parking spot. It might go and pick up shopping for me but would I trust an AV to look after the school run?
Automated taxis have been on the streets in the US for a while with mixed results. Waymo’s self-driving taxis were suspended after one crashed into a roadside pole (what was it thinking?) and Cruise automated taxi service in San Francisco was taken off the roads after a year. Private vehicles haven’t yet gone the full Monty, where human input is totally redundant but it’s on the way. Tesla’s self-driving taxi Robotaxi is expected to start within months in the US in a couple of cities, initially with a chauffeur-type service, later with a ride-hailing service and will be the precursors of private AVs.
A chatbot– what else?! – popped up as I tried to find out whether a person could take control if an AV ran amok. Apparently it depends on its stage .”Vehicles at Stage 3 require a human driver to actively monitor conditions and be ready to take control in an emergency or when the automated system encounters a situation it cannot handle,” replied the bot. Interestingly, if there was a crash, who would be liable, the human driver or the manufacturer of a car that couldn’t cope in an emergency?
Commercial AVs could take the drudgery out of goods deliveries, while self-drive buses could help to provide the answer to traffic congestion and lower the cost of public transport. They are already in use in the States and are an easier proposition to deploy than cars, since they drive set routes. Drones are already signed up to do deliveries for Just Eat and DoorDash and Manna’s drone delivery service for groceries, medicines and takeaways ,which began in Blanchardstown, is about to expand to other Dublin districts.
Personally, the idea of a car with no steering wheel, no pedals and a mind of its own makes me uneasy. It’s the psychological effect of being disempowered, made redundant in my role as a driver. If the vehicle is autonomous where does that leave me? I could be freed up to do other things, work on my computer while sitting in the AV’s back seat perhaps. But here, another takeover is going on, predictive text insists on trying to write what it thinks I am going to say in emails – never gets it right though. AI can make my writing skills redundant, ChatGPT could produce this article in a fraction of the time that it has taken me to research and write it. (I promise I did.)
Unlike earlier modern conveniences, like washing machines which did away with drudgery, the scary thing about AI and AVs is that they make decisions independently. They will also do away with the human element and with jobs. What happens to bus drivers, heavy goods vehicle drivers and Deliveroo cyclists? One prediction suggest that robotics and automation will do away with as many as 40% of jobs in the near future.
You can hardly speak to a real person these days if you are looking for assistance to make a booking or trouble-shooting. Lose your rag speaking with a bot when it’s unhelpful and tell it to ‘eff off’ and it will simply say: ”I’m sorry I don’t understand the question.”
Maybe I am being a wimp about the future though. Think of some of the advantages. AVs capable of returning home solo or autonomous buses could solve the vexed problem of getting to Dublin Airport. Getting the Regional Independent Group to put questions of a chatbot might even solve the Dail’s speaking rights row.
