Uber Launches Self-Driving Cars in Arizona After California Ban

cageymaru

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Despite being banned in California for failure to properly register their autonomous car program with the state's DMV, Uber has been wooed to Arizona by Governor Doug Ducey. The Arizona governor is a staunch supporter of autonomous vehicles and even took the first ride. This gives Uber a second geographic locale to test the cars as Pittsburgh accepted them also. If you are in Tempe, Arizona make sure that you give these self driving cars a try and let us know how your experience.

I thought Uber got banned in California for bugs such as liking bike trails more than roads and running red lights; in addition to not properly registering their cars with the DMV. I see that they have had meetings to address the sexual harassment charges levied against them and vowed to change the culture at Uber. I'm glad that the CEO addressed the issue by quickly apologizing.

Beginning Tuesday, riders who request an UberX in Tempe will be matched with a self-driving car if one is available, according to a company spokeswoman.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a proponent of self-driving cars, took the inaugural ride, the company said. Ducey wooed Uber to Arizona after its self-driving cars were banned from San Francisco’s streets in December by the California Department of Motor Vehicles after failing to register the vehicles for testing. Uber also is operating its self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh.
 
The excitement will end as soon as one of these cars kills somebody. The it will be lawsuits and "what did you know and when did you know it" type questions.
 
I've heard they have a far better accident rate than people and are basically almost accident free except in ice and snow and mud kind of bad conditions. Arizona seems like an ideal place.
 
The excitement will end as soon as one of these cars kills somebody. The it will be lawsuits and "what did you know and when did you know it" type questions.
They'd need to specifically program self driving cars to kill people to be able to match humans in that metric.
 
They'd need to specifically program self driving cars to kill people to be able to match humans in that metric.
We expect people to kill other people in accidents. But we expect machines will not. Especially the way that self driving cars and AI in general has been hyped. Whenever one of our machines fails, we want to know what the cause was. For engineering purposes this is good as it allows us to continually improve our creations, however this is always accompanied by a need to assign blame. This is just human nature.
 
We expect people to kill other people in accidents. But we expect machines will not. Especially the way that self driving cars and AI in general has been hyped. Whenever one of our machines fails, we want to know what the cause was. For engineering purposes this is good as it allows us to continually improve our creations, however this is always accompanied by a need to assign blame. This is just human nature.
Especially due to the hype I don't think anyone would dare introduce their self driving system to consumers before they're sure it's bulletproof.

There were tons of machinery that malfunctioned and caused death, yet we're still using them. Of course when that happens there is an investigation, and they make it better, or insert fail safes to prevent a similar error in the future. The same will happen with self driving cars as well.
 
We expect people to kill other people in accidents. But we expect machines will not. Especially the way that self driving cars and AI in general has been hyped. Whenever one of our machines fails, we want to know what the cause was. For engineering purposes this is good as it allows us to continually improve our creations, however this is always accompanied by a need to assign blame. This is just human nature.

The public has lofty expectations for a machine. We expect people to kill people, but not the machines, which were created by the same people who kill other people. It's like being surprised when the President or some other famous person gets caught sleeping around, and not batting an eye when you hear about your co-worker doing it. The way I see it, even if the machines driving around killed 15% less than their human counterpart, I would consider that a success. 15% more lives saved can't really be monetized. I think a lot of what is going on is negative press fueled by private interests groups. But of course, like you said, can't blame the machines and the companies don't want to be liable. What likely needs to happen is the owner of the vehicle should be required to insure the vehicle along the same lines as if it were driven by human. Then again, I think the costs and fees associated with human drivers is partly what's fueling companies like uber to go driverless.

Terrible people make something or pick someone, and expect it to not be terrible like them at all. Well I think the world is in for a huge letdown once we figure out how to look into the past, because every historical figure is gonna be looked into, and you better be prepared for what you aren't going to see.
 
Uber still has their autonomous cars in CA and they are currently testing them in SF. They were allowed back in after Jan. These cars are doing autonomous test and also mapping. I see them all the time here but each car tends to have about 3 or more Uber employees in them. 2 in the front one in the back sometimes 4. Tuesday I saw a ford Escape with 4 guys one in the front has his laptop plugged into the dashboard and two in the back also with laptops open. I think currently they are only allowed to use their Ford fleet.
 
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