by One of every four car accidents in the United States are caused by texting and driving. Texting and driving has been a very large issue for a while now. It costs people their lives all for just a couple more minutes of being on your phone. Distracted driving is a result of human complacency. So, if we reduce the amount of humans driving, the number of distracted driving incidents should decrease. The best way to do this is through self-driving cars. Self driving cars are the future. If we can have technology and artificial intelligence controlling the vehicles that we use everyday, we can decrease the amount of accidents caused by human error, the traffic and the overall amount of issues on the road. Self-driving cars illustrate incredible progress in artificial intelligence. Although there can be negative aspects to self-driving, I believe that the positives of self-driving cars outweigh them.
Self driving cars have the ability to sense the environment around with a limited amount of human control. They are able to use sensors to gauge and gather information on what is around them. This includes detecting foreign objects in its way including humans, stop lights or other objects. There are already forms of artificial intelligence built into cars such as lane assistance, cruise control, and emergency braking; self driving cars build upon all of this AI in order to create technology that does not need a human to drive.
However, I understand that there are negative aspects of relying on technology to drive us around. Self driving cars rely on technology and similar to computers and other forms of technology, they can be hacked or make mistakes. Tesla introduced a new feature in their cars called autopilot which essentially is self driving. However, it is recommended that the driver of the car is attentive and ready to take over the wheel whenever. In Florida, Joshua Brown, a man driving a Tesla, hit a semi-trailer as a result of autopilot not recognizing it. Although the drivers are asked to be paying attention to avoid issues such as this one, that does not always happen. Artificial intelligence is a form of technology that learns from past instances. Each time something goes wrong in a Tesla vehicle as a result of autopilot, the technology learns and adapts in order to improve its efficiency and accuracy.
These issues can be improved through time. The more information and knowledge that the technology can absorb and learn, the more progress we will see in self-driving cars. It is devastating to see that the process of technology improving involves people losing their lives. However, in the long run, when 1.6 million car crashes from texting and driving can be reduced to a smaller number, it will be worth it. Too much human error exists in driving cars– response time plays a large factor too. Artificial intelligence highlights a new era in the world of technology and science. The future includes computers and technology outperforming humans and increasing their overall working efficiency. This future is scary and yet intriguing. A world where computers can control things that we as humans cannot in the same way. This will result in many jobs being lost and a reallocation of money in the economy. This future of self-driving cars is not that far away and will open the doors to many more technological development.
Sources:
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/7-companies-steering-self-driving-car-craze
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45048264