I’ll be honest. I didn’t read your text. Speaking only to the premise because I live in the town it happened, of course it is. Anytime you’re working with mass transit, there will always be casualties. Everyone knew this day was coming, from the CEO all the way down to you and me.

It wasn’t too long. I’m just high and intellectually lazy at the moment.

Perfect for conspiracy theories.

Excellent post.

In addition to great content, i want to thank OP for the formatting of this post! Background info for those not in the know, theory, supporting evidence, etc...also — PARAGRAPHS!!!

So often OPs will just launch into wall-of-text rambles, while assuming every reader knows what they know. This serves no one, and it also just provides another example to outsiders of a “crazy conspiracy theorist”.

So a big genuine thank you from me. This is the information delivery method we as a community need more of.

Now THIS is the kind of content we need more of. Good work, sounds plausible.

Agreed.

Good conspiracy TLDR: Uber wants the government to run into center stage with dicks swinging and regulate self driving cars to eliminate competition, the negligent fatality wasn't necessarily planned, but was an allowed inevitability. Existing players will survive because self driving cars have proven themselves safer per mile than human drivers. Establishing a monopoly or price fixable duopoly over self driving cars.

The lady was walking OUTSIDE of a crosswalk on a four-lane highway.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I HATE bicyclists. They commit moving violations every minute, and the have a nasty habit of teleporting into and out of existence with no warning.

My auto insurance went way up that one time when one dipshit biker decides to come barreling along the road at 25 miles per hour into incoming green light and gets bumped by me, writhing in pain while he's thinking to himself: "jackpot".

The problem with Bicyclists is that they're precisely the same people who had their drivers license taken away. They raise my blood pressure just having them nearby, expect them to do the stupidest things at the stupidest times. When a story comes around: "Bicyclist gets mowed down by whatever" I automatically think of the dipshit bicyclist who made my rates go up.

When driving, always ask yourself: "Might a bicycle be incoming at 25mph the wrong way up a sidewalk and materializing from behind a 5 foot tall hedge?"

Hell, she wasn't even a bicyclist. She was just walking like a dumbass across a big highway outside of the crosswalk. Any normal driver could have easily hit her and the safety driver in the Uber vehicle didn't see her in time to stop.

Idk, I just hate that we're having hangups like this and blaming the automation technology because people continue to do stupid stuff that even a regular driver couldn't account for.

It'll be fun to hear the self driving cars arguing on social medias, spitting such vitriol at bicyclists in 2080. "DAMN BICYCLISTS DON'T HAVE TO OBEY THE LAW??!!? FIRE NUCLEAR MISSILES NOW!!!!!

Self driving cars vs self riding bicycles😐

She was walking her bike in the bike lane. She wasn't trying to cross the road.

Did you watch the video? She was crossing a multi lane road at night and not in a crosswalk. Most definitely in the vehicle travel lane, moving perpendicular to the flow of traffic.

So, they deemed you at fault? Not like it would have mattered since your rates would've gone up regardless of fault.

In the state I was in at the time, any injurious contact between a bicyclist and car is at fault of the driver regardless of how much law the bicyclist was breaking. You think I exaggerate with the "Automobile is always at fault", but I don't. Bicyclists regularly plough into parked and stopped cars with people in them, and the bicyclist can say the car was inappropriately parked, and still the car's insurance applies. Reason for this being that bicyclists are often uninsured people (people who've lost their car licenses) and are in poverty, and the socialist government loves shifting costs and placing the burden of healing it's lower classes by cost shifting responsibility to the nearest entity who might have had something to do with it, even if they weren't at fault.

He tried to take me for the sun, moon and stars, but luckily I was a smart cookie and got pleanty of photographs of his undamaged bike, the fact that he was standing and walking after the event, and the picture of exactly where the bike and car made contact via skuffs.

His lawyer tried to talk up the claim like he was tossed around like a rag doll and thrown 50 feet into oncoming traffic with a totaled bike. But I was able to get up in the business of the insurance agency and claim, and they were able to shut most of that shit right down.

If you stay on it and are diligent, you can at least quarantine the damage, but still. I hate bicyclists on the road. You so much as breath on one and they fall down, and you get taken for all they can get away with that you can't unprove. Guilty until proven innocent.

I have dashcams on every one of my vehicles, all with front and rear views. It's not that I'm paranoid, but rather "it's the times we live in". I worked in law enforcement long enough to have an educated idea of the number of drivers who are on the road without insurance. Even if my insurance might not get paid back, I won't be paying for someone else's stupidity.

I am also a firm believer in if you use the road, you must carry insurance. Bicycles, tractors, golf carts... everything.

I don't think the parents in my neighborhood are gonna give a flying fuck if their kid gleefully ran obliviously into the street or not.

You should see all the idiots online arguing that self-driving cars should kill the occupants instead of pedestrians jumping out in the middle of the road illegally.

The one flaw in this is that most countries governments have anti-monopoly laws, and if they were to regulate self driving cars they could probably take them under a government banner as a utility.

Their plan may work in the US but it could actually lock them out of the business in other countries

most countries governments have anti-monopoly laws,

Not America. At least not recently. Look at ISP's. There's only 1 to choose from in any given area and the citizenry are practically rioting for it, yet the government is still pushing hard on consolidating the top 10 ISP's into one mega-corporation so they can absorb it into the government.

Then look at computers. There is Apple and Microsoft.

Cars is a rare exception, but that's because of dealerships who force regulate competition in that international market.

The American government is going to want to absorb all smaller companies into one big super-corporation so that without even a stroke of a pen, the government can say: "let us put a beam splitter in your office or else you're out of business" and then boom. That's a one shot one kill on free market capitalism.

I question anybody who tells us what content we need, especially on this sub.

agree, great post. I miss this sub.

I came here for a cheap laugh about Nazi moonmen, but this sub has actually gotten better and is following plausible "paper trails". I might just have to resubscribe.

A friend of mine works at Lyft. Years ago, when Lifts announced its own self-driving car technology, I wrote her asking if they saw transportation becoming a utility and she responded "Yes, exactly."

They want to become the new power company, only for transportation. Note that this will mean both that you are tracked everywhere you go, and that your access to transportation can be cut off at any time. Imagine wanting to control a mass protest in the future. In addition to cutting of internet, autocrats could cancel transportation as well.

Here's the thing though, you will still be able to own your own autonomous car (i.e. Tesla) so you would be able to go where you would want. Uber and lyft are creating an autonomous ride-sharing, taxi service to help with the lack of public transportation across major cities in the United States. You would still be able to secure your own autonomous vehicle but it would be more expensive.

Uber is actually lobbying to make it illegal to own a self driving car so no,if all goes according to plan you won't be able to have one. They literally want to lock us out of buying self driving cars. Next step is to prove (and they will be able to) its "too dangerous" to drive normal cars. I'm sure the argument for us not being able to own one will be that the manufacturer need to make sure all sensors and shit are working fine and proper maintenance is done, etc. Proving normal cars are too dangerous vs self driving will be even easier. The whole concept of self driving car is built to remove us from owning the best private transportation method the average man can buy. Imagine the control they will have. There's a reason these businesses are worth as much as they do and it ain't because of their profit margins.

I agree with you that they would like to take control over you being able to own an autonomous car and yes they are lobbying but companies are going to continue selling non-autonomous vehicles for the forseeable future. Think about all the utility trucks and work vehicles that will not be able to operate under strict autonomous control. Again I agree that the argument between self-driving cars proving safer will eventually happen, it's just trying to figure out when.

Think about all the utility trucks and work vehicles that will not be able to operate under strict autonomous control.

Well i can imagine some special license for those needing in the interest of a business. It already works like this for many different kinds of licenses and permits. You don't really need to do a "hard block" you can just make it really expensive and it will weed out most of the masses by default.

In the future you're gonna need a special license to drive a normal car anyway. No real difference.

Uber is actually lobbying to make it illegal to own a self driving car

Requesting a source for my reference

it's in the OP:

1. WE SUPPORT THAT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES (AVS) IN DENSE URBAN AREAS SHOULD BE OPERATED ONLY IN SHARED FLEETS.

Due to the transformational potential of autonomous vehicle technology, it is critical that all AVs are part of shared fleets, well-regulated, and zero emission. Shared fleets can provide more affordable access to all, maximize public safety and emissions benefits, ensure that maintenance and software upgrades are managed by professionals, and actualize the promise of reductions in vehicles, parking, and congestion, in line with broader policy trends to reduce the use of personal cars in dense urban areas.

https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/

Normally I would agree with you, but did you read the post? That bit OP shared from the Shared Mobility Principles is actually kind of worrisome if they were to gain the seat to make it happen. It sounds a lot like the justification companies use to take away your right to repair your own electronics, which means A) Its completely bullshit and B) Out dumbasses in charge will probably allow it, obviously due to their concern for our safety ($$$)

That's some dystopian s*** right there.

The worst part about this is that services are almost always better when we do it together, either as a cooperative, utility, or government agency. The more people cooperating on a single problem the better, but centralization breeds power which breeds corruption.

Yeah, and corporations have also spent the past half-century running a giant PR campaign against the government, because the only real threat to a monopoly is regulation (or government competition).

"We're the experts in this market. We should be allowed to regulate ourselves."

The only threat to monopoly is regulation? Did you miss the whole point of this post that regulation will create this monopoly?
Regulations create monopolies, or at least the conditions for monopolies. Regulations are barriers to entry that just help the first movers.

SOME self serving regulations I agree, but if the government passed a regulation banning bonuses and capping the wage of anyone in a corporate structure to 5x the lowest paid employee, for example, that would be a very good thing.

Capped wages? "Here are some stock options worth millions."
There is no regulation that can't be bamboozled somehow.

Everything is legal until you are caught

If it's legal, what is there to catch? Stock options aren't wages.

Dont think you understood what I said.

Someone can rob a bank and speed on the highway, and as long as nobody knows, its "legal". Or as you put it "regulations can be bamboozled"

I know right, barstad

I've spent the past 10 years working 100 hours a week, mostly by myself, building my company and making very little. Now that some money is coming in, I should only be paid 5x more than the guy that empties my trash? I don't think so.

Well if you pay the guy who empties your trash a reasonable amount you needent worry, $20 for him means $100 for you, how is that not enough?

Who are you to determine what thousands of hours of my life are worth?

Who are you to determine what thousands of hours of your janitors life are worth?

We both are. If he decides that what I am willing to pay isn't enough then he can seek employment elsewhere.

Haha you'll just hire the sap who you can pay the least, just imagine companies agreeing not to pay a higher wage "because they don't have to" where else then could he seek employment?

Well there are two factors at play here. 1) how much is it worth to me to have someone take out my trash? as well as 2) what's a reasonable amount? If, using the above posters figures, I offer to pay someone $20 an hour to take out my trash and they think that is acceptable, then it really doesn't matter how much I make. We have a mutually agreed on exchange of work for money.

I agree with you, and personally believe that kind of system works very well in the small scale. It's sort of the same problem with federal government having say over so many people, there is no way you can look after everyone and ensure people are being treated/paid fairly. At the same time the likelihood that a small company is bringing in the insane revenue that a company like WalMart is pretty slim. In your example you said you'd pay someone $20 an hour to take out trash, that is much better then what a large corporation would pay (likely minimum wage depending on state requirements) in my own experiences large companies are (nicely put) indifferent because they know they can hire the next person at that same pay rate or lower.

Fair enough, but if there were to be a cap, how many janitors would we have? If you have only one head of the company, then should we limit the janitorial positions and require each assumes a fifth of the responsibilities of the entire company's sanitation needs?

Why does the CEO need to make that much? Why isn't that money going into the company?

Incentive mostly, I am not saying some are overpaid, but I would like to think stepping into the top position of responsibility would require a very different type of person that likely would be a more aggressive negotiator that are able to articulate why they're worth the salary. I would be looking for a leader, someone with vision and drive to head the helm, and who will trade their time and skill and improve the culture for the betterment of the entire company. You limit the potential of those individuals in favor of someone else's needs, well then we soon see nothing but janitors.

I agree to an extent, I don't see how that makes everyone janitors, do you think people wouldn't still naturally rise up to the task if they weren't paid ridiculously higher then they did as a janitor? I'm not saying money isn't a factor a lot of the time, but you can't say people won't invest time in improving themselves or their peers without monetary incentive.

Nope I won't say that. I have very little interest in running a company at this point, using myself as an example, but constantly strive to be a better me. I was being satirical with the janitors comment, but do believe that if required a limit to what an individual can make within a company it would not be a good idea. If an employee only does what the company trains them to do, and uses only their equipment, then yessir I would be more agreeable to a cap based on what other employees are making. If you are asking that person to come in and be expected to use their own skills and aptitude to further the goals of the company, then no, a cap is not in my opinion any way fair to the person or persons who can create value.

I don't necessarily agree with a hard cap specifically either, I wasn't the original commenter who stated that but I do think there has to be a way to balance the insane amount of money few people are making with the majority who are making much less. It clearly doesn't come out of the "goodness" of companies or their execs.

Agreed, it doesn't and the unfairness of it has upset me in the past, but I am not sure how it could be balanced. Companies are not required to pay these huge salaries, yet they do and if they are a private corporation then as much as I may agree or disagree with it, they can pay whatever they want. I would hate to be forced to limit anyone's ability to decide what they choose to pay to a willing employee.

Wait... so because not everyone can be a CEO they're all just going to chuck up there hands and all become janitors?

And in the above example how is $100 an hour not an acceptable rate for a CEO or anyone with a high level of responsibility? That's $4000 a week @ 40hrs or 208k a year, how is that not enough???

If someone chooses to accept $100 an hour sure. However, if it is a corporation and free to choose whomever they wish and pay the position any amount of compensation they agree to, then who has the right to say otherwise?

Because you didn't get there by yourself did you? You needed help from people with expertise that you do not possess, right? So why shouldn't they get fair recompense for helping you build your company up?

Then there are the social ramifications, do you not think a reasonably paid employee would be more efficient and productive than someone who's being paid the bare minimum?

Those people do get fair recompense, its called a wage or contract. You get paid the market value of your labor. Skilled laborers make good money. Unskilled labor does not, but that is because it isn't worth much.

"Social ramifications" is a meaningless blanket statement for when you have no sturdy argument. People get paid to do a job, if they can't do it they are fired, and if they are displeased with the work they are free to leave and seek other employment. People only work marginally better with better pay, but the job ends up costing more than their labor is worth.

An employer is running a business, he is taking on massive stakes in stock or asset value and has the right to negotiate payment contracts. He owns the damn thing.

This is why you contract. The guy that empties your trash shouldn't be someone on your payroll. If your employees won't clean up after themselves, either get better employees or hire a local cleaning company to come in an hour a night after closing for $20.

This does not address the point that dsade has put tons of effort and risk into his company, and ought to be rewarded with better compensation than 5x the general labor. It has nothing to do with an outsourcing decision.

I argue it does. Companies have to pay bills, be they trash or utility or internet etc. "Cleaning the office" should fall under that umbrella. If you have a task that needs done, you either pay someone to do it or you do it yourself. It's a required business expense. dsade pays for his internet instead of building his own. Cleaning the floors should be no different.

That's not the point. Of course he pays bills. The question is whether he's allowed to pay himself what he wants to pay.

You think the people on salary are the issue? The actual rich people own stock and assets, no one gives them a paycheck.

It was an example I was expanding on hypothetically.

Regulations create monopolies

You are absolutely right about that. Leaving this here for the record:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Get rid of the big government (and its fraudulent money system in particular) and you’ll get rid of the plethoric/evil corporations at the same time.

At the apex of power, the public sector, the private sector and organized crime converge.

services are almost always better when we do it together, either as a cooperative, utility, or government agency.

I highly doubt that.

Competition only benefits innovation. In industries as stable as energy distribution or transportation, we don't need 2 dozen independent agencies competing for limited resources and talent.

Even in industries with fierce competition like medicine or agriscience, we would all benefit far more with joint ownership. No more patent trolling or arbitrary price increases after ownership change. Especially in agriculture, cooperatives researching and owning the rights to new genes or herbicides would return profits back to farmers and allow for more daring research.

Transportation is an industry filled with innovation. Without that competition, we would still have the same old taxicab service, and even worse. Commoditisation would be terrible.

In medicine and agriscience, do you have examples of this scheme working? At issue is not whether it would be nicer, fairer to share ownership. The issue is whether you would still have the levels of innovation and service that you do presently.

Now consider this in the context of the recent "Social Credit" news coming out of China for further travel restriction. They won't have to kill you, just set you up to make living without becoming a criminal impossible.

that your access to transportation can be cut off at any time

I'm pretty sure there is an amendment that deal with this whole free to move about the country bit..

How about massive tolls on free movement? For roads built and paid for long ago? This is our world.

But every time the way in which we do something protected by law fundamentally changes, it gives the opportunity for it to be treated completely differently because the people who wrote those laws did not (and could not) envision the form it would take, and the people interpreting it now may have an incentive to adhere to the letter of the law over the spirit of the law.

The backlash for poor public transportation from the public is huge and a big reason why people vote certain ways. If there was word that an elected official was using a utility to try to control access they'd have a short career. Such things can get swept under the carpet in private industry.

I wish the huge backlash did something because traffic keeps getting worse

Note that this will mean both that you are tracked everywhere you go, and that your access to transportation can be cut off at any time.

The bicycle revolution has begun

They'll make you pay for a special transponder for your safety. Freedom!

Bicycling is now prohibited in AI only areas.

In all seriousness, bicyclists are going to completely fuck up the AI if they are anything like how they are in my home city. As someone who commutes on their bike every day except when there is too much snow on the ground to safely ride a bike, bicyclists can be entitled assholes out on the road.

In a world of self-driving cars, bikes will be king.

This exact villification of cyclists is what they want you to think. As much as someone can be a dick on a bike, a car with it's 1 tonne+ mass can cause WAY more damage than even the worst cyclist ever could. Cars driving rates correlate well with obesity, the inactivity and air pollution of sitting in cars is the reason why so many people end up in premature graves.

We need to move to a netherlands style infrastructure where children and pensioners can move safely from a to b without fear of cars. The attitude that all cyclists is the same tactic the state uses to make us hate immigrants, vegans, political opponents, foreign countries where 99.99% of people are just like you and I. They make it a us vs them war so we sit in our cars, using up fossil fuels so they can justify another war in the middle east, killing our young and old with pollution, while we get fat sat in congestion shouting at one another rather than realising it's the purposefully built system than is part of what enslaves us.

This exact villification of cyclists is what they want you to think.

Dude, I'm on my bicycle every day and witness asshole entitled behavior out of bicyclists every day.

That is not going to make me stop bicycling, but the sooner we can admit there is a problem the better.

Don’t control mass protests in the future... duh!!! ✌️ /s

Uber and Lyft are a cancer on this world. Car manufacturers should band together and eliminate them off the market.

I don't believe they will ever be able to ban personal cars as there will be huge backlash from the big car manufacturers who would lose money and the people who like cars which is also a big demographic.

I find it hard to believe that Uber will be able to fight both numbers and money, but we'll have to wait and see.

There is no reason that big car manufacturers wouldn't try and get in on it too.

I remember a Bilderberg white paper on sustainability. It talked about manufacturers being responsible for recycling their products at the end of their life. This seemed like the perfect cover for an automobile company taking a stake in a self-driving car company. Fits in really well with that John Deere lawsuit trying to keep farmers from getting access to tractor data for their own repairs, too.

and the people who like cars which is also a big demographic.

Time is in their favor. Company bylaws are written documents, they have to benefit the investors regardless. Human memory is limited. It only exists in the time the human does, or as long as their shared memories continue to be shared.

People still like manuals, but they are "enthusiasts" now, not the average car buyer. Millenials are already generally using ride-sharing or public transit instead of buying cars. The next generation will say "I wanted a human driver, but autonomous is so much quicker/cheaper".

It's only a matter of time until any given demographic goes away.

Personal cars in the states are necessary. Our infrastructure is unable to provide an alternative. Maybe in crowded cities, but the u.s. is huge

Just try canceling my bicycle.

Exactly.

Unless the AVS decide to physically cancel cyclists...

The companies will lobby the cities to make it illegal to bicycle in AVS areas, which will be the whole city. They will make a compelling argument based on safety and will win.

If the system envisioned in this post comes into existence, I dont think its unrealistic to think that bicycling could be banned in urban regions.

You will need a device/sensor to keep the cars from hitting you.

Wily corporatist but I've still got my feet.

Does he work with Tyler Durden's Ed Norton half?

autocrats could cancel transportation as well.

Imagine how much more difficult this will make drive-by shootings.

Big Wheel-by shootings...

I just had this thought after reading your comment. of course they want to turn it into a utility. and everything else will follow suit. ownership of anything meaningful required to live your life will go away.

its already happening with housing and transportation. along with the examples in this post, hedge funds are buying up as many houses as they can and making it so normal people cant afford to purchase homes. also, condos and apartments are squeezing out single family residences in tons of large metropolitan-and-surrounding areas.

you will rent your house, your car, your phone, your computer... etc. it seems pretty inevitable. and the problem is that it will be more affordable and convenient than actually owning things will be. no maintenance or repairs, no property taxes or registration.

hell, down the road, when automation takes everything, the huge corporations that own all of these assets will lobby to be fully subsidized so that their services are paid for straight from our taxes.

Wall-E is a warning...

Software is getting to be like this, too. Thanks to SaaS, you can't buy a copy of Photoshop anymore. It's a subscription. Microsoft Office is headed in that direction, too.

Yeah true, I had a sub to both office and PS for a little bit. Every business model will eventually switch to a subscription type service eventually.

/r/stallmanwasright

Been subbed there for a while. Mostly good content but it can get really off track sometimes. However, I agree with the sentiment of the sub.

Oh, wow, that one actually exists. Nice!

So we rather need an anonymous identity system then which can approve you to be transported.

Imagine wanting to control a mass protest in the future. In addition to cutting of internet, autocrats could cancel transportation as well.

China already does this, the literally cover signs in the hope people won't go there. The ban you from taking a plane or train for "social credit" reasons. The worst bit is that our governments look to other countries for inspiration, do you think for a second they won't hesistate to try to import these exact same policies because of China's "growth"?

Driverless and the wholesale villification of bicycles (the best way to travel quickly in a harder to trace manner, especially around a city to protest/evade the tyranny of states) will lead to every single action being traced at all times. Phones in cars already are enough, they're using cameras to mass track so even those that try to live off the network can't hide.

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I just wish the top post of every good post contributed to the discussion instead of a post saying "This is great! This is what this sub needs!"

Fortunately, there are many other comments that do contribute. Go upvote them; that's what I do. I can't really help it if people upvote me or not; I guess they like what I said.

I agree that's what we should be doing which is why I brought it up. But alas your comment has almost 500 karma and the next highest comment simply says "Excellent post"

I agree with your comment and I don't fault you for calling out this post for it's quality it's just that I've seen this same trend in every quality post recently and all it serves to do is bury the discussion.

The sub should speak with upvotes on quality posts and discussion therein.

Definitely plausible but

It requires a regulatory ban on non-fleet self-driving cars in cities.

Elon musk has way more money than uber. So it's doubtful he'd let them regulate away the autopilot for Teslas.

Overall though, you're also going to see the media being insanely sensationalist with autonomous vehicle accidents. There were 40,000 automobile deaths in the US in 2016. That's 110 people every day. How many of those deaths did you hear about on the news, though? None, because it's normal, and there's car ads in between TV "news" stories. So even though autonomous vehicles are far safer than human drivers, the media will prey on people's technological and statistical ignorance.

Yeah, couldnt really agree more with this.

My question though--if a person runs into someone and kills them, sometimes they can be charged with vehicular manslaughter, etc...whats the deal when its self driving? Like...who is held accountable? Who does the jail-time? I think the problem with autonomous cars will be responsibility. The owner of the ''fleet'' has to pay all the fines, or do jailtime for the accident of the autonomous car?

I have a hard time seeing how accountability plays into these cases...

An insurance market will spring up pretty quick and everything will come down to settlements. People are only charged with vehicular manslaughter if they were incredibly negligent. Computer programs can't be negligent.

Elon musk has way more money than uber.

But Tesla is starting the same sort of program. They benefit from this. This is what the Model 3 was ultimately built for. They know it's not ready for full release right now, so they still build "standard" cars with a steering wheel and pedals, but ask yourself "Why is the display in the center instead of in front of the driver?"

autonomous vehicles are far safer than human drivers

I see you've already swallowed their bullshit. There is no chance this is true. Perhaps in twenty years from now, at the moment we are being used as guinea pigs.

Autonomous vehicles can see in literally all directions at once. They can make decisions far faster than human drivers. They don't drink and drive, smoke and drive, text and drive, or are just a general klutz that somehow got their license and still have it 3 accidents later.

The main issue now is performance in less than perfect weather. Which is why they're being tested in places like California and Arizona.

They are also stupider than a dim worm.

sounds plausible.

Famous last words from everyone who has been wrong throughout history :p.

And some who have been right. What do you want me to say, "This is absolutely true and anyone who thinks it isn't is a liar or an idiot"? ;) It sounds plausible, but I'm not confident that it's true. It's an interesting idea and something to watch out for.

It doesn't connect with the Clinton child eating sex trafficking cabal, so it's gotta be bullshit

/s

Great.

No shit. It fucking kills me that this sub has turned into a politics discussion board.

There is a lot of overlap. For example, Watergate was both a conspiracy and political.

agreed, but holy shit how did you get 1625 upvotes? Next one is only 161. sorry, conspiracy mind.

/u/LOTR_pippin here asking the real questions. 🤔 Fully 14% of my total karma came from that one comment.

right? fuckin crazy, I mean good comment but, still that's weird haha.

Could also benefit them by being able to bring up vehicle death statistics when people start complaining about a single death, compared to the number of people that die every day from human drivers. Even if they implemented driverless cars right now, the death rate would still be lower than it is currently today.

Yeah, I feel like the accident can also help improve autonomous vehicles. As terrible as it sounds, an accident with that kind of vehicle had to happen at some point. Only to figure out their next step in making vehicles autonomous.

Or they would just try again like the US govt has after its failed false flags.

It was not Volvo software.

there is never going to be a car (or any machine for that matter) that is accident proof. you're being silly.

this one death isn't going to mean anything. 100 people die per day in car accidents.

Step one.

Spend decades perfecting "computer vision"

If we can still fool computers with captcha they shouldn't be driving battering rams in public.

To be fair captchas are specifically designed to trick computers. Autonomous drivers are going to very quickly outpace human drivers in terms of safe driving metrics, if they aren't there already. It's inevitable.

They are there already. And it will keep getting better. More than 95% of all car accidents are human error

That's not how technology works. You need to release your technology "into the wild" and improve it as you notice mistakes. You can't spend years and years perfecting the technology. There's no way you can know what's wrong with it

It’s kinda crazy to think that there is cars driving around that work off of code alone. It’s amazing actually.

You don't fool computers with captchas. I can easily(1 -2 hours) build a soft to bypass it. And by no means am I an expert in the field.

Captcha is there as a determent to the average spammer that has no real understanding on how a computer works.

Your challenge is not to bypass one sites' captcha. Your challenge is to build a spider to access as many sites as possible in order to distribute your spam. If this was easy, there would be a lot more spam out there now.

Agreed but I was replying to the "captcha fools computer" part, which is simply not true.

And, if we put in context with computer vision, like in the above "astute" comment, captcha is a non issue. The problem is then shifted to feed me a picture of that site.

It's a helluva lot easier to fool a person than a computer, so it's not a particularly high bar.

a rich businessman i knew was the first importer of VéloSoleX in North America, that was back in the 60s. On his first shipment, his son was tasked to go drive around the local police station until he got arrested. When he did and got a ticket for not wearing a helmet (mandatory for motorcycles in canada), the guy brought a very well prepared case and a bunch of lawyers to the court to contest that helmet ticket.

The result was that he convinced them this isnt a motorbike but isnt a bike either. they created a new category based on the specs of HIS product, which he was the exclusive distributor of for a long while. Therefore it was an incredible barrier to entry for any other solex-like vehicle because they had to fit the specs of Solex, like engine size, where the motor was located, wheels, etc.

All this to say that you are very correct to think they have a lot to gain from this, even if it isn't premeditated.

This is classic powerful people strategy of molding laws to their advantage.

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Just want to say I upvoted you also because this is the type of content that should be here. Having looked at the story, the accident was deemed to be the fault of the pedestrian, but you provided a well thought out idea of a possible conspiracy. Thank you for your post.

That it's the pedestrian's fault still fits OP's argument, the problem with autonomous vehicles always has been everybody around it, and all this testing has been for teaching the cars to react to the unpredictability of humans

Yeah but does that make this a conspiracy or just a well thought out inevitability to Uber’s advantage?

The possibility that they could have added parameters to prevent this and chose not to would mean somebody conspired to facilitate this outcome. Whether or not that's a stretch is beyond me

Yeah, that maybe feels like a stretch - but the fact they were aware that this could always happen and had already thought of ways to turn the inevitable into an advantage definitely seems plausible. Either way it's a nice piece of well reasoned thinking from the OP.

Thing is, the explanation of gave doesn't rely on this being the car's fault - it just says that they expected issues and continued anyway, hoping to benefit from the long-term ramifications

Well yeah, but isn't that true of every new technology, ever? Stoves can cause a house fire, but they go ahead and make and sell them anyway.

How is it an issue that a person jumped in front of the car?

Up until now, no fully self driving car has been in an accident caused by them. The tech is incredibly safe, orders of magnitude more than the current cars. Only places where humans drivers are better is on mountain roads and extreme weather condition and only really experienced drivers.

The pedestrian had a bike. It may yet be confirmed that she was riding and rode suddenly across the car's path.

the accident was deemed to be the fault of the pedestrian

Sorry, which link did you see this in? I have a theory that the self-driving technology is good enough to stop, so this must have been a pedestrian that identified the vehicle as self-driving, and jumped out in front of it.

Your theory is pretty silly. Uber hasn't shown that autonomous vehicles are dangerous, Uber has only shown that it is the worst builder of them.

Uber wants autonomous vehicles badly, and wants to outlaw drivers operating cars in cities. Their political efforts are opposite to the motivations you ascribe to them.

I read the post. It's a stupid theory.

Have an up vote, but I still am having a problem with running the numbers on how autonomious ELECTRIC cars in huge fleets are supposed to pay for road maintenence like independant gas drivers do. Even if they get charged double the power cost and registration fees it still wont equal the same revenues currently generated. More taxes? Yeah right. America is the highest taxed nation already, and in the highest populated areas (which are the target ones) registrations and fuel taxes are already pissing people off.

Agreed. Oh yeah, never forget that the "privilaged ones" will never be held to these changes or fees. Those are for us drones to absorb.

Great post! Good work.

It could even go further, that not only people aren't allowed to operate fleets, but that they shouldn't even have any personal autonomous car.
Can't trust "people" to just maintain them, you know.

I usually crap all over these theories...and im not sure i believe it by the write up was clear, concise, respectful and insightful. Im willing to stay on the fence on this one. Good writing my friend.

This car had a safety driver behind the wheel who didn't do their job. I don't see where this is going to take cars away from people. Unless your just talking about way down the line under the natural progression to driver-less cars.

To be fair, she didn’t use a crosswalk. I’m not saying she wouldn’t have gotten hit if the driver didn’t intervene but when you jaywalk and get hit by a car it’s a teeny bit your fault

Not sure how they implement human factor into all this anyway. I have more faith in autonomous cars then I do with a human behind it. At least you know it will follow speed limit, use turn signals, won’t run red lights, knows how to merge, won’t ride your ass.. at least that’s what I suspect.

It was also at night, and not directly near any street lights.

She was walking her bike in the bike lane. She wasn't trying to cross.

Without seeing video of how it happened, no one can say who is at fault

Was the crash even avoidable? I'm not from the US so my news sources just vaguely mentioned the crash but I'm wondering if it was a fault of the autonomous vehicle or would a human driver had made a difference.

Obviously I also agree that autonomous vehicles are dangerous but I am a firm believer that they will be far more safer than human drivers.

someone else said it was the driver's fault

In the US, when it comes to pedestrian vs driver - except in the very rare cases where a kid runs out between two cars or is jumping off a bridge on a highway - the "default" is to say this is the driver's fault. Even in a j-walk situation.

The police are siding with the driver in this case according to many of the articles. They claim that regardless of whether there was a human or AI driver it would've ended the same way.

The car is bristling with cameras so they've had plenty of evidence to sift through but I suppose only time will tell.

That is actually pretty good to know. Thank you! :)

No problem! :)

It depends on the state. In Texas, the pedestrian must be in designated areas. If they are jaywalking, they can actually be sued for damage caused to the car that hit them.

Texas. I like this.

The problem with that type of policy is that it incentivizes sociopaths to deliberately hit jaywalkers or at the very least not even try to avoid hitting them.

‘Pedestrians always have the right of way’ since I got my permit my dad instilled this in my brain. Defensive driving has saved my life more than once

Tempe Chief of Police said nobody could've avoided hitting the homeless woman, autonomous or not. She neglected to use the well-lit crosswalk and instead chose to jump out into traffic (35 MPH) "from the shadows".

This is the dumbest theory this side of Sandy Hook being a false flag.

No business wants regulation, especially if there's a huge potential for rapid growth. And any competitor at their level of funding will be able to enter the marketplace anyway, and oretty much every major automaker is already working on it.

More regulation from future pedestrian deaths could doom uber and others and destroy unknown billions in growth.

So yes, no sense whatsoever.

An established monopolistic business going back a 100 years. Ok, we're talking about high growth tech here. No other industry expands as rapidly and with as much innovation. No one in that field wants to restrict that.

http://bgr.com/2018/03/20/uber-self-driving-cars-fatal-accident-not-ubers-fault/

Most sources say the driver did not break out of automation to brake when it was possible, but the pedestrian was not on a crosswalk either.

volvo pioneered pedestrian/cyclist safety systems in their cars 5 years ago, with I believe external cyclist air-bags and fully automatic braking. I wondered today if that xc90 was being driven by a 'volvo' system with all their built-in safety, or by an 'uber' system supplemented by volvo safety measures, or by an 'uber-only' system that bypassed any autonomous volvo accident prevention

There are other motives to consider, it also lets them get the legal ramifications out of the way early on and on the books. Who is at fault, how much they pay, etc. Since the person was jaywalking, does that remove uber from fault and if so, can they get it in writing for future use. This isn't just about cars, but about people management and getting us all to walk in the straight neat lines, they want us to walk in.

I feel like a lot of this makes no sense.

First, SDCs are already heavily regulated.

Second, the barrier to entry into the industry is already ridiculously high. This is why you don't see a bunch of small shops leading the technology on this, because you need to have large team that is willing to eat billions of dollars to develop it.

Third, we really haven't had a legal test yet as to who is liable for crashes. It seems like it "likely" being the manufacturer is just kind of thrown in there with no real support. It would be a real gamble for them to see how this plays out.

Fourth, where's the conspiracy? Of course there are going to be accidents, the technology isn't perfect and, it looks like this one likely wasn't even the car's fault. So, sure, accidents are to be expected, but this doesn't even seem to be a case of "SDCs are dangerous" just something that happens all the time: a careless pedestrian getting hit by a car.

I'm not sure how to word this last part. You claim they aren't guilty of murder or negligence, but if they did something know full well someone would get killed, they did it anyway, and they did so for their own benefit, this would likely be first degree murder. But if they aren't guilty of murder, then there was no intent for this to happen, thus there was no "motive" because that is what is behind an intentional death.

It's just as likely that they want this tech to come sooner rather than later, and want to beat everyone else to it, which is their motive for getting the cars on the road as soon as possible.

So if there was no motive, they have no control over it, then where is the conspiracy?

Second, the barrier to entry into the industry is already ridiculously high. This is why you don't see a bunch of small shops leading the technology on this, because you need to have large team that is willing to eat billions of dollars to develop it.

There are many many companies still in the autonomous driving race. Some of them small companies working together with bigger ones. For example, Aurora Innovation which is working together with Volkswagen Group.

And what you described we don't see we actually do see. The people with the knowledge needed to develop these systems are being paid so well that they can just quit and form their own companies instead.

Most of the small companies doing this are being gobbled up by the big guys, because the cost is just too high for them to do it themselves. Even Aurora, as you point out, has partnered with the big boys in order to keep funding. Not to mention, last I looked, Aurora had already raised 90 million. Not like this is chump change. And, as you point out, these were people with a proven track record, which is why (partially, at least) they were able to land funding partnerships.

Most of the small companies doing this are being gobbled up by the big guys,

You're not listening. The opposite is happening. Aurora is a product from Tesla and Google (Waymo) employees branching off.

I am listening. Your example is that a group of people with a lot of money, and a track record to get funding, lots of experience and have already raised 90 million dollars (and they have only publicly existed for a few months) have formed their own company. This isn't a low barrier to entry. It is an extremely high one.

Not sure what you expect for such expensive technology. Not every company can be started with 5k in your mom's garage

I don't expect anything. I'm just pointing out that the barrier to entry is already very high. It's not like this accident is going to change that at all.

Barrier to entry can refer to regulations such as permits, licenses, etc which can create legal monopolies. Look at the internet industry. The reason Comcast is the only option in some places isn't the cost of providing internet.

I can't wrap my head around this.

Accidents are bound to happen, even when the technology is at its peak. It is almost inevitable. Basically, it seems your conspiracy has nothing to do with this event, you are just saying that they are going to push for more regulation.

I feel like what he's saying is that they expect the event to happen and even want it to happen and they have a pre-prepared legal 'attack' on SDC regulation to make it harder for the private sector to own them.

A company purposefully using a tragic death to polarize people into supporting regulations that allow the company to become a monopoly ultimately going against what most people want? I'd say that fits into the realm of conspiracy.

That's not a conspiracy.

We all know that self driving cars will kill people. We all know that the government will make SDC-specific regulations.

What you seem to actually be alleging here is that its a wider govt conspiracy to destroy private car ownership.... which you still haven't made an argument as to WHY they want to do it, WHO is trying to do it, and why its necessarily a bad thing.

You haven't shown any conspiracy.

1. You haven't shown that Uber is pushing for more regulations.

2. You haven't shown that more regulations is beneficial or hurtful to Uber.

3. You haven't shown that more regulation wouldn't develop regardless of what Uber is doing.

4. Finally you can't both allege that Uber is involved in a conspiracy, and in the same breath state that Uber is actually not doing anything. You need to make up your mind.

That makes 2 of us, I'm not sure what you're going on about either.

Not sure what you're going on about.

I think he's saying what you call a 'conspiracy', Uber calls a 'business model'

He hasn't said anything about a wider govt conspiracy. The WHO is not government itself. It's Uber, which plans on lobbying government to pass regulations that favor them. The WHY is because they want to form a monopoly on ride sharing. All monopolies in American history can trace their power back to government regulations being passed seemingly for the safety or wellbeing of the consumer. Is that a bad thing? I think so.

Now explain to me how corporations lobbying governments and trying to monopolize the market is a conspiracy rather than consequence of capitalism.

Conspiracy- A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Uhh, I'd say this definitely fits the bill for conspiracy. (Not unlawful, just harmful) Capitalism- an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Do you see how this isn't a consequence of capitalism at all? It's a consequence of government intervention, which is not part of true capitalism.

which is not part of true capitalism.

I don't want to get into idiotic discussion of what is "true" capitalism vs "fake" capitalism. But here's a couple of data points for you.

1. In the United States we call our economy a capitalist economy.

2. Under our current system corporations very liberally lobby government officials. This is considered lawful as you point out.

3. Finally, its also not a secret plot, and therefore according to your own definition is not a conspiracy.

To avoid the "idiotic" discussion. The part of the definition I was referring to was 'controlled by private interests rather than the state'. Now to your data points: 1. In the US we also call ourselves free. We are about as free as we are capitalist. That is to say we look like we're free but in reality there is a lot that isn't free about our country. Basically just because we all ourselves capitalist doesn't mean we are. 2. Not sure why you even said that. We both agree lol 3. Their support for regulations may be public, but the plot is to use the regulation to form a monopoly. I assure you they wouldn't tell anyone they hoped to become a monopoly. Thus the secrecy.

Basically just because we all ourselves capitalist doesn't mean we are.

Well we can't have a discussion when words don't mean what they mean. All these definitions are complex social constructs. When we say that we are free, we never mean unbounded freedom, we mean that we are free but are also subjects to rules, laws, and regulations.

When we say our economy is capitalist... we never mean anarcho-capitalist. That's a different thing.

but the plot is to use the regulation to form a monopoly. I assure you they wouldn't tell anyone they hoped to become a monopoly.

Again, that's not a plot. That's how markets work. Every corporation's wet dream is to become a monopoly. I don't see how that's a secret, its Economics 101.

It's no a secret that they will lobby government officials to these ends. AND ONLY when "government" secretly go along with that plan does it become a conspiracy. We've seen nothing of the sort in this case yet.

Dude, I'm not saying capitalism means anything other than the definition I already told you. All I said is that just because the US calls itself capitalist doesn't mean they actually adhere to all the traits of capitalism. I also never said anything about anarcho-capitalism. You're right it's a different thing and nothing to do with what I said. You'll have to do a bit better arguing that it's not a plot lol. You can't just say "no it's not". We all know companies would like to be monopolies of course. Companies know that consumers hate monopolies so it IS a secret that they are lobbying to that end. They are trying to imply that it is to protect consumers and pedestrians. You understand how this isn't a problem with capitalism though right? Capitalism would let the market decide how safe a product is, not the govt.

You understand how this isn't a problem with capitalism though right?

I said its a "consequence of capitalism" not a "problem with capitalism". The word "consequence" is generally free of any subjective evaluations.

Simply put, if you have a political and economic system such as we have, the companies will lobby to their advantage. "Advantage" in this case implies anything that will help them to maximize their profits (which is the point of capitalism). Corporations lobby because of capitalism. That's all I'm saying.

I think we're speaking past each other at this point though, so I'l OK with letting this go.

Consequence/problem doesn't matter lol. My point (which I guess did just fly by you) was the our system isn't capitalist. So this lobbying for monopoly isn't a consequence or problem with capitalism. If America were capitalist, govt wouldn't get involved in regulating the market. What will the company's lobby for? Nothing. They won't. So "Corporations lobby because of capitalism." Is wrong. I am fine with letting this go too though gg.

You are really going out of your way to pick nits.

Capitalism is a very broad and general term which also includes mixed economies such as we have in the US.

I could say that the red dress is beautiful, and you'll be arguing that the dress is beautiful because its actually crimson and not red.

This type of shit makes it impossible to come to any sort of understanding about anything.

You are going out of you way to nit pick and keep distracting the argument from the point. And yet you say I am. Capitalism is a word with a definition. It doesn't mean whatever you want it to. Mixed economies are mixed economies. Not capitalist. You are incapable of understanding that just because something happens in a country that CALLS themselves capitalist doesn't mean it's a result of capitalism. In fact it is a result of a straying from capitalist ideals within that country. Either that or you're trolling. I'm starting to think you're just trolling.

Capitalism is a word with a definition. It doesn't mean whatever you want it to. Mixed economies are mixed economies. Not capitalist.

It's definitely a word, but a word that encompasses a lot larger concepts than what is defined in any dictionary.

Let me quote you a wikipedia here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

The degree of competition in markets, the role of intervention and regulation and the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism.[9] The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, are matters of politics and policy. Most existing capitalist economies are mixed economies, which combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning.[10]

What you're referencing specifically is something like laissez-faire capitalism or anarcho-capitalism.

Lol here you go nit picking again. Just keep researching dude.

I never stop. The point is that if we can't agree on which economic system we're living under, then we probably can't agree on much of anything.

Well you can stop now. It's clear you don't understand the reality of our economic system just what people call it.

Uber trying to suppress private SDC ownership is antithesis to their business model. Uber doesn’t own nor operate any of the vehicles. The cars are the personal private vehicles of the Uber drivers, bought and maintained on their own dime. Which means the common folk will have already bought them.

Uber does own the self-driving cars. That's what the OP is saying. Their goal is to have self-driving cars only available to large fleet owners such as themselves, so that you can't have your personal autonomous vehicle out there competing with them.

I just hate the premise that Uber somehow has first mover advantage.... they are a decade behind the likes of Google. Stricter regulation hurts them at the moment, it doesn't set them up to further raise the barriers to entry

Well actually Geohotz is a small player

I think the conspiracy depends on how they will play this out. Here's an example.

a rich businessman i knew was the first importer of VéloSoleX in North America, that was back in the 60s. On his first shipment, his son was tasked to go drive around the local police station until he got arrested. When he did and got a ticket for not wearing a helmet (mandatory for motorcycles in canada), the guy brought a very well prepared case and a bunch of lawyers to the court to contest that helmet ticket.

The result was that he convinced them this isnt a motorbike but isnt a bike either. they created a new category based on the specs of HIS product, which he was the exclusive distributor of for a long while. Therefore it was an incredible barrier to entry for any other solex-like vehicle because they had to fit the specs of Solex, like engine size, where the motor was located, wheels, etc.

This is classic powerful people strategy of molding laws to their advantage. Is Uber doing that? Since they are already lobbying for forcing autonomous cars as a rent-only model, you could say that yes, they do. Are they going to use this care to further their goals. We'll see.

I think he’s missed entirely that its uber’s tech that failed — not some “manufacturer.” The car was a car like any other fitted with uber’s self-driving gear and software.

They are now firmly relegated to last place in the development race. As a company that already has public trust and legal issues (over stealing portions of their self driving tech), this sets them back immensely.

I am not informed, is Ubers "self driving" software involve the actual driving and vision mechanism? Or is merely the "go from here to here, charge the credit card" part?

They’ve been developing from scratch (or from stolen IP if you believe Google) hardware and software at the same level as Google and Tesla.

Like an iphone or a General Dynamics robot, there are manufactured parts and licensed software components, but the end product here is all uber and totally distinct from its competitors. (Or a totally illegal misappropriation of tech)

awesome, thanks for the info!

Yeah, this entire thing seems like a stretch.

Outstanding reply - this should be upvoted more.

OP levels some very serious allegations on the Uber executives then tries to back away from them by saying "I want to be clear that I'm not accusing Uber of negligence or homicide." when much of his post does exactly that.

It's like the old saying "Don't pee on my feet and tell me it's raining".

It's an interesting dynamic in conversation. It's like the words themselves are the only things that matter and the implications should be ignored. "If I didn't specifically type the words that the Uber executives acted negligently in the death of that woman, then that was never my point, no matter how often I implied exactly that nor how strong of an implication I made regarding that point."

I think OP's apparent backtrack was intended to convey the following point:

Uber was not wrong to deploy self driving cars. Uber was wrong to deploy too many self-driving cars.

OP speculates that they deployed enough that they could guarantee a fatality but that deploying some number of cars would be desirable and acceptable in order for the technology to advance.

Maybe but there's no way to actually know what number would ensure a fatality.

It seems far more likely to me that the OP realized the accusations are quite serious and likely untrue so to protect himself from libelous claims he simply tried to dismiss them with his "I'm not saying..." comments.

I mean if his implications about the knowledge of the executives at Uber are false - his entire conspiracy collapses.

Then his whole post boils down to "Uber is going to be able to benefit from this accident and here's how." which isn't really a conspiracy. There is a phrase that perfectly captures this mindset and that is "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

For some reason OP thinks Uber can lobby to regulate a technology they have zero control over (no patents, unlikely know-how, no manufacturing power etc). Uber is strictly a customer, yet they will somehow restrict the manufacturers to sell ONLY to them.

Not only that they are supposedly lobbying against companies such as Tesla, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Ford...basically all the automotive world. But wait, there is more. We can add Nvidia, Intel and a bunch of other who are well invested and own parts of the tech. Nvidia alone is worth quite a lot more than Uber. This alone seems INSANE to me.

Yet a lot of people agree, with several large and obvious disconnects. This is worrisome to me...

they did something know full well someone would (Could, operative and added) get killed, they did it anyway

This isn't a crime. Gun manufacturers know there's chance their gun can be used to kill. Pill makers know there's a chance someone can overdose. Brewers know someone could get a DUI or kill someone driving drunk.

On the same page, AV manufacturers and users know there's a chance someone could die. Companies that buy AVs know that someone could die. And they're a lot newer than shootings, DUI's, or overdoses.

You see this shit heads? This is how you conspiracy. Well fucking done OP.

Uber has been kicked out of many countries and cities. And will continue to get kicked out if they keep going like this. Because of that reason I also absolutely disagree that a monopoly is inevitable. Also because it doesn't look like Uber is ahead in the race when it comes to Level 5 autonomous driving.

All of these things would happen or be discussed regardless of Uber existing. It's new technology that isn't in mass production yet. Of course it will be regulated to someone's advantage, but Uber just isn't a big enough player to be the one to do it.

Uber just isn't a big enough player

Uber has a loooooot of money and already making the exact play OP laid out.

This is exactly how a post/theory should be presented on this sub. Cheers.

Thank you for including your submission statement and providing an actual conspiracy!

Plus it moves the argument away from the system's infallibility, to it having a reasonable range for failure... as long as its got a better record than humans, an imperfect solution will still be seen as acceptable.

Perhaps. There is an inherent bias against taking control away from humans. The liability issue will be different for a manufacturer and company itself. The current paradigm has the driver as the responsible party for hitting pedestrians, depending on circumstances.

I wonder which has higher fatality rates. A fleet of driverless cars with today's technology, or an equal sized fleet of human-driven cars?

This incident is not a big deal. Human-driven cars kill people all the damn time, but we're used to it and just kind of accept it.

I’d like to see more data on just accidents between the two period.

I wanted to disagree with you but you're right on a lot of things. I especially questioned your statement that Uber will be NOT at fault. The Tempe police chief has already said that he believes that preliminarily. Sheesh.

https://techcrunch.com/story/uber-self-driving-car-strikes-and-kills-pedestrian-while-in-autonomous-mode/

I would have initially thought that it would be bad for self driving cars and that there would be calls to prohibit them but Nope. Not a peep. Crazy. They're already pointing the finger at the pedestrian.

OK: she crossed outside a crosswalk, which is stupid and illegal, but it should not be given a death sentence. The real question to me is: Would a human driver have seen and stopped in time? Was the safety driver paying attention?

I have read stories of Tesla drivers lounging in the back seat of their cars and using orange wedges on the wheels.

I live in Tempe and I actually blamed the pedestrian as well when I heard cross streets of the accident. Without even seeing the pedestrian’s photo, I assumed drug addict, strung out, or something walks in front of Uber. Now that I have seen her photo I think I was probably right.

I hope there is dash cam video we can see because I bet a human driver would have struck her as well. We have a lot of accidents like that around here, unfortunately. This is just the first one with a self driving car.

I feel badly for the pedestrian but I feel worse for the woman who was behind the wheel. Although technically she wasn’t driving, she still has to feel some kind of responsibility for this persons death.

To me it's a bit shocking that we're letting robot cars drive even with a "safety" driver. I'm pretty sure studies will show that safety drivers don't react as quickly as real drivers.

I'm pretty sure studies will show that safety drivers don't react as quickly as real drivers.

That's probably one of their assumptions. People are probably most useful when the AI is doing something totally wrong, like has an impending problem that most people would quickly identify and avoid.

I have read stories of Tesla drivers lounging in the back seat of their cars and using orange wedges on the wheels

Why would they need the orange wedges?

Sensors require hands on the wheel. Orange slices mimic hands to the sensors.

There was a human driver behind the wheel.

nice write up. My fast reaction after a few words was, OP is going to say, "uber wants people scared to be pedestrians so more people use their service" lol

At least we don't have to worry about the autonomous cars murdering is... yet

Thank you for posting a well thought out discussion with supporting arguments. We need more of this. Pretty compelling and thought provoking as well. I like that you made sure to include uber didn't do it maliciously, but did it knowing the risk that their cars could potentially kill somebody.

Knowing and proceeding anyway seems like a form of malice

Idk... every time you drive at night you could kill a pedestrian in dark clothes but you aren't driving with bad intentions (I hope).

I agree. There is a thought process that happens in my mind when I'm out walking. I'm constantly thinking about whether the other guy can see me. And I'm a pretty good judge of whether he can, because I know whether I could. Because we are both human. And because of mirror neurons.

There's more to driving than just looking at lines and managing your speed. There is awareness. Consciousness.

Reddit is being astroturfed by Uber, every time something happens sockpuppets roll the same bullshit about being cheap and convenient.
This is the same, some woman dies because, sincerelly, if the government looked at the disastrous Uber propietary AI... wew lad, and now someone makes a post in futurology saying this is good because more people die because human drivers?
The objetive of an autonomous car with 5 types of sensors covering everything and a reaction time of a thousandth of second is ZERO people killed. One people killed is a fucking disaster for a state of the art machine, they shouldn't throw it into the statistics pile.

Time to buy a share in Uber and hope its worth a trillion bucks in 40 years?

But... Uber would benefit from self-driving cars. Currently, the contractors (drivers) get the lion's share of the fare. If Uber owns the cars (and doesn't have to share any of the fare with a driver), they will make more money.

Great theory! I'm a bit surprised the manufacturers aren't pushing back (especially Tesla, who are equipping ALL of their production cars with the hardware for autonomous driving, with the ability to download the software once it's reliable enough.) I can't imagine shared fleets being as profitable to carmakers as private ownership...

Nope doesnt make sense tbh.

Regulations would hurt them because these people will be the same ones selling "private autonomous" vehicles..

If you look at Americas monopolies in the past and present you find that they all trace their power to an act of government intervention or regulation of some sort. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tdLBzfFGFQU

And yet there's no guarantee that Uber will be the one to establish said monopoly

Of course there isn't. Are there any real guarantees on r/conspiracy? I'm pretty sure OP is just pointing that it could be part of Uber's grand scheme.

If you look at Americas monopolies in the past and present you find that they all trace their power to an act of government intervention or regulation of some sort.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032315/what-are-most-famous-monopolies.asp

I still want to know why the hell there was a backup driver in the car at all. No news I've seen goes deeper than saying they were in the car, but people aren't even questioning why the person didn't do anything to stop it.

I heard that the pedestrian was J-walking, but the emergency driver could have hit the brakes to stop the car. (Some states have different laws about J-walking too, so it may not be illegal there. I only know the J-walking laws in Texas and Illinois, though, so I can't be sure,)

Uber wasn't the first self driving company. The entire reason they built their own (subpar) tech is so they wouldn't have to lease the tech from another company.

Since its not possible to buy a self driving car uber has no advantage here. Right now they are developing technology and trying to patent things. They want to become the manufacturer, they will already be able to corner the market if they succeed, and this will slow them down from getting there.

However it could be adventageous for uber IF this leads to cars being temporarily banned from roads. It may give them time to catch up to google. But they couldnt be certain that there will be a total ban so its unlikely it was deliberate.

I think that uber is a shonky company and was more likely to cut corners to close the distance on google, so its more likely that they would have had an accident.

Why would they be researching this tech and filing patents if they didnt? Ubers business plan is to manufacture and operate thier own autonomous taxi fleet.

Regardless of autonomous cars, aren't more peoole going to get hit by cars once electric vehicles takeover the market? This is due to no or limited noise being made.

Or due to people looking on their phones or headphones while walking?

Even if the manufacturer gets sued, Uber is still involved in this and they're not going to escape litigation.

And Uber wants self driving cars so they don't have to pay real people a lot of money to provide the driving service.

Regulatory Capture. It happens all the time. Big corps love regulation, because it creates barriers to entry for their small-time competitors.

I just seen another post saying something to the effect of "an auto uber killed someone, 16 people will die by people driven cars"

but how many would die by auto ubers if there was as many as them as people driven cars?

Uber needs autonomous cars. The driver is to costly.

"a female walking outside of the crosswalk"

Well this could've just as easily happened with a vehicle driven by a person. When you just walk right out into the street without looking and not in a crosswalk this is what happens. How do you make it 49 years without being taught to look both ways before crossing the road and use crosswalks?

She was walking her bike in the bike lane. The bike lane crosses the street and is only marked by two lines. There's no other way to cross the street there.

I heard on the news they invited a ton of press for some demonstration of the tech next week, which is now cancelled so it seems like a big unplanned PR blackeye to me.

Good thoughts.

I'm also included to think that maybe the pedestrian recognized the car from a distance and thought this would be a easy payday.

Now this is the conspiracy theory I want to read!

Better to spam the sub with this posts!

This is good for bitcoin

The fact this news story isn't all over Reddit and causing an uproar shows the control over social media Uber has

With zero incidents you can’t calculate probability or compare to human operated. With one you can.

very thought provoking!

Terrifying and brilliant.

i only regret that i have but one upvote to lose for my country.

Allows Uber to push for regulation on autonomous vehicles that would allow them to monopolize ride sharing and prevent consumers from operating their own car.

Winning requires a successful push against entrenched interests. Long time coming

What? No, No, No. Every car company is making self driving cars, Uber just wants patents and the ability to licences out those patents to make money. It reduces overhead costs for Uber and reduces their libability, once they got the code under control. However if you don't think uber is going to be sued or pay the family if this person you're incorrect. When a car company fucks up and installs the wrong part they must do a recall and fix the problem if they hide this info a class action law suit is soon to follow.

What's going to stop Lyft and local taxi companies from buying these cars? What's stopping any company from doing this? How is uber positioning themselves as the only player/buyer by doing this? Google is massively invested in this so are a few Israeli companies, this is the most reach for the stars thing I have ever read.

Why would major car companies allow for that sort of lobbying to take place, car companies and their manufactures have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. Look at how much push back Tesla is getting for trying to avoid using dealerships and sell directly to costumers, with your scenario everything is purchased and eventually mainted by Uber and they would have zero vested intrest in upgrading their fleet on a regular basis which car companies would hate, upgrades like rims and and flashy shit would be a thing of the past, zero incentive. Do you know how many jobs your talking?

Well you sold me on the eventual Uber IPO

Excellent conspiracy and highly plausible - Uber's culture would absolutely support a little blood on the floor to move the strategy forward. Closing down the market to competitors also remains critical to their strategy as they continue to explain away the structural issues stopping them from getting near to profitability.

Nice write up, good job.

I don't feel like Uber would want to be anywhere near the word regulate. The entire company is unregulated taxis.

A+ content OP.

must say I miss this level of thing.

What a refreshing post for this sub.

Thank you for an actually conspiracy theory. I hadn’t seen one of those for quite some time.

This is Grade A , top notch, on point conspiracy theory. Good job OP. I was getting tired of all this bullshit about Podesta, Pizzagate, FBI hates Trumps bullshit that has taken over the sub. We need more posts like yours. Again , thank you!

I've been thinking about the effects autonomous vehicles will have on the job market and the insurance industry and on municipalities re traffic tickets, but it hadn't occurred to me that people would set up their own cars as independent ride shares. Clearly that's a huge threat to Uber. Then there's the fact that half the reason people ride share in the city is to avoid the issue of parking, a problem autonomous vehicles will eliminate. It only makes sense that Uber would try to shape the conversation, but that document's on the level of prison unions lobbying against the legalization of pot. Autonomous cars will inevitably turn out to be much safer than manually operated ones. Fuck anybody who says we shouldn't be able to privately own them.

Uber won't assume control of the tech, government will. Personal cars that can't be tracked is freedom and government simply won't stand for that. Imagine not being able to travel anonymously. Government doesn't want you to travel. They don't want you to move. They want you to stay put and be subjected to their tyranny without any other options. It's about complete control.

This is the best actual conspiracy i’ve seen on this thread in a little while- seems entirely plausible, good work OP!

I texted this to my brother but I decided to post this here because it doesn't seem anyone brought this up:

makes a lot of sense. to me, this is where a distributed, immutable, and scalable block chain technology can be used in place of monopolized shared fleet systems. I guess it depends on who wins the race and who wins the game. Elon musk has been watching crypto for a while but doesn't see it more than stocks/speculative market. but I could see him adopting the technology should it prove itself scalability, stress test, and security wise. he's a great thinker of our time and he's been working on autonomous vehicles for a while. further, I don't think he or Google would let a company like Uber get in their way haha so it's gonna be competitive

Wouldn't Uber benefit more by having autonomous vehicles by keeping all the money after transportation instead of having to pay the drivers? An average human won't be able to afford these vehicles right from the start. But companies like Uber who can afford to buy a massive amount of these vehicles and distribute them all over the world, they'll make a bundle from transportation. What the world is trying to do is keep us jobless and poor. The more machines with AI running the show, the richer these companies become.

Right, I'm not saying you're wrong. All I'm saying is that If we have media talking about how dangerous they are and that we should regulate them, then what is going to drive people to get into Uber's autonomous cars? I think the cars themselves won't be affordable as it is if they are going to come from Volvo and Tesla.

I have a big problem with you conclusion OP. Way to many tech giants are playing the autonomous car field for Uber to have the influence you think it has.

Not to mention they DON'T OWN THE TECH. It's simply not theirs. How do you imagine they will force Mercedes, BMW, TESLA, VOLVO (continue with basically any large- medium sized car producer) to sell only to them and not the population? Owning a car in America is similar to owning a gun, it won't go away soon....

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe individual owned cars will remain with us for long, but I definitely don't see Uber being the catalysis behind that change.

Uber runs the ride sharing part. Not the autonomous car part. So how can they force the manufacturers to NOT SELL TO WHOEVER THEY WANT?

Caps for conveying my point, not anger or other shit :)

So basically, they're coming for your cars.

I can't see how we get to the point where EVERYBODY is mandated into a self driving car. Consider:

Construction sites, farms, open areas with no road markings. AVs can't work (today) without road markings.

Recreational Vehicles. Towing boats, bikes, ATVs etc. 4 wheeling and offroading just go away?

Trade vehicles. Construction industry, locksmiths, plumbers, etc. Lots of folks make their living with their specialized vehicles.

Perhaps some day, but today it is hard to envision everyone being forced into an AV.

Omg a post that isn't political boring crap. Well done original poster

Quality post.

All companies, especially engineering, have risk management for potential deaths and the value expected. That's not a new concept and is well known.

This is top shelf tinfoil hat right here!

But tinfoil works!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDdk70k4bjw

i meant it as a compliment! i loves me some good well thought conspiracy theory!

Quality post

Aw, bullshit. It was Skynet's first kill. The victim's grandson stops skynet in 2046.

Why would a pedestrian being hit have anything to do with all cars being autonomous or not? The crash happened right across the street from me near the Marquee Theater in Tempe on Sunday night. It sounds like the fatality was frankly the fault of the pedestrian who wasn't using the crosswalk properly nor crossing the street safely. If Uber wants to speed up ALL cars becoming self-driving, wouldn't it make more sense for the crash to include a non-self driving car, not a pedestrian? I'm not understanding your logic.

Why are you blaming the machine, when our police chief himself has said the pedestrian was to blame? I live right across from the accident, and you are speculating with no idea what you are talking about. If there is no proof a normal driver could have prevented the crash, why are you saying the person is dead because the machine couldn't react? There is no proof of that at all. Simple physics might've made it impossible.

I don’t think uber has first moved advantage. There’s a lot of autonomous companies, Google being the first.

I have no horse in this race but this is extremely well thought out and plausible. Great post.

I mean, I'm not real surprised that this would happen. You'd have to keep your head pretty far in the sand to not think eventually driving your car would be a luxury.

Human drivable cars will be the new horses.

Mostly only owned by the wealthy.

Must be used on private roads, mostly.

And you'll be just fine without one.

I'm 40 and I have never driven in my life.

I still have no clue why we're not trying to make autonomous devices that are far smaller in scale before trying to tackle cars.

In no other industry would they jump right to the end of the line instead of progressing through things like, lawnmowers, snowblowers, and other small scale items to improve on techs until they are ready for cars... its just unbelievable.

This technology should be nationalized to benefit all Americans.

I think the working class should operate the government and the means of productionby an for themselves instead of letting someone else operate it by and for themselves. Nothing we do matters until we get there, otherwise all gains can be lost in an instant. Basic human rights are no place for profit.

I think lots of people will be able to produce in cottage industry, but the basic needs of society should be met without the profit motive in the most efficient manner possible for the benefit of all citizens. If you want to go make super car in a shed after you spend your two hours a day filling potholes I don't think anyone would stop you. However you will have to figure out a way to get Workers to go along with you if you need them without the threat of starvation hanging over their head. This may change the investor employer-employee relationship rather significantly, for the better. I would also think that if you created a business that covered your own needs and your own taxes that you wouldn't need another job to receive the various levels of consumer goods and you could provide your own, without having to work at a nationalized industry. If you wanted say an electric F-150 from Ford to go mudding then on the other hand there would be a certain amount of exponentially decreasing jobs which needed to be done by human hands that you could participate in in order to get yours quicker.

People will have spending money. Odd jobs will occur. Exploitation if the entire society by profit takers who do no work will end.

When the government and all of the American people have put so much into growing and developing a company such as Ford then that should the long to eat people and not to random investors. People's retirement should be guaranteed and not require investment, People's Health Care and food and such should not be sending Prophets to faceless individuals who will then hide that money in offshore accounts where it can never again grow the economy.

I guess if you're going to make the choice you or the innocent people that's on you.

Effort: A-. But this is the longest shot ever and does not add up. Not a chance in the world this is even close to correct. IMO

Or it just shows you should cross the road in crosswalks.

The bike lane crosses the intersection there, but is only marked with two lines. She was walking her bike.

The issue is there is no mention of fault in the article regarding the accident you posted. There was a safety driver inside the uber at the time of the accident, which suggests that either the car wasn't fully autonomous at the time and the accident was because of human error on behalf of the driver, the car was fully autonomous and the safety driver wasn't doing her job, or the pedestrian caused the accident by creating a scenario where neither the car or the driver could safely avoid the pedestrian.

No politics, thank you.

How is it not politics?

Is everything politics?

I'm pretty sure conspiracies about intricate creation of regulations by government to damage competition somehow are pretty politicky

Autonomous cars killed one person after years of road testing on public roads. Human driven cars kill 16 everyday. Basic maths and common sense says autonomous cars are more than 90% safer than human driven cars. This accident won't have any kind of legislative repercussions. In fact this accident is good for all autonomous cars, it highlights how much safer they are, there has been rigorous testing with autonomous cars, cross country road trips, city driving, all since 2010.

I feel like most people are missing your overall point. In fact the safety factor only adds to the regulation, it will be easier to kick all non self driving cars off the road.

Exactly. Statistically speaking, self driving cars are far safer no matter how you look at it. They have logged millions of miles with a tiny fraction of the number of wrecks and fatalities compared to human driven cars. I read an article a year ago or so about Google's cars logging a couple million miles with a dozen accidents. Every accident was the other drivers fault.

Mill Ave. is ASU's local party road.

best thing i've read on here

I don’t get what the conspiracy is supposed to be? Yeah so they expected it could happen. That’s common sense, though. Who conspired and about what?

I honestly don't think a company that is hemorrhaging money right here right now, that would increase their margin by an ungodly amount by having autonomous driving being implemented and thought of as safe, purposely crash and kill someone. I just don't think this is at all beneficial to them. Regulations are really the only big thing left to conquer for a lot of autonomous cars, so sabotaging that a d increasing the time that they can roll this out, plus angering their investors in an already seemingly terrible investment doesn't seem sound to stop competition.

Well thought out and concise. I can totally see this being the case.

Hopefully Uber can't keep real competition out forever, but this is definitely a big win for them in the long game.

The regulation theory falls into a similar theory on why big box store corporations actually want minimum wage increased. Walmart can afford the increase while smaller competitors won't.

Playing devil's advocate, Lyft has an Open-Platform vision where any car manufacturer can have a fleet of cars that generate an income for public, private, school, and person owners.

Uber has many unicorn ideas, but have Monopoly on commercial autonomous vehicles that generate an income will not be only for cooperate profits, it will be available for driver's as well.

Good post. You have convinced me that Uber wants us out of our own personal cars for our own personal trips. However Uber the company is pretty much the cheapest, risk averse company out there. Their whole model to date is putting all the liability and expense on to their drivers. It is hard to imagine them owning/ leasing, insuring, and maintaining their own fleet.

Maybe they will only "hire" "drivers" who have self driving cars. If you own a self driving car you could lease it to Uber.

I like the progression

im more worried about self driving cars, have fun when they start removing the steering wheel. :)

Good digging, top stuff

Not so much a conspiracy theory as it is "Crony" Capitalism in action. Inevitable consequence.

That's not a conspiracy, that's just engineering.

But... what about the crisis actors? The DEEP state and the pedophile lizard people?

So basically, they're coming for your cars.

They did this with horses a hundred years ago.

Guess its back to mostly bicycling then.

I like this type of post. Good work.

I think it's inevitable self driving cars will be regulated but this doesn't favour Uber, it favours car manufacturers who'll simply bypass Uber and cut out the middle man.

human drivers will probably statistically kill a lot more than automated ones.

Interesting insight. As an Uber Driver, I thought the opposite. I thought they couldn't wait for self driving cars so they could get rid of us.

Kudos on a well written, easy to read, well sourced post, OP.

The accident couldn't be avoided was already ruled as the woman came from the shadow behind a car and stepped on the road and died. Uber with all the issues they have can't even keep a CEO or 1 gospel inside their walls let alone this.

Best post on this sub in ages. Thank you

As an avid car enthusiast, I now know what the gun enthusiasts feel like when people talk about taking their most loved possesions.
Its really eye opening.
The day they try to take the cars is the day I kit out a 4x4 with roo bars and an external roll cage, to smash any autonomous cars, while I live like Mad Max.
Ill be doing skids down the rd with my head held high and a claymore out the window screaming "they will never take our freedom".

I'm already mad that manual transmissions are harder and harder to find. Driving and racing are my biggest passion outside of work.

It's just your insurance more expensive.

Im from NZ where guns arent popular so I never really know how they felt, is that true in the US that insurance is cheaper on guns?

Except regulating that would be next to impossible to execute. How will you stop the open-source software that will come? Soon there will be installable modules for any car to drive itself.

My uncle has a country place, that no-one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law
Sundays I elude the ‘Eyes’, and hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire, where my white-haired uncle waits

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me an old machine –
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red Barchetta, from a better, vanished time
Fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar!
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime…

And they (not uber, but in general) want to have long haul trucks be self driving. I could just imagine the casualties that will be involved with that!

fuck yea classic /r/conspiracy is back

also ive always fuckin hated uber

Conspiracy? Hell no! This just makes sense.

That's really what should change people's minds on the term "conspiracy". Its a process that make sense from the conspirators point of view.

It's funny, the only report I saw on the victim was a detailing of her criminal history. After seeing this submission, it dawned on me that it was a publicity hit piece. They were quick to downplay the victim and color it even has her fault.

I'm more concerned why the human didn't hit the brake.

From what I understand after reading several articles (and I live in a neighboring city so it's huge news here) it was a pedestrian who very suddenly jaywalked into the street late at night. I've driven through Tempe and the surrounding areas late and night and have had a close call or two myself with pedestrians darting out into traffic regardless of the presence of a crosswalk or not.

However, you do have a point here. Unless the human was somehow distracted they should have reacted by immediately slamming on the brakes, or swerving, or doing SOMETHING. The whole thing seems a bit odd in a way. And as OP or someone in the comments said, a rollout of autonomous vehicles in an urban area like this was bound to cause problems.

My concern has always been that the human "supervisers" during testing would either grow complacent or get marked down in performance reviews for overreacting or "misjudging" the computer. There's alot of psychology here that needs to be examined in addition to competency of the human "driver". I think most of us would agree that the US has relatively lax licensing standards and most people should probably not be allowed to drive until at least age 18 if not later.

"they're coming for your cars". I remember when people were crying about how "Obama's coming for your guns!"... And nothing happened.

You're blowing this out of proportion. The fad these days is DE-regulation. If they really wanted to do this, they wouldn't do it when maliable Republicans are in charge.

Obama did start/continue a slow process of getting guns. The immediate reaction caused a whole industry to reap the benefits of a ammo shortage. Though if you watch Dear Wolfgang about Sandy Hook, you will find the Fema capstone event is one that begins on the presidents desk. Obama flew a bunch of kids to the superbowl on AF1.

That event did start a process to get guns from people and shootings like that fabricated event always result in a push for gun control.

Except that's not what he did... Waiting periods and more thorough background checks for purchasing guns is NOT taking your guns away. For fucks sake claiming Sandy Hook was fabricated... God you people are so fucking stupid dozens of children getting killed and you call it fabricated. I suggest you check yourself into the nearest psychiatric ward because you clearly need some mental help for your delusions.

Dont be so fucking ignorant. Watch Dear Wolfgang and tell me shit wasn't happening on a town/state level. Tell me Robbie Parker isn't an actor or any of the other parents.

What a garbage response.

Nah, you're just a nutter, as is basically everyone else who buys into the majority of these bullshit conspiracy theories that hold no water.

What a cop out. I challenge you and all you can do is sling insults.

Garbage response, garbage account.

Sounds very likely... And the government/"the powers that be" also want driverless cars so they can control where people can and can't go. its all about control.

Problem, reaction, solution. I wasn't inclined to believe it until I saw that "sustainable" manifesto BS. This is definitely TPTB at work.

Does Uber have an exclusivity contract with Volvo for their self-driving cars or tech? No? Then another competitor can and will emerge. This doesn't help Uber.

Counter conspiracy: Uber is actually saving the world, as they are preventing the rise of self diving cars. Autonomous cars=Skynet.

Disagree. Any accident with autonomous vehicles puts the industry back as it is slapped with more regulation.

Of course you wouldn't own a self driving car, it'd be useless to own. Of course they would be only fleet vehicles, this is not a conspiracy this is reality.

I'm late to the party in this threat but personally I think taking cars away from private citizens is a necessary move toward safety. Make note of how it specifically mentions dense, urban sectors. This will only apply to city driving. You will still be able to own your own vehicle (likely also autonomous) and take it outside the city for things like camping trips or long distance travel from city to city, among other examples. People shouldn't be driving cars, because too many of them are too stupid to do it safely.

"too many" yet the accidents come from a relatively small number of people. And in this situation we don't even have all the details. For all we know the accident could've been unavoidable for the driver when she stepped out into the road since she wasn't making use of a crosswalk (and as such didn't have the benefit of traffic signals). Autonomous or not, this situation probably would've been avoided had the woman been paying attention to her surroundings and oncoming traffic before attempting to cross the road at night without using a crosswalk.

There are bike lanes there, and they continue across the road relatively unmarked except for two lines, but that is the proper way of crossing the road there in the bike lane.

How come the human driver didn't hit the brake?! Do they get marked down for that or something?!

She may have stepped out at a point where there would have been no time to prevent impact. The accident was at night meaning visibility was limited. If a person steps out into the path of your car and you can only see them when they get illuminated by the headlights it's pretty much game over for them, at that short distance there is practically zero time for a driver to react and avoid them. Hitting the brakes the instant they were seen wouldn't have even slowed it enough to make any discernible difference due to the laws of physics.

I like you op.

Cool shit. I’ll stick to my motorcycle lol fuck cars

Everything is a conspiracy, everything is a sandwich, I'm a sandwich

Wow wow wow, I'm convinced and a bit angry

"LYFT: We wont kill anyones mom!"

You can find a way to spin any story or look for silver linings in any dark cloud. Does not meet the criteria for conspiracy.

Another potential benefit to be had from this accident is a renegotiation in price with VW for the cars or the license-fee for the technology.

If we get to the point as a society where self-driving cars become ubiquitous in the way you describe above, Uber will not be able to attain a monopoly any more than Ford or Chevrolet can attain one now.

In certain markets there may be some minor disruption. I see automation leveraging the marketshare that exists in that space in order to lower costs. With those lower costs and larger margins, you may see some incremental growth to the overall ride share/public transportation market. Thats it.

plot twist it was just an accident and now op has just given them a good idea

This is a plausible theory. The idea didn't even cross my mind until I read your post. But now I think you could be right. Comcast pushes legislation and oversight, Amazon, car manufacturers, even cigarette companies do it. If the little guy can't afford to jump through the hoops, they can never become competition.

This is the kind of stuff I like to see on this sub Reddit, it is fesable, probable, and not proof through just a youtube video... (no offense to the believers of the lizard people or alien overlords) but you male no claim of being right, just putting out a theory with what I formation you have, allowing for a real discussion and debate over the theory.

Well done.

Did you read the actual story of what happened OP? The auto car and the driver didnt stop the car because she ran out in front of traffic in a non-crossing area. Essentially, she jaywalked, and got hit. Shit happens everyday in major cities. The law says its the drivers fault, but the woman was an idiot for literally not looking both ways before jaywalking.

Your long winded speech seems like you didnt read it. You blame Uber, when it was the woman's fault for crossing illegally. If someone walks across a busy highway and gets crushed by a semi truck driver, that person is usually blamed for the accident

Sounds pretty accurate. Well written post, glad to see some actual conspiracy content on this sub and not the usual boring politics stuff

Thoughtful, clever, insightful. Not sure why you chose r/conspiracy, but glad you did. I think your analysis is very well considered and will be adding it to my model.

I upvoted because this topic is important, fascinating, and not discussed enough. I respectfully disagree with your premise. Cars and roads are already regulated. Of course drones and autonomous craft will need to be regulated. A robot killing a person is scary, but we kill 40,000 on the US roads each year. If we could drop that number in half it's 20,000 less shattered families.

I temper my hope with concern. 20 years down the line the nation's fleet is hacked by AI.

It's crony capitalism at its finest. Stop competition before it even has a chance, secure a government approved monopoly.

Makes sense as to why they had a Convicted Felon in the operators seat.

One automated car kills person and everyone loses their minds. But Becky is contantly texting Chad while driving her dad's M5, smashing into everything possible and nobody bats an eye.

Makes sense as to why they had a Convicted Felon in the operators seat.

Don't forget the insurance companies- they will be used to price normal car owners/drivers out of existence.

I would prefer it to be some sort of sacrifice

Very well researched, very concise, good post.

Ridesharing services will probably only be as prevalent as most of us dystopian cynics imagine them in our worst nightmares, in the most dense urban areas, and still mostly only for people that are actually living in and around those areas. Everywhere else they'll probably be used mostly for travelling to and from airports and to consume drugs at bars, clubs, lounges etc. without putting the lives of others in danger. Owning and operating a car will most likely be the same as it is now for a majority of people.

I believe it.

Look at Japan, for example. The cities accommodate a car-free lifestyle very well. People who live in the suburbs, however, experience a much higher cost-of-ownership. Higher taxes and registration fees, higher gas prices, higher insurance costs, stricter emissions regulations... And almost every highway is a toll highway. It costs more to drive from Tokyo to Osaka than to take a train.

I don't think it's a conspiracy. Autonomous cars will obviously kill people, and the argument has been made for a long time that they don't have to kill no one in order to be safer than people. They just had a prepared statement for the first time an autonomous car killed someone.

ugh.. everything can be turned into a convoluted conspiracy if you really want.

You may be onto something, but it is decades away because there will be so much resistance. Also, Uber has had tons of bad press, so if anything it will be any company but them.

Love the formatting

It looks like it was at night, and the person hit was crossing the road on bike not at a crosswalk.

I think there's far too few facts to speculate on anything here. I'm sure in the same day plenty of people in regular cars died.

She was walking her bike near the crosswalk

I’m tired of driving so I fully support Uber’s sinister plot.

100% agree. This is very similar to one of the guys who helped design the framework around bitcoin and digital currency regulation in NY and then once he left a public facing position he went corporate and was a consultant for tons of companies telling them how to exploit the loopholes that he designed. This is the reverse of that.

Step 1. Accident like yesterday happens.

Step 2. Uber says "We are working when the government to assure this doesn't happen again"

Step 3. Uber directly designs the legislation with the government to control how automated vehicles work.

Step 4. Uber shifts all the regulation to benefit them and the public is none the wiser.

Yep and truck false flags (where a jihadi mowes down a bunch of people) will further push a roll out of autonomous cars and trucks CONTROLLED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

If you can't move to a protest, you can't protest.

I'm gonna go into extreme and say they don't care if a person dies from an incident as such or if anyone else dies in the future because of these cars. They just want autonomous cars on the future

GM, Toyota, Ford, & BMW will squash Uber like a bug in the political arenas regarding regulation unfavorable to personal autonomous driving.

Autonomous driving isn't legal today. Period.
The driver remains responsible.

They're just taking advantage of the free market. That needs to be changed.

Im not sure the entire world wouls go to self-driving cars. Im very sure manual cars would still br made and sold in the future. Too many people like driving still anyway

I agree with you. This seems like a way to carve out something that should have been a shared taxpayer funded resource (like public transportation) and instead give it to a large company for profit to be run in a manner that is harmful to the general public. And like you, I don't think that it is inevitable. It is not a natural law, or part or evolution necessarily.

Putting the costs aside, i didnt see anything in the post that indicates Uber is trying to get regular manually-driven cars off the streets. Had I seen such, I'd be more alarmed by this article

You "forgot" private roads that will be built to replace our failing infrastructure that will only allow self driving cars to travel on them, think HOV Lanes and Toll roads.

I just want to know why the car was speeding.

Expected: Yes. Eventually an automated car would kill someone.

But it seems that the police have reviewed the video and she stepped right in front of the car out from the shadows. Nobody could have stopped in time.

So yes, this is desirable for the company and industry as well.

As for the #10 portion... well yes, this makes sense too. I suppose you could buy an autonomous car and let it sit idle most of the day... however, that's not ideal. It's a resource taking up space and doing nothing. If I owned one I would reserve it for certain hours of the day, but I would let a company utilize it to make money for me during the day giving other people rides. Eventually most people won't own cars. However, some individuals will likely own many. This has been the vision of all autonomous vehicle makers because it just makes sense. It has nothing to do with 'we should run all this shit' it's more about how the technology will change the way we do things.

If I had the option of paying for a ride sharing subscription that ended up being cheaper than my car payment, I'd likely do that. Most people would as well, so why bother with the expense of owning a car? Though you could to make extra money, think of it like landlords and renters vs. everyone owning their own home.

What if these newfangled "contract" deals with cars like you have with phones mean you have to let companies like Uber use them during your downtime but you don't get to profit off of it. Similar to how you rarely get to transfer unused data to your next month.

If you own the car, you'd get a profit from it, otherwise why would you let them use it in the first place?

If you don't own a car but you are just paying to be able to use a vehicle, obviously you wouldn't get a profit. But just like when you rent an apartment vs. buy a house, it's just a monthly fee instead of a heavy investment.

That's why I specifically mentioned the introduction of these new contract deals that have come to the forefront in the last year or so.

I have never heard of that. I assumed you were talking about something in the OPs post. Regardless, I don't see how it matters. Means to an end and all that. People are going to do whatever is the most bang for the buck for their needs and goals.

Uber is not responsible, Volvo assumes responsibility of its autonomous technology its its cars that it provided. Uber is just the gateway, Volvo is the driver.

The police chief acknowledged from the video that the person was walking outside of a crosswalk in a shadow and a human could just as easily have hit the pedestrian.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1GW2SP

I'm uncomfortable with the thought that it was her fault for walking where the lighting wasn't ideal. Maybe that will be the next law. Humans are only permitted to walk in well lighted areas where cameras can identify them. Or put trackers on each human and put them in communication with all vehicles nearby.

I love your presentation, nicely done!

However, I don’t buy it to be honest.

This no big deal.

There are going to be a lot more fatalities as this tech moves forward and even more once it becomes commonplace. Unlike human drivers though, every successive generation of the technology will be better, safer, and less likely to make a mistake.

Keep in mind the reason this is news is because it doesn't happen all the time like human fatal accidents.

Oh shit. Good work.

American men will submit to mandatory castration sooner than they'd submit to the government taking away their right to drive their own cars.

Anytime I read the word ‘sustainable’ when it relates to any kind of development..it just makes me weary.

Wow this is stunning. Absolutely plausible and I'm 100% sure things will go this way, if not for Uber for someone else.

buhh, hillary's emails, buhhh

I figured it was planned, to navigate the legal precedents

I don't understand why people can't just be behind the wheel, and hit the brakes if the car starts going out of control. Do we need to see what angle it will hit someone if it jumps the curb? I think it'll be useful if they also had some sort of handle bars the driver could grip if they wanted to let the car steer itself. It'll be placed close to the wheel to be grabbed instantly if things start going out of control.

The problem with having the computer do most of the easy work while the driver spaces out and relaxes is that when things get tough suddenly, the human driver hasn't been paying attention and doesn't have time (or eventually, the skills) to operate the vehicle. This is most pilots' argument against too much automation in aircraft. Instead of leaving the easy stuff to the computer, and dumping the hardest tasks on the human, it should be the other way around. The computer should assist a human driver when the situation is the most challenging (with night vision, with antiskid braking, with safety features).

Damn, I almost thought this was r/CMV

oh shit. This is a quality, well thought out post.

From the article: On March 18, 2018 at approximately 10pm, Tempe PD responded to a traffic collision on Curry Road and Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona.

She was not on her bike, she was walking her bike across the road.

Yes it was dark. But look at the location in google maps.

There are no trees anywhere near the road. There's no parking allowed there (she could not have darted out from behind a parked car). There are bike lanes on both side of the road. The bike lanes cross the intersection, but the road crossing is not marked like a crosswalk (with the cross hatching), the crossing is just two lines.

I can't see how that is her fault. She was cycling at night on the roads the city provided for the purpose.

The vehicle involved is one of the Uber’s self-driving vehicles. It was in autonomous mode at the time of the collision, with a vehicle operator behind the wheel. The vehicle was traveling northbound just south of Curry Road when a female walking outside of the crosswalk crossed the road from west to east when she was struck by the Uber vehicle. The female was identified as 49 year old Elaine Herzberg. Herzberg was transported to a local area hospital where she passed away from her injuries. Uber is assisting and this is still an active investigation.

Look at the Euronews video on Liveleak. It shows the area very well, along with the bicycle with the bent frame, hung with shopping bags.

How is this a conspiracy? This obvious and not being disputed by anyone. Computers are not magical, they can't stop physics.

A conspiracy with in depth analysis is a rare sight on this sub. Appreciate the work that clearly went into this, youre helping to make /r/conspiracy a better place.

Heres my problem with this theory: can companies want to sell as many cars as possible. They will sell more if the sell one to all of us and not the much lower number that would be needed for a shared fleet. If this is UBERs goal then they will fail as the car companies will either find away around new regulation or simply make the tech safer.

First they came fer our jawbs, then our guns! now our cars!!!! Jesus save us!

Actually sounds pretty plausible.

We need freedom of movement. There should never be a ban on personal autos, just that the size should be minimized if it can be done so safely, such as in a fully autonomous system. So if it can be made perfectly safe, we should be able to get the size of cars down to lazyboys that can easy hook into an aerial system when necessary for transport or storage. https://imgur.com/a/GwOHS

Or, you know, you could buy a bike and a backpack for most inter-city travel...

But if you're riding your bike in a bike lane and there's a shadow there and a robot car runs you over, it will be your fault (says uber).

I don’t think they have the power to hold off the auto industry. It is an interesting strategy but the losses the auto companies would have from not being able to sell to the general public would be astronomical and surely they would do everything in their power to stop that. Maybe I’m wrong and Uber is bigger than I realize. It’s not unlike them to do some shady shit that’s for sure.

Tesla has every advantage over Uber, Elon Musk is gonna use SolarCity with his Tesla charging stations to power his fleets. I trust the technology Tesla, SpaceX are making in transportation more judging by the rapid improvements being made.

If you are that lazy you really can't drive or are that needy that you want something that will drive you..get ready for all privacy and freedom to be gone.....go to a amusement park where btw accidents still happen and it's much more basic smh.

Very plausible. Almost always, when ever there is a monopoly, it is because of regulation.

Internet, telcos, electricity, traditional taxis etc. you’re absolutely right.

Then, once the regulation comes in and they get a monopoly, they get their roi.

I love that wealthy people and corporations donate to lobbyists that have these politicians enact laws that not only protect these rich/corporations, but ultimately regulate an entire industry that a normal everyday citizen has to use or relies upon for their livelihood. In a sense, stripping us of our freedoms. Forcing us to choose from regulated and commercialized options. Sometimes putting into law, that not choosing their options will result in fines and/or imprisonment.

I have a dream. That one day, the common man will rise up and stop being the battery, and shut down the machine. But death seems like the only way out.

The thing is, autonomous cars still need a love driver. This negates the conspiracy you are claiming. But it's funny you bring this up, as I really felt like this was advantageous for uber opponents. A more relevant theory? If this goes to court, guess what information will be subpoenaed? And invariably made public to the parties involved in the proceedings? the technology for designing these autonomous cars, which is heavily guarded and not readily available ...........I bet there is a long list of companies who are just dying to get their hands on the technology.......or smear it

So where does the deep state factor in?

Let's not forget how politically connected Uber happens to be.

https://www.commdiginews.com/business-2/ari-emanuels-billion-dollar-uber-payday-and-what-it-means-for-rahm-24532/

Ain’t no way in hell Uber getting my NAV (non-automated vehicle)

One of the failings of AI (other than dealing with weather or some failing sensor) is that they still lack some level of insight or prediction of intention. If you're any good at driving you try to think at least 10 moves ahead of anything going on down the route you plan on thinking. If somebody down the way looks screwy and like they're just going to waltz out into traffic, you tend to either slow down or change lanes away from the sidewalk before you even get up to where they are in order to better avoid them.

So this shows that particular shortcoming. Somebody just walked out in front of an AI car without paying any attention. And it was too close for braking or the avoidance programming to react. Sucks, but that's what the accident sounds like at the moment.

The main thing AI beats people on at the moment is attentiveness. Really that's all it has going for it. It doesn't get tired, think about what was said to so-and-so yesterday, or gets distracted by a phone, or some back seat passenger, etc. However a good driver still comes pretty close. That's why you'll find those with a clean MVR (at least no accidents of their own fault) and a long history in transportation work find their jobs to be taxing, despite sitting on what should be a comfy seat all day. They're PAYING ATTENTION to everything, and yeah that really can be tiring.

Excellent point, and well said.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/03/something-went-seriously-wrong/556004/

The seven-lane road (counting turn lanes) in Tempe, Arizona is wide open, with no bushes or parked cars for a person to jump out from behind. In the immediate vicinity are a large park, an office building, and a nightclub that’s closed on Sundays—few potential distractions for a driver negotiating the area.

Herzberg, a 49-year-old woman who was homeless, was pushing a bicycle laden with her belongings along this road when she was struck by a self-driving Uber vehicle around 10 p.m. Sunday.

..the location of the crash—and how it happened—raises red flags about Uber’s approach to road safety. Since Uber arrived in Tempe in March 2017, he’s often seen Uber vehicles testing in that exact spot, charting details of the roadways to perfect the company’s internal maps. This seemed like familiar territory for them. Based on what is known about Uber’s technology, King said, a pedestrian or other foreign object should have been readily detected by the AV.

“If there is any real-world scenario where it would be seemingly safe to operate in an automated mode, this should have been it,” he said. “Something went seriously wrong.”

The crash data must be made available so that the public and research communities can learn from it.

Props

In addition to great content, i want to thank you for the formatting of this post! Background info for those not in the know, theory, supporting evidence, also — PARAGRAPHS!!!

So often folks will just launch into wall-of-text rambles, while assuming every reader knows what they know. This serves no one, and it also just provides another example to outsiders of a “crazy conspiracy theorist”.

So a big genuine thank you from me. This is the information delivery method we as a community need more of.

this is WAY blown out of proportion.

ONE death from an autonomous vehicle is news? (I mean it sorta is, in a factual kinda way, but not really)

37,461 people died from motor vehicle accidents in 2016. that makes about 102.6 per day.

100 ppl die every day from cars. one person dying from an autonomous vehicle car crash just means that as of right now statistically autonomous cars are incredibly safer than human driven ones.

of course we won't know exactly how much safer until there are more "autos" on the roads and we have more data.

no one ever said autonomous cars need to be PERFECT. they just need to be better than people, which they already are.

some fuck wit jumping in front of a vehicle and getting hit is barely news worthy imho.

this was just a matter of time before it happened.

the push for autonomous vehicles is going to come from the insurance companies if any where.

hahahahahahahah

and this assumes people will never ever want to modify their cars code like theyve done with every other single electronic device in history. as soon as you mod the code its no longer on the manufacturer, and making it illegal will only result in shittier cars and people doing it anyway.

To add to this, the best source I have found about the war on human drivers and the pro-autonomous fibs that are being repeated in western Mainstream Media is Last wheel on the road.

They're coming for bikes, cars and people walking in ways very few of us have considered. All of our clothes are being embedded with reflective micro-beads so the autonomous car's AI can be a braindead drone.

All the videos of driverless need people to have reflective gear to work well, instead of fixing the cars, they'll "fix" the people.

Richard Stallman is a BAE, he should be on the sidebar of every subreddit. He's one of the strongest advocates of privacy to have ever lived. When in doubt, look at his stance because it will be better researched and less biased than 99% of sources out there.

Uber is a special kind of crooked company but they are only a symptom of a failing system. A car driving itself could be good, but I think that cars themselves are a terrible form of transport when you look at it systematically. Please read more about Human Transit Basics, another great mind which if policymakers listened to, we'd have significantly nicer cities. Automotive companies are not nice at all, see the Volkswagen Scandal (it's all diesel and non-diesel cars tbh) for a modern version of the original "jaywalking" campaign.

You need to try to see the world from outside the US car is king viewpoint to realise how absurd it all is, just ask most drivers about cyclists if you want to see anger, this is the kind of emotion than marketing teams have worked on making you feel for a whole lifetime.

They come into schools to teach "road safety" which means where a yellow jacket and get out the way. This "road safety" video is about as terrifying as ISIS propaganda, this is state-sanctioned mock-executions of pedestrians to scare them to death of not crossing at green when they see it is clear. They create so much fear that you won't let your kids walk to school, so instead, you drive your children, which is the reason the roads are scary in the first place! The whole legal system favours drivers, the safer a car gets, the more dangerous it becomes for others. Cars are one the biggest drivers of obesity, people used to cycle or walk a great deal more but now you can only walk 100 steps in a day. It's a mass delusion held together by slick propaganda.

shock doctrine

Wow, this is very interesting.

So basically they are trying to make it so that once automated vehicles (AVs) are common place and non AVs are banned, the only AVs that can legally be in dense urban areas are those that are part of a 'fleet' meaning no privately owned AVs allowed and therefore they corner the market on transport in cities.

It would be pretty funny if the car manufacturers decided to start their own fleet services and cut Uber out of the loop altogether. After all, Uber does make cars or technology. They have an app, that's apparently pretty easy to create. In the future, i won't call Uber, I'll call Ford, or better yet, BMW.

I find it interresting that they chose an SUV as opposed to a subcompact or something else with lower risk of damage and injuries to pedestrians.. i guess they were trying to avoid driver deaths.

Video of the accident has been released: https://twitter.com/TempePolice/status/976585098542833664

Pitch black - check

no street lights - check

not in a crosswalk - check

Pedestrian clearly was at fault, and there was ZERO time for any reaction by the driver or even the vehicles detection systems.

There is no conspiracy here, just an idiot pedestrian.

Software can only do so much, some of the autonomous systems rely on standard visible light cameras. Tesla's system by comparison uses LIDAR which would be able to detect someone in the road in pitch black darkness. Add in the fact that it's highly unlikely that even a fully aware and alert driver would've been able to react in time to prevent an impact at high speed going by the video the police released. It's just stupid for people to try and make up a conspiracy theory to claim Uber is coming for autonomous cars when the fact is that a human driver would've had the same result in that exact same situation, because there have been numerous fatalities due to the exact same situation in the past without autonomous cars in the equation.

This was nothing more than a freak accident that could've been prevented by the pedestrian not being too lazy to go to the nearest traffic light with a crosswalk.

Did you even watch the video before commenting? Judging by your comment the answer would be no. In pitch black darkness your night vision is actually reduced by the lights of your car. As such your visibility is limited to what is illuminated. You're just as much of an idiot as the pedestrian.

makes a lot of sense, good analysis

I agree. I think you did a much better job of putting your info together, but i had a similar post a while back.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6uc1c2/recent_attacks_on_the_public_might_be_leading

Step one.

Spend decades perfecting "computer vision"

If we can still fool computers with captcha they shouldn't be driving battering rams in public.

a rich businessman i knew was the first importer of VéloSoleX in North America, that was back in the 60s. On his first shipment, his son was tasked to go drive around the local police station until he got arrested. When he did and got a ticket for not wearing a helmet (mandatory for motorcycles in canada), the guy brought a very well prepared case and a bunch of lawyers to the court to contest that helmet ticket.

The result was that he convinced them this isnt a motorbike but isnt a bike either. they created a new category based on the specs of HIS product, which he was the exclusive distributor of for a long while. Therefore it was an incredible barrier to entry for any other solex-like vehicle because they had to fit the specs of Solex, like engine size, where the motor was located, wheels, etc.

All this to say that you are very correct to think they have a lot to gain from this, even if it isn't premeditated.

This is classic powerful people strategy of molding laws to their advantage.

Conspiracy- A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Uhh, I'd say this definitely fits the bill for conspiracy. (Not unlawful, just harmful) Capitalism- an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Do you see how this isn't a consequence of capitalism at all? It's a consequence of government intervention, which is not part of true capitalism.

Basically just because we all ourselves capitalist doesn't mean we are.

Well we can't have a discussion when words don't mean what they mean. All these definitions are complex social constructs. When we say that we are free, we never mean unbounded freedom, we mean that we are free but are also subjects to rules, laws, and regulations.

When we say our economy is capitalist... we never mean anarcho-capitalist. That's a different thing.

but the plot is to use the regulation to form a monopoly. I assure you they wouldn't tell anyone they hoped to become a monopoly.

Again, that's not a plot. That's how markets work. Every corporation's wet dream is to become a monopoly. I don't see how that's a secret, its Economics 101.

It's no a secret that they will lobby government officials to these ends. AND ONLY when "government" secretly go along with that plan does it become a conspiracy. We've seen nothing of the sort in this case yet.

To me it's a bit shocking that we're letting robot cars drive even with a "safety" driver. I'm pretty sure studies will show that safety drivers don't react as quickly as real drivers.

i meant it as a compliment! i loves me some good well thought conspiracy theory!

The lady was walking OUTSIDE of a crosswalk on a four-lane highway.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I'm pretty sure conspiracies about intricate creation of regulations by government to damage competition somehow are pretty politicky

It'll be fun to hear the self driving cars arguing on social medias, spitting such vitriol at bicyclists in 2080. "DAMN BICYCLISTS DON'T HAVE TO OBEY THE LAW??!!? FIRE NUCLEAR MISSILES NOW!!!!!

The companies will lobby the cities to make it illegal to bicycle in AVS areas, which will be the whole city. They will make a compelling argument based on safety and will win.

The one flaw in this is that most countries governments have anti-monopoly laws, and if they were to regulate self driving cars they could probably take them under a government banner as a utility.

Their plan may work in the US but it could actually lock them out of the business in other countries

Yeah, couldnt really agree more with this.

My question though--if a person runs into someone and kills them, sometimes they can be charged with vehicular manslaughter, etc...whats the deal when its self driving? Like...who is held accountable? Who does the jail-time? I think the problem with autonomous cars will be responsibility. The owner of the ''fleet'' has to pay all the fines, or do jailtime for the accident of the autonomous car?

I have a hard time seeing how accountability plays into these cases...

I don't necessarily agree with a hard cap specifically either, I wasn't the original commenter who stated that but I do think there has to be a way to balance the insane amount of money few people are making with the majority who are making much less. It clearly doesn't come out of the "goodness" of companies or their execs.

She was walking her bike in the bike lane. She wasn't trying to cross the road.

Elon musk has way more money than uber.

But Tesla is starting the same sort of program. They benefit from this. This is what the Model 3 was ultimately built for. They know it's not ready for full release right now, so they still build "standard" cars with a steering wheel and pedals, but ask yourself "Why is the display in the center instead of in front of the driver?"

That's not the point. Of course he pays bills. The question is whether he's allowed to pay himself what he wants to pay.

autonomous vehicles are far safer than human drivers

I see you've already swallowed their bullshit. There is no chance this is true. Perhaps in twenty years from now, at the moment we are being used as guinea pigs.