#and i know so many people who cannot medically drive

Why are people acting like the Tesla robovan is a large step forward in innovation? Other companies with self driving cars have been doing self driving taxis for years with better technology than Musk uses and they still suck ass

what-even-is-thiss

Most self driving cars use some form of LiDar which gets its info by shooting out lasers that give it a sort of 3D map of the surroundings and is generally mostly accurate.

Teslas on the other hand use cameras. Which are worse in every way, give a 2D image, and are much easier to mess up and tamper with. Because the husk insists upon the self driving cars having cameras. For some reason.

And the LiDar self driving cars are also bad because AI can’t understand edge cases and it big sucks and causes traffic jams but it’s at the very least more accurate than cameras.

what-even-is-thiss

On my local news they called this thing “the next iPhone” which I’m still mad about. The iPhone was the first successful mass market launch of a touchscreen smartphone and they did it well. They did it very well. I remember. It came out on my 9th birthday. The one with the party that nobody came to and my grandparents left early so they could go look at the iPhones at the mall.

This is not the first mass market self driving taxi. It’s not even doing it the best or even particularly well and it’s not something that will change the trajectory of life as we know it. Self driving cars have been here and they suck ass. Humans are better drivers than AI. Humans can understand edge cases and react in milliseconds to them.

The way you make getting around safer and easier is getting cars off the road with quality transit and bike infrastructure. Then the people taking those options will be safe and the cars that are left on the road will have less cars to crash into.

These self driving cars are not good quality, not solving any real problems, and will not replace our need to fix our terrible transportation infrastructure.

#my main sad is that i know people who would benefit from self driving cars even with robust public transit #like #leaving the house can take A LONG TIME for a lot of disabled folks to plan #and living in germany? where there IS a robust transportation system?#one's entire itinerary can get completely fucked if an elevator is down #even in an ideal world a lot of people will still need a car to take them to the station #and i know so many people who cannot medically drive #it's a travesty that this is happening not only because it's not a technology that's ready #and not only because it's something that is driven (lol unintented pun) by a lack of appropriate public transit)#but also because it's a lie to people who really need ut #and let's not forget that the pandemic isn't over #even public transit isn't an option to many disabled people in places where we even have it #myron grumbles (tags edition)