The Unintended Consequences of Autonomous Cars

Tesla Model 3

More and more, customers will find that as artificial intelligence agents embedded in smartphones, robots and cars start to make decisions for them, freedom and choices will begin to dwindle. For example, car insurance for people who want to drive themselves, instead of letting the car do it, will get a lot more expensive. Perhaps prohibitive. This is just one of the unintended consequences of autonomous cars discussed in Particle Debris. In fact, as AI’s do the thinking for us, so will the companies that make them.

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4 thoughts on “The Unintended Consequences of Autonomous Cars

  • Actually, not just insurance, but human driven cars will be slowly choked off the roads by increasingly stringent regulations intended to make it easier for autonomous driven cars to deliver the promise of unparalleled safety. Think about it, what will be the biggest hazard on the roads for autonomous cars? Unpredictable, inattentive, and intentionally reckless human drivers they share the roads with. The combined pressure of desire for profit by autonomous car mfrs and insurance companies and do-goodism by city planners and other such bureaucrats will be an irresistible political force that will see to the introduction of regulations as well as actual street and highway designs that make life on the roads increasingly unpleasant for human drivers. Things like lanes that exclude human drivers, then higher toll fees, inconvenient and distant parking areas (parked autonomous cars can come fetch you, drivers have to walk to their parked cars), and so on and so forth until the number of human drivers dwindle to the point that some jurisdictions won’t even make accommodations for them. Just like how nowadays, very few municipalities plan for equine-powered commuters.

  • Being able to independently drive a car will, one day, become a survival skill and one the vast majority of the populace will not have. I won’t be alive to experience this, but I believe it will happen.

  • CudaBoy: One certainly will need insurance for autonomous cars, and most will own or lease their cars in the early years. We’ll need insurance for collision by (other) uninsured motorists, liability in case our own car makes a mistake, fire, flood, hail damage, rental reimbursement when our car is in the shop… to name a few.

  • Wrong. When level 5 autonomy is commonplace you won’t even NEED insurance let alone it being more expensive. You won’t even OWN the car anyway. C’mon guys, try to keep up.

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