Google tests driverless car

Fact is, you've already given away your data hundreds of times without knowing it. Club cards, online shopping, twitter, Facebook etc. If everyone was paranoid like you, we'd be eating our children and living in caves in fear of technology.

It will lead to Google-controlled roads using Google-controlled maps and Google-controlled thoughts guiding us to Google-controlled destinations.

The 'nothing to worry about if you've done nothing' comment is the hallmark of dictatorships the world over. For sure, you've nothing to worry about. Until the Google robot police come to arrest you on Google charges, try you instantly in the Google online court and carry out your immediate sentence, execution in the Google Driverless Death Van. (See: China for inspiration for the latter. )

You have consented to that by signing up to the service which was provided with a terms and conditions when you made your account. Google does not ask you for these things for you to be able to search, but yet uses the data for monetary gain.

Yes, it's like the entirety of Google is just one ******* on a throne with only one opinion about everything!
Oh, wait.

The vast majority of people working on the driverless car project are just ordinary engineers and scientists who are looking to create "the next big thing". There's so much paranoia over Google, it's ridiculous. It's a company made up of thousands of ordinary people, of which there are probably a few *******s, but they are certainly no supporter of the US government (track record: protests against SOPA, PIPA and net neutrality).

There is bound to be a big difference between the rank and file in a corporation like that and the board executives. Brin, Page and Schmidt live on a different planet to them.

The facts are - Google is now a major developer of robotic devices for the US armed forces. They have also worked closely with the NSA for over a decade to ensure that the personal and (once presumed) confidential data of the global citizenry are fully available to the US security services.

It hardly inspires confidence does it? However, it was always naive to assume that US corporations, despite their alleged love of freedom, would turn out to be anything other than tools (and sometimes controllers) of US state interests.

Good article in the Guardian about this topic today.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/driverless-cars-google-data-privacy

You have consented to that by signing up to the service which was provided with a terms and conditions when you made your account. Google does not ask you for these things for you to be able to search, but yet uses the data for monetary gain.

Google farm our data to other corporations all the time, they don't call it 'selling', they define it as 'focused marketing tools' made available to those companies.

They didn't have to sell it to the NSA, they invited government security staff in to Google to work directly on the relationship and ensure that all of our personal information is fully available to them.

It is actually quite chilling how much Google now know about at least 1/3 and maybe 1/2 of the people on planet Earth. It's difficult to accept that they don't have secrets about how they use and misuse that.

There is bound to be a big difference between the rank and file in a corporation like that and the board executives. Brin, Page and Schmidt live on a different planet to them.

The facts are - Google is now a major developer of robotic devices for the US armed forces. They have also worked closely with the NSA for over a decade to ensure that the personal and (once presumed) confidential data of the global citizenry are fully available to the US security services.

It hardly inspires confidence does it? However, it was always naive to assume that US corporations, despite their alleged love of freedom, would turn out to be anything other than tools (and sometimes controllers) of US state interests.

Good article in the Guardian about this topic today.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/driverless-cars-google-data-privacy

I doubt driverless cars will be mandatory for a long time (if ever, if the car fails to remain the primary mode of transportation), so people will still be able to drive for pleasure. If, on the other hand, driverless cars do become mandatory, there will be enclosed places to drive for pleasure (indeed, these places already exist).

I agree it will be a long time before manually driven cars would be banned on public roads, if it ever happens. The driverless cars are designed with human stupidity in mind. I think they will gradually raise the ability level needed to get a license for driving a car yourself, while lowering the requirements to operate a driverless car.

Lets face it, in the long run driverless cars are going to be safer over all. While there are perfectly decent, safe drivers out there, there are probably 10 morons for safe driver.

I agree, though I think even that's being generous. I don't think people are morons - I just think they're inherently bad at driving. We get distracted too easily, and every time something is invented to make our driving experience safer, as soon as we find out about it we drive more carelessly as a result. We're naturally bad at safety.

And to add to my previous post, less crashes mean cheaper insurance, as well as equality of prices since it won't depend on driver ability. People won't need to pass driving tests to have transport, which means children, the blind, the unsafe, etc., can all have flexible transportation at their disposal. Automated taxis will also be cheaper than driver taxis. So many benefits to driverless cars.

I think what you mean is, you hope that a liberal society (allegedly) like Britain and the US can defend against such an outcome. Given the conduct of the security services in both countries and the secrecy surrounding Google's armaments contracts and their relationship with the 'cuddly' search engine company, I suspect your hopes may be somewhat trusting. The truth is that there isn't much now to stop a full takeover of the combined corporate and security states, with companies like Google leading the way. The population are largely acquiescent and the Chinafication of the West is proceeding.

Google farm our data to other corporations all the time, they don't call it 'selling', they define it as 'focused marketing tools' made available to those companies.

They didn't have to sell it to the NSA, they invited government security staff in to Google to work directly on the relationship and ensure that all of our personal information is fully available to them.

It is actually quite chilling how much Google now know about at least 1/3 and maybe 1/2 of the people on planet Earth. It's difficult to accept that they don't have secrets about how they use and misuse that.

In the least offensive way possible, you come across as utterly paranoid and tin-foil.

Also, as a strong Luddite.

How long would it be before insurers would be offering 2/3 off insurance if you go driverless? And how long after that before the government start demanding reasons why you want to drive manually?

I can see many different and new problems arising. One would be that the long streams of juggernauts currently infesting every motorway would be pre-programmed (presumably) to either drive perfectly safely nose-to-tail, thereby blocking the motorways even more and creating conditions for potential disasters that even the best programming would be unlikely to cope with - or, they would demand additional length between vehicles, bringing most major roads to a standstill.

Haulage companies, suddenly no longer having to pay drivers, will design and use vehicles to the limit, creating lorries that are ceaselessly on the move apart from rare visits to maintenance centres. The endless flow of large and small lorries will block every minor and major route. City roads will become unusable. Unless all the vehicles are electric, pollution will rise to staggering levels, as road haulage will be fundamentally cheaper.

Every supermarket, corner shop and online retailer will add to the congestion with vast numbers of new (and very cheap to run) online delivery vans.

The industry will demand 'super-lorries' of currently undreamed of size, on the grounds that they are 'completely safe'.

Also, Google didn't share data with the NSA. The NSA Tapped it.

x

Please address points rather than making ad-hominem attacks. None of the points I made in the paragraphs you quoted are incorrect.

"Tapped it", NSA "confessed" due to not wanting to tarnish Google's reputation of being family friendly, reliable and over all, safe.

The NSA wouldn't risk loosing anyone who uses a Google product, they need their reputation to remain in tact for future projects.

Just my two cents on the subject.

In addition to the above, I think your comments about an exponential increase in congestion and traffic are not rational.

Congestion/traffic are driven by two end-user factors: demand for haulage/delivery, and demand for personal transport. A change in the technology for cars navigating will not actually affect these. Amazon will still have to make the same number of deliveries irrespective of whether the cars are driverless or not.

Given that the demand is independent of the technology, the much more likely scenario arising from the use of driverless cars is a reduction in traffic and congestion, not an increase - for the reasons I stated above.

How long would it be before insurers would be offering 2/3 off insurance if you go driverless? And how long after that before the government start demanding reasons why you want to drive manually?

I can see many different and new problems arising. One would be that the long streams of juggernauts currently infesting every motorway would be pre-programmed (presumably) to either drive perfectly safely nose-to-tail, thereby blocking the motorways even more and creating conditions for potential disasters that even the best programming would be unlikely to cope with - or, they would demand additional length between vehicles, bringing most major roads to a standstill.

Haulage companies, suddenly no longer having to pay drivers, will design and use vehicles to the limit, creating lorries that are ceaselessly on the move apart from rare visits to maintenance centres. The endless flow of large and small lorries will block every minor and major route. City roads will become unusable. Unless all the vehicles are electric, pollution will rise to staggering levels, as road haulage will be fundamentally cheaper.

Every supermarket, corner shop and online retailer will add to the congestion with vast numbers of new (and very cheap to run) online delivery vans.

The industry will demand 'super-lorries' of currently undreamed of size, on the grounds that they are 'completely safe'.

Costs of operating commercial fleets would (after an initial investment in driverless tech) fall sharply. Inevitably this could be passed on to the e-tailers and the result would be further increases in demand for products and more deliveries. This effect would be multiplied as Google (also inevitably) gets into driverless freight aircraft (there is already pressure to do that), captainless ships and the like. Couple it with Amazon's proposed 'human-less' distribution centres (they are currently being discussed) and you have a recipe for a big surge in traffic.

The road haulage industry are also competing with rail and unless driverless trains are also introduced (admittedly a possibility) their competitiveness with that mode will sharply increase.

A headwind would be that demand might fall because of a new surge in unemployment as numerous staff relating to driver-related services collapse (there would be no further need for a DVLA!), but overall I think it's clear that demand for vehicle use would rise substantially. That's really why Google want to get into this. They anticipate a strong and ongoing future profit surge from the commercial sector as many more vehicles are demanded.