Sagebrush posted:

reminder that one of their google x projects is methods of achieving eternal life

Snapchat A Titty posted:

obv they would make that available to people who are not captains of industry, like duh

eschaton posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E

Condiv posted:

lol uber got banned after operating in new delhi for 3 weeks

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/08/us-india-rape-uber-idUSKBN0JM0CE20141208

they hired a convicted rapist after failing to do any background checks, then the rapist raped someone

then they got banned while sputtering about "there were no defined rules in India on background checks for commercial transport licenses..."

PCjr sidecar posted:

strippers are people too and its entirely reasonable to treat them like people and talk about their job

duTrieux. posted:

in irvine a while back there was a case where a cop was basically talking this one stripper. he ended up (in uniform) pulling her over on her way home and raping her. the defense strategy, which worked, was that she was asking for it being dressed like that.

it's one of the reasons that i do not live in irvine even though that's where the office is.

The Killing Jelq posted:

graph posted:

oh and a buddy was in jury duty for two weeks couple weeks ago on a sexual assault case and YEP just-world fallacy won again

the judge told the people who voted not guilty to go gently caress themselves

Sagebrush posted:

link to the courtroom transcript please, these things are public record

Snapchat A Titty posted:

lol if you think a dude is gonna get convicted of rape

Luigi Thirty posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLCSmZu8_3M

GOLD

FROM THE OCEAN

"but... if your theory is correct... wouldn't that mean that there should be gold left on the ground after a hurricane?"

"yes, that's correct"

Angry Birds Suicide posted:

lol this seems like a really odd thing for indians to care about

Zack Kanter posted:

I have spent quite a bit of time lately thinking about autonomous cars, and I wanted to summarize my current thoughts and predictions. Most people – experts included – seem to think that the transition to driverless vehicles will come slowly over the coming few decades, and that large hurdles exist for widespread adoption. I believe that this is significant underestimation. Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced. They will cause unprecedented job loss and a fundamental restructuring of our economy, solve large portions of our environmental problems, prevent tens of thousands of deaths per year, save millions of hours with increased productivity, and create entire new industries that we cannot even imagine from our current vantage point.

The transition is already beginning to happen. Elon Musk, Tesla Motor’s CEO, says that their 2015 models will be able to self-drive 90 percent of the time.1 And the major automakers aren’t far behind – according to Bloomberg News, GM’s 2017 models will feature “technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic.”2 Both Google3 and Tesla4 predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination” – will be available to the public by 2020.

How it will unfold

Industry experts think that consumers will be slow to purchase autonomous cars – while this may be true, it is a mistake to assume that this will impede the transition. Morgan Stanley’s research shows that cars are driven just 4% of the time,5 which is an astonishing waste considering that the average cost of car ownership is nearly $9,000 per year.6 Next to a house, an automobile is the second most expensive asset that most people will ever buy – it is no surprise that ride sharing services like Uber and car sharing services like Zipcar are quickly gaining popularity as an alternative to car ownership. It is now more economical to use a ride sharing service if you live in a city and drive less than 10,000 miles per year.7 The impact on private car ownership is enormous: a UC-Berkeley study showed that vehicle ownership among car sharing users was cut in half.8 The car purchasers of the future will not be you and me – cars will be purchased and operated by ride sharing and car sharing companies.

And current research confirms that we would be eager to use autonomous cars if they were available. A full 60% of US adults surveyed stated that they would ride in an autonomous car9 , and nearly 32% said they would not continue to drive once an autonomous car was available instead.10 But no one is more excited than Uber – drivers take home at least 75% of every fare.11 It came as no surprise when CEO Travis Kalanick recently stated that Uber will eventually replace all of its drivers with self-driving cars.12

A Columbia University study suggested that with a fleet of just 9,000 autonomous cars, Uber could replace every taxi cab in New York City13 – passengers would wait an average of 36 seconds for a ride that costs about $0.50 per mile.14 Such convenience and low cost will make car ownership inconceivable, and autonomous, on-demand taxis – the ‘transportation cloud’ – will quickly become dominant form of transportation – displacing far more than just car ownership, it will take the majority of users away from public transportation as well. With their $41 billion valuation,15 replacing all 171,000 taxis16 in the United States is well within the realm of feasibility – at a cost of $25,000 per car, the rollout would cost a mere $4.3 billion.

Fallout

The effects of the autonomous car movement will be staggering. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the number of vehicles on the road will be reduced by 99%, estimating that the fleet will fall from 245 million to just 2.4 million vehicles.17

Disruptive innovation does not take kindly to entrenched competitors – like Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble, Polaroid, and dozens more like them, it is unlikely that major automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Toyota will survive the leap. They are geared to produce millions of cars in dozens of different varieties to cater to individual taste and have far too much overhead to sustain such a dramatic decrease in sales. I think that most will be bankrupt by 2030, while startup automakers like Tesla will thrive on a smaller number of fleet sales to operators like Uber by offering standardized models with fewer options.

Ancillary industries such as the $198 billion automobile insurance market,18 $98 billion automotive finance market,19 $100 billion parking industry,20 and the $300 billion automotive aftermarket21 will collapse as demand for their services evaporates. We will see the obsolescence of rental car companies, public transportation systems, and, good riddance, parking and speeding tickets. But we will see the transformation of far more than just consumer transportation: self-driving semis, buses, earth movers, and delivery trucks will obviate the need for professional drivers and the support industries that surround them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists that 884,000 people are employed in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing, and an additional 3.02 million in the dealer and maintenance network.22 Truck, bus, delivery, and taxi drivers account for nearly 6 million professional driving jobs. Virtually all of these 10 million jobs will be eliminated within 10-15 years, and this list is by no means exhaustive.

But despite the job loss and wholesale destruction of industries, eliminating the needs for car ownership will yield over $1 trillion in additional disposable income – and that is going to usher in an era of unprecedented efficiency, innovation, and job creation.

A view of the future

Morgan Stanley estimates that a 90% reduction in crashes would save nearly 30,000 lives and prevent 2.12 million injuries annually.23 Driverless cars do not need to park – vehicles cruising the street looking for parking spots account for an astounding 30% of city traffic,24 not to mention that eliminating curbside parking adds two extra lanes of capacity to many city streets. Traffic will become nonexistent, saving each US commuter 38 hours every year – nearly a full work week.25 As parking lots and garages, car dealerships, and bus stations become obsolete, tens of millions of square feet of available prime real estate will spur explosive metropolitan development.

The environmental impact of autonomous cars has the potential to reverse the trend of global warming and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Passenger cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans account for 17.6% of greenhouse gas emissions26 – a 90% reduction of vehicles in operation would reduce our overall emissions by 15.9%. As most autonomous cars are likely to be electric, we would virtually eliminate the 134 billion of gasoline used each year in the US alone.27 And while recycling 242 million vehicles will certainly require substantial resources, the surplus of raw materials will decrease the need for mining.

But perhaps most exciting for me are the coming inventions, discoveries, and creation of entire new industries that we cannot yet imagine.

I dream of the transportation cloud: near-instantly available, point-to-point travel. Ambulances that arrive to the scene within seconds. A vehicle-to-grid distributed power system. A merging of city and suburb as commuting becomes fast and painless. Dramatically improved mobility for the disabled. On-demand rental of nearly anything you can imagine. The end of the DMV!

It is exciting to be alive, isn’t it?

VLADIMIR GLUTEN posted:

the best reality tv show is actually rupaul's drag race cause none of it is real, not even the girls

theflyingexecutive posted:

what? someone fellating an absurdly impractical idea while namedropping valley companies? well i never

ADINSX posted:

I mean if we're gonna make up dumb future poo poo lets go back to Moon Bases and city ships instead of A CLOUD OF CARS. They're not even flying cars. When did the made up future get so lame.

ADINSX posted:

http://zackkanter.com/2015/01/23/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-by-2025/

Absurdly, outrageously optimistic. I'm not sure the technology will ever be there for 100% autonomous cars. The real world is just too complicated. The roads here are so bad sometimes I'm not sure where the lanes are. Streets uptown are practically offroading in some parts, and there are weird unspoken rules of right of way on supposedly 2 way streets, but allow parking on either side, so only one car can go through at a time.

Even if the technology WAS there, what about liability insurance. If people don't drive the car, who's responsible for the accidents? Currently taxi companies and personal drivers pay their own insurance, because people make mistakes, but if a mistake is due to a software error, why should they pay? Seems like an enormous liability for autonomous car producers.

And then theres just the legislative nightmares. What about states that keep them illegal. What about states that allow mixed non-autonomous/autonomous vehicles on the road. Does the technology depend on every vehicle implementing car to car communication? If so good luck getting that mandated in every state. Mississippi's emission inspection literally checks to see if you're burning oil, good luck getting those hicks to install some fancy computer. Oregon doesn't even let drivers pump their own gas, because it would put gas attendants out of work.

What kind of crazy world do people like this live in. "in 15 years all cars will be autonomous" What about people who literally bought their car today. Cars today are made so solid they'll easily be running in 15 years, what incentive will they have to sell them?

theflyingexecutive posted:

and why does everyone predict uber will own the driverless car space? they're good at two things: mobilizing an underpaid workforce of contractors and coding apps, neither of which involve managing a fleet of driverless cars

ADINSX posted:

The funny thing to me is that almost all the benefits of fully autonomous self driving cars come from a hybrid approach that we're already seeing. Lane assist, automatic braking, cruse control, and software to keep you in your lane on the interstate will basically let you tune out and chill during the most boring driving: interstate commutes. You wouldn't be able to sleep or anything, but you could just relax and listen to the radio.

But this nearly-as-bright-but-way-more-pragmatic view of the future isn't as disruptive I guess.

I am 100% convinced we will not see a car without a steering wheel in our lifetime. Its easy to cover 90% of all situations, but the last 10% basically requires strong AI.

Mido posted:

the future is pod transport

a big loud and angry quad copter blares an arrival siren as the atomic family dad runs out the front door and traps himself in a scratched and dented plastic bubble to be flown away by the angry hornet of a transport

ADINSX posted:

The funny thing to me is that almost all the benefits of fully autonomous self driving cars come from a hybrid approach that we're already seeing. Lane assist, automatic braking, cruse control, and software to keep you in your lane on the interstate will basically let you tune out and chill during the most boring driving: interstate commutes. You wouldn't be able to sleep or anything, but you could just relax and listen to the radio.

Traffic patterns could start to change with enough cars automatically accelerating/braking, since the car's reaction time will be a lot better than yours. And it will be safer, obviously.

Hell maybe the zip car thing WILL eliminate the need for car ownership, if a person doesn't want to own a car. This is another thing thats already happening, and will probably increase.

But this nearly-as-bright-but-way-more-pragmatic view of the future isn't as disruptive I guess.

I am 100% convinced we will not see a car without a steering wheel in our lifetime. Its easy to cover 90% of all situations, but the last 10% basically requires strong AI.

Sagebrush posted:

++

audi had a car at CES that had driven all the way from los angeles to las vegas for the show autonomously. not some special driverless jellybean derp-car with no steering wheel, just an a4 with all their technology in it. iirc the 600 miles or so that was is farther than any of google's cars have driven, and audi did it without anything like google's super curated inch-level map of san mateo county.

i agree that the future will not be everyone dumping their cars for google cars, but rather cars will just get more and more automated and fifteen years from now you'll be sitting in your 2026 Ford on the way to work and realize that you haven't touched the steering wheel other than backing out of your driveway in the last year.