The Coming Robot Apocalypse of Car Insurers

N1AK

Generali wrote: »

As a result Britain will go from having perhaps 40,000,000 insurance policies to having perhaps 20.

Not great if you work for a retail insurance company.

They can join Taxi drivers, Bus Drivers and Lorry Drivers in the quest for new jobs I suppose. The price of progress is that some careers and companies get left behind. The benefit to society of virtually eliminating car crashes, both delays and injuries, as well as enabling the elderly, young and disabled, and finally the savings on goods and services for us all far outweigh it though :T

Seabee42

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-24849948

It is hardly miles away.

N1AK

cells wrote: »

it is a tech the world shoild push to make a reality ASAP

If not for the vast economic reasons that you highlight many of then simply for the benefit to society:
> Giving the elderly the ability to get out and about once they aren't safe to drive.
> Giving people with disabilities that make it impossible to drive the ability to have full and productive careers in the fields of their choice.

Prothet_of_Doom

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I personally think the automation stuff is a bit of a crock. The most advanced robot AI now can just about climb up a staircase without falling over and then pick up a coffee cup that someone has placed for it in a place it can find it.

This all looks great for googles R&D I'm sure but unless they ban human drivers from the road in one go I think we are decades away from any kind of real self driving car.

Zillions of $£EuroYen.etc have been spent across the globe in the last 25 years, on various Government, and Industry sponsored research, which has gradually and systematically introduced driver aids, many of which can been seen on mainstream cars today.

cells

N1AK wrote: »

They can join Taxi drivers, Bus Drivers and Lorry Drivers in the quest for new jobs I suppose. The price of progress is that some careers and companies get left behind. The benefit to society of virtually eliminating car crashes, both delays and injuries, as well as enabling the elderly, young and disabled, and finally the savings on goods and services for us all far outweigh it though :T

There will be a bare minimum of £50B a year saved which will be spent elsewhere. That money is enough to create 2 million jobs at an average pay of £25k pa so there will be lots of new jobs to more than offset the lost ones.

Also computer cars will likely reduce train trips to the point that almost all lines amd stations are closed (reducing thr need to subsidise them to nil and hence the state can hire more staff or reduce taxes). Also these closed lines amd train stations can be cinverted to much needed homes and businesses

infrastructure will also be much better utilised. For instance the need for petrol stations will probably drastically reduce. The robo cars can fill up 24 hiurs a day and fully utilise stations so perhaps 4/5ths could close freeing up the valuable land in cities. Hell the robo cars may be able to fill up directly from petrol tankers that arrive at night no need for the middle man that is a petrol station at all.


Also a huge benefit will be robo deliveries. Imagine a van but it is compartments with a key code. The van arrvies and texts you a code. You walk outside and collect your item from the van compartment. Manufacturers can bypass retails who can iften upmark products 10x to pay for their costs and profit

cells

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I personally think the automation stuff is a bit of a crock. The most advanced robot AI now can just about climb up a staircase without falling over and then pick up a coffee cup that someone has placed for it in a place it can find it.

Google's self driving algorithms work well in the US where the roads are long, straight and largely arranged on a grid pattern. I would like to see how it copes with having to change lanes in rush hour in downtown LA, as my experience of American drivers in New York, St Louis and Atlanta is that you can leave your indicators on til the cows come home, but they will not create a gap for you unless you start making one yourself.

I can't begin to imagine how a Google car would cope on Hangar Lane at rush hour. Its GPS lane guidance would be useless and it wouldnt be able to move over without being able to understand light flashes and body language of the drivers behind it anyway.

This all looks great for googles R&D I'm sure but unless they ban human drivers from the road in one go I think we are decades away from any kind of real self driving car.

The thing about computer cars is thay they will be worth $$trillions to society.

If an advanced alien race gave us the choiceto pick the gift of the design and software for self drive cars or the choice for the design and software for very cheap fusion at half the price of coal, the logical choice would be the robo cars.

The robo cars are worth $10T plus per year to humanity while fusion at half the price of coal is only worth closer to $1T per year.


so there should be a massive massive pusg and investment to make it work. Even if it means not allowing humans to drive its well worth it. Although I suspect both can and will co exist for a time until most people just opt not to jave a personal car

zagubov

N1AK wrote: »

They can join Taxi drivers, Bus Drivers and Lorry Drivers in the quest for new jobs I suppose. The price of progress is that some careers and companies get left behind. The benefit to society of virtually eliminating car crashes, both delays and injuries, as well as enabling the elderly, young and disabled, and finally the savings on goods and services for us all far outweigh it though :T

Technology just marches on. Nobody mourns the loss of jobs for the guys that had to walk ahead of cars waving a flag to warn everybody to get out of the way.

When people started using umbrellas cab drivers used to pelt them with horse manure as they saw their jobs disappearing. Nobody bothers now.

zagubov

"Personal travel pods"! As predicted in this prescient far-sighted documentary


The space beam radio looks really useful!

kabayiri

How many times have we all been on a motorway where the "fast lane" is no longer the fast lane ?

Frequently I would suggest.

It isn't such a stretch to envisage a line of cars in close proximity governed by computers and radar, travelling at relatively optimal speed. The dramatic reduction in cadence breaking would improve throughput.

It may take a few years but semi autonomous vehicles will arrive.

It will all make HS2 look like an expensive pointless vanity project.

zagubov

I live on a road that's blocked off but the satnavs mustn't show that, judging by the number of cars that come round our bend and have to turn around. Hope they get all that ironed out before the golden dawn of the robocars.:beer: