11/16 Essay (last one): Read the ~8 minute article “The Data Science Behind Self-Driving Cars “ (hat tip to Connor). In 1-2 paragraphs, write what you think (or know) are the broad implications for society from the development and adoption of self-driving vehicle technology. What are the positive aspects, the not so positive, and the important considerations (e.g., ethical)? You have until 10:05.

11/16 Essay (last one): Read the ~8 minute article “The Data Science Behind Self-Driving Cars “ (hat tip to Connor). In 1-2 paragraphs, write what you think (or know) are the broad implications for society from the development and adoption of self-driving vehicle technology. What are the positive aspects, the not so positive, and the important considerations (e.g., ethical)? You have until 10:05.
I feel that we are presently putting too many resources into self-driving cars, and I don’t think they should be on the road any time soon. Today’s self-driving cars are unsafe, unnecessary, and a serious source of computational pollution. There are companies like Tesla that are already trying to push for self-driving cars on the road today, and while they may fare well on a highway, there are many situations where they can err. However, this tech can always improve, and these cars might be ready for use within the next decade. Even if they are, we don’t need them yet. There has been a lot of recent news about how cryptocurrencies and crypto mining’s electricity use have set our progress towards fighting global warming back by decades. If self-driving cars become widespread, and if they use as much processing as this article suggests, then a self-driving car navigating a city could be just as bad, if not worse than a bitcoin miner is for the environment. This effect on the environment means that we need to figure out ways to improve this tech further, or not use it at all.
Self-driving cars do not solve any modern problem. We already have ways for people to travel in a city hands-free: buses, subways, and cabs. We also have ways to travel farther: trains and airplanes. Self-driving cars could put these services in danger and cause the loss of many jobs in transportation and shipping. The only issue that self-driving cars seem to solve is reducing car accidents. While this is a huge problem, it can be solved in other ways. As mentioned before, the use of buses and other public transport is a simple way to take cars off of the street and reduce those accidents.
In my mind, if we truly want to fix the problem of car accidents and provide hands-free transportation, then we should work on improving our current public transport services. Self-driving cars feel inevitable, but they don’t need to be introduced now, when they only cause more problems than they can solve.