WEBVTT - Cars with Hidden Agendas, Part 2: Digital Detours 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.880 Forward Thinking. Hey, and welcome to Forward Thinking, of the 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.960 podcast that makes at the future and sometimes just colms 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.440 the night Rider theme. I'm Joe McCormick, I'm Lauren Bolck Obam, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.000 and our usual host Jonathan Strickland is out for the day, 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.000 but we return in this second part of a two 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.519 part episode to talk with Scott, Benjamin and Ben Bolan 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.040 from Car Stuff about the future of some car Stuff. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.680 Say hello, guys, Hello, thank you so much for having 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.640 us back on the show. We're thrilled. This is something 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.839 that Scott and I have talked about at length in 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.800 various other episodes. Yeah, we've we we we discussed the 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.600 whole Volkswagon think in the first part And I'm gonna 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:57.680 maybe give my mouth a rest here because i think 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.279 I was rambling on a little bit too much about 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.040 But no, we are. It's so glad to have you 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:05.800 guys here. Yeah. So so we were talking in this 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.120 first episode. Uh, and if you haven't listened to it, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.399 you might want to go back and do that thing, um, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.000 because it will make a little bit more sense everything 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.000 that we're about to say. But yeah, we were talking 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.160 about the computerization of cars, and specifically about the scandal 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:21.880 that just happened with Volkswagen, where as it turns out 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:23.760 they put this little bit of software in their cars 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.440 to cheat on emissions tests for a multitude of reasons. 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.039 But we wanted to use today's episode to branch out 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.640 from this topic and look into the future and say, 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:38.400 what does the computerization of our automobiles mean for our lives? 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:43.360 How does software deepen and already complex relationship we have 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.280 with our machines, Because software certainly does change things. Like you, 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.840 you might have been able in nineteen fifty to release 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.640 a car and then falsely advertise what its performance was, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.120 say you know, it gets this many miles brigallan, it 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.960 goes this fast, and that wouldn't have been true. But 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.400 what software has done is it can make the car 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:09.880 dynamically deceptive. Do you do you know what? You know? 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:11.200 The way I like to put this, and I was 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.560 thinking about this on the way into work today, I 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.040 was thinking that cars are almost aware now, and that's 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:18.680 maybe the best way I can I can put it, 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.000 is that they're aware of the surroundings. They know when 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.240 there's a pedestrian in front of them to break, you know, 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.840 to apply the brakes. They know when there's a vehicle 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:27.160 to the left or right of them, and they know 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.639 that you shouldn't deviate from your lane at that point, 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.359 the time of day, weather conditions, it's just becoming more 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.880 exactly right and and aware is maybe one of the 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.680 best ways to say. I mean, think about like self 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.360 parking cars. You know that that parking. Now I understand 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:43.120 that these aren't thinking objects. They're not really thinking someone. 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.320 So there was a humane scott. Some of our listeners 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.720 might really argue with you. Some of our listeners might 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.800 be cars. It's because it's true it could be, but 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:56.560 but probably auto boats and factors like auto. So it 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.160 seems like, you know, this maybe the best way to 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.800 describe as aware. But it's not thinking. It's not like 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.040 true artificial intelligence. And there's a human somewhere that said 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.200 if this happens, then that happens, and if this happens, 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.200 then that happens. And when the two things combine, this happens. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.240 So there's a there's this very logical way of programming 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.320 in a car. But to us it seems very smart 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.920 because the cars in the past, they weren't smart. I mean, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.600 you had to do everything. Everything was reliant on you 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.920 or very very simple electronics. But now it's getting so ingrained, 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.600 so so tightly woven together that modules, modules run your 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.240 whole vehicle now. And I think for the most part, 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.800 having smarter, more aware of cars is a wonderful thing. 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.560 I mean, in almost every way, this is great. And 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.640 on this show we've explored time and time again all 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.600 of the fantastic things you can do with heightened awareness 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.360 and computerization of vehicles. But there are things that we 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.040 should be conscious of that are sort of possibilities to 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.920 watch out for. I'd say, yeah, they're they're doing a 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.200 lot of really great things, like like making cars safer 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.880 for the drivers and various objects around them, including squishy 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.839 human people. But but there's so many questions that we 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.480 need to be asking, and need to be asking proactively 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:17.000 because uh, technology moves so much faster than legislation and 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:23.240 sometimes then uh the human brain. So yeah, right, yeah, well, yeah, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.080 this is a big topic to us. You know, how 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.000 does driving change when your cars in the clouds wax 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.520 a little bit poetic about it? So I guess the question, Scott, 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:36.640 maybe correct me if I'm wrong, is Where do you 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:38.880 guys want to go with this, because there's so many 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:40.760 directions we go. Do you want to do pros and 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.880 cons or do you wanna do you want to get 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.240 right into predictions? Do you want to talk about hypothetical 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.560 what ifs? I'm excited. It's not just the coffee. I 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:50.440 could share one thing that kind of will get get 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.760 us started. Maybe. Yeah, I think this is a very 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.320 simple explanation of what happens. But your car can put 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.600 itself into something called limp mode if something's going wrong 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.560 with this, so cars can diagnose themselves. Yeah, there's there's 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.039 something called limp in mode. And the idea behind limp 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.279 in mode is that if there's something wrong with the transmission, 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.640 it will the engine control module will limit or the 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.440 transmission control module will limit the number of gears that 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.840 you're allowed to select. And this is an automatic TRANSMISSI 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:18.719 so you can limp into the gas station or the 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.880 mechanical or exactly right the dealership or wherever, and it 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:23.919 doesn't strain you on the side of the road, and 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.400 it protects it protects itself. It's protecting its own system. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.320 It's saying, well, there's either an engine problem or transmission problem, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.640 and we're gonna limit you to how fast you can 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:34.279 drive this vehicle, but we are going to allow you 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.479 to drive it, and we're gonna warn you or tell 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:38.440 you get to the dealership because I need to be 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.720 fixed right now. Yeah, because otherwise the the event horizon 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.240 shaped object that that looks that that is what automatic 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.640 transitions look like, could do very bad things to the 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:49.400 rest of your car. And all I'm saying is that 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:53.080 this is just one little tiny example of the engineers saying, 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.160 you know, when when this situation happens, this thing is 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:57.840 going to protect itself, and here's how it's going to 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.080 do it, and we can do that right now, and 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.040 let they just kind of live in the background somewhere 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.680 when that situation happens. This is what you do. And 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.800 the yeah, the logics there in alarm systems as well, 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.800 that I would argue they are the precursor to that 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.560 kind of thing, right, because they would shut down on 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:17.840 you remember this story about my old money Carlo had 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:22.320 a malfunctioning alarm system for theft, and so every so 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.240 often it would say, oh, Ben is trying to steal me, 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.760 and then I would have to go through this series 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.200 of arcane maneuvers to get it to start. So I 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:34.880 have experience with good intentions gone bad or soured in 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.640 these kind of fields. The limp mode is just the beginning, though, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.600 And one of the big questions that we look at 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:45.159 and how driving changes is whether the what is the 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.400 role of the human? Right will the human be relegated 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.159 to simply being a passenger with the car being the driver, 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.320 or will the human become like a teammate like you 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.479 know is is your car gonna become now your buddy? Buddy? 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.840 Yeah right and buddy Yeah. I don't know what that means. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.160 It's a it's a it's a show that's gotten their 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:09.120 fans of family reverence. That's a little bit of secure. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.800 Someone got it. It was worth it, someone got I guess. 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.679 The ultimate example of all of this is if cars 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:21.280 become autonomous yeah right, yes, which Elon Musk recently known 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.520 for some known for some let's call it ambitious predictions. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.640 In the past, he said that he will have fully 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.960 autonomous Tesla car technology on the road in five years, 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.840 but didn't. He also say that watermelons would be sentient 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.040 by Yeah. That was his main when he was into 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.600 u C S as and farming. He was more on 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.920 the sentient watermelon side, but he gave that up and 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.760 now he's into cars and PayPal and stuff. Just kidding. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.480 Didn't he say all these things while giggling atop a 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.880 giant pile of froyo? Yes? Yes, not to spread a rumor, 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.559 not to spread. I think it's I'm delighted by Elon 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.560 Musk's uh crazy wonderful ideas well, as long as we say, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.960 just saying, just saying at the end of it. This 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.560 might be interesting because we've now got people in the 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.240 studio who might be less pro autonomous car than the 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.520 three regular hosts of the show are. I'm typically very 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.680 pro autonomous. Yeah, well, because Jonathan and Joe and I 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.960 were all a little bit terrified of driving most of 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.560 the time. We don't really go for joy rides. Uh so, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.680 and you guys might have a different perspective. Absolutely, Okay. 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.040 So one thing that that that we have to be 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.720 careful with is to avoid oversimplification when we talk about 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.640 autonomous vehicles, and I don't mean just cars here, I 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:43.079 mean also autonomous vehicles like you know, airborne things or 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:47.040 both both possible to build the problem that we run 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:52.760 into is that a broad brushstroke doesn't work. Sure, autonomous 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:57.240 cars would save lives in a country like India notorious 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:01.960 and its urban centers for unruling day your c intersections. However, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.320 in a country like the US, where there are vast 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.400 swaths of land that are nearly abandoned right and where 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:16.120 there are, in contrast, enormously dense areas like New York, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.960 like Boston, places where Boston actually is home to the 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.880 world's most expensive parking space. Yes, yeah, not we thought 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.080 it was just the US, but no, it's the world's 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:33.280 reigning champions. Yeah, congrats on yet another dubious award. Who 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.680 owns that space? Is it a space inside a lab 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.120 at Harvard? No, it's uh, it's in I think it's 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.959 in the It's in one of the blue blood neighborhoods. Anyhow, 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.240 point point being uh. An autonomous car makes sense if 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:54.240 you are in a denser area because it reduces accents 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.560 and autonomous cars have a lot of pros and cons. 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.920 I am I am probably a little bit less anti 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.240 autonomous car than you, Scott. What do you think? Well, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:05.679 you know, I don't wanna I don't want to go 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:07.280 off on a too big of a tangent here, so 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.559 I won't. I'll just keep it simple and get I 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.200 I like. I'll surprise you by saying I do like 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.760 some elements of autonomous vehicles, some of the safety features, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.920 you know, the automatic stopping systems and the lane deviation 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.679 and all that. I really like that stuff. But as 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.000 far as I full on you know, don't do anything 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.360 to sit behind the wheel, I don't like that idea 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.120 at all. I don't know. I don't know how far 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.000 that will um No, I just I just can't see. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.719 I I drive for pleasure, Like the weekends, I'll drive 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.680 hours and hours just to get a pizza or something. Yeah, 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.319 I love it, and I can't see giving that up. Ever. Well, 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.320 I don't know if I don't know how possible it 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.040 would be on a global scale, if it's if it's 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:54.080 distributed in certain regions, because the US itself is so 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.760 enormous that we would have to treat it region by region, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.400 and each state will have its own different legists. Lation. 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.600 There was that excellent point about technology versus legislation, uh 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.000 and and how slow one is to catch up with 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.760 the other. That's why Tesla, That's why La Musk predicts 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.440 twenty is his date for fully autonomous Tesla vehicles because 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.640 not of the technology, which will be ready sooner than later, 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:20.839 but because of the legislation. Can I say one more 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.880 quick thing about this. When I read that topic or 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.200 that title of that article, what surprised me wasn't the 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.960 idea that the car would be autonomous by. What surprised 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.920 me was the seven five mile range. Oh yeah, and 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:36.840 that's something I mean, I mean, think about where we 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.800 were when we started our show High Speed Stuff seven 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.439 years ago. You know, it was high speed stuff back then, 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.720 it wasn't car stuff. Even we together, you know, combined, 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.280 both of us thought there's no way that autonomous vehicles 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.400 were ever gonna happen because of the crude way it 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.160 had to happen back then. Then it's just seven years ago. Yeah, 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.360 and back then was just you know, somebody with a 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.680 remote control essentially making making a lifestyle is our CV. 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.880 It was ridiculous the amount of infrastructure change that would 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.520 have to happen again just seven years ago versus now 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.320 when we we realize now that that's not necessary. You 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.240 don't have to bury magnetic pucks in the pavement. You 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.200 have to have a wire system that's laid out or um, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.640 you know, safety walls all over the place, the sensors 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.040 on every roadside. Yeah, it's not like that now. And 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:22.960 and you know everybody understands that. You know that that 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.360 doesn't happen. You can just build the car and it 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:26.960 does everything else for you, and you can put it 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:28.679 out on the streets with every other vehicle and will 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.160 still operate and look like every other vehicle. To just 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.080 some background those so people know about the Tesla thing. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.400 His prediction was that uh Tesla, the next models of 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.640 Tesla would be able to go No, no, just the 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.480 new batteries would enable them to go seven hundred and 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.680 forties something miles per miles on a single charge, seven 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.800 seven forty miles per hour. It did say it was ambitious. Yeah, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:56.600 pardon me, insane mode on a on a on a 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:00.640 single charge. The closest he has to that out was 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.400 something that went a little under five miles for sixty 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.160 something this long range. Yeah, but at that four sixty 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.280 number comes at a speed of twenty four point like 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.800 two miles. Proud. Okay, I don't know if I knew 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.319 that or not, but I'm just I'm just saying it's ambitious. 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.520 So on the golf course, right, you will be You 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.760 will drive back and forth forever on the golf course 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.480 will be cursed. It'll be like the flying Dutch clubs 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.440 here and there, hopping off to take a shot. But 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.560 but yeah, so that's a I mean, so that is 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.320 a great point because we're seeing this not just this 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.200 trend of innovation, but this acceleration of the degree of innovation. Yeah. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.280 Another thing about autonomous vehicles that I think is is 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.920 a very appealing point is the way that research modeling 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.559 so far has demonstrated these vehicles will probably be able 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.920 to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions by a pretty 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:56.160 significant margin. Yeah, and you guys had a fantastic episode 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.560 that I would like to plug if any of your 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.120 listeners haven't checked it out yet, because didn't you all 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:03.640 didn't you talk about one of the big questions that 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:09.040 relates to this, like what happens when a non human thing? Yeah? Yeah, 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.160 in this case, what happens when an autonomous car breaks 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.800 the law? Who is responsible? Is it the programmer, is 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.880 it the driver, the passenger driver? Is it the car company? 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.440 Is it the government whose little piece of the road 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.440 didn't get out of the way. In time. Is it 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.680 someone chosen at random? Because they were standing there in 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.760 the whole VW thing. They're they're talking about criminal prosecution 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.400 of the people that were involved at the at the headquarters. 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.440 So it's going to the criminal level. So you're you're 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.720 right in that, you know, Uh, it could be pinned 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.880 on the human. I suppose, you know, because the human 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:44.840 is the one that set up those parameters to say that, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.600 you know, in this mode, you do this, and again 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.520 it comes back to that, you know, if this happens, 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.880 that happens. Yeah, in the episode we did about what 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.600 happens when a robot breaks the law, that's the title. 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.120 You can look it up on Google. Yeah, it's from 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.960 mar Please go ahead. I really it enjoyed that episode. 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.480 That was one of my favorites we did. But that 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.240 one was about the unpredictability of robot behavior. What happens 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:12.560 when a robot does something or a computer program does 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:18.880 something that it wasn't explicitly told to do. It's misinterpreted 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:23.280 some piece of data, it's it's interpreted, Um, I don't know, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.960 a a shadow as a person or something like that. 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:29.760 And you know that the visual sensors glitching something like 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:34.119 that emergent criminality was the idea. But yeah, but autonomous 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.960 vehicles definitely figure into this because if an autonomous vehicle 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.480 causes an accident, who's at fault? Right? Yeah? And does 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.760 the does the driver have the agency to override something 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.280 or is it a uh two thousand one space odyssey 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.720 kind of I'm sorry, how I can't let me do that. 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.720 I'm sorry, Scott, I can't let you do that. That's 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.480 a child. Well, this is getting okay, I'll tell you 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.760 right now, volks A, right now, Volkswagon. But Mercedes, as 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.400 if vehicle that is essentially autonomous and you can get 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.040 behind the wheel and just let it go, let it 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.040 do its thing, they legally have to say that there 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.560 has to be a driver in the driver's seat and 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.920 paying attention, so they're not like doing the cross road, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.440 yeah exactly, and they will not. Well, yeah, but that's 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.520 up to you, right they You can allow it to 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.800 do its thing and you know, get you home safely, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:22.920 but you have to be in that driver's seat and 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.280 they can't say this is an autonomous vehicle, but it is. 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.320 And you also you also have to be in a 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.360 in a fit state for driving, so you couldn't go, uh, 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.920 I don't know, drink a bunch of what do people 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.920 drink nowadays? Red Bull? Drink a bunch of Red Bull 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.320 and vodka. Yeah, and then hopping behind the wheel, Yeah, 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.160 a couple of gin rickeys and then get behind the 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.600 wheel right right right, Yeah, seriously, you would want to 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.320 do that because you're still having to adhere to the 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.200 the rule of the land, of the rules of the road. Really, um, 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:56.760 you know, you can't you can't operate a vehicle while 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.880 you're inebriated. And and with Mercedes saying you have to 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.440 have a driver behind the wheel at all times, that's 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.840 that's saying whoever is in that seat is the driver. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.639 You can't say the car was driving itself. So yeah, 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:13.080 and that eliminates any kind of um um fault from 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.560 Mercedes were saying, well, this car driver itself home. Yeah. 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:18.960 That is interesting because at what point is the driver 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.880 at fault for something that the driver didn't choose to do? 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.199 Rush Sure, well, and that's kind of the point that 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.480 we wound up really talking about in that episode. That's 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.320 sort of wild West area of of weird corporate policy 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.640 and like responsibility waivers and and lawsuits that are probably 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.120 going to have to happen before the law catches up 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.639 with this technological capacity. So before we move on, one 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.280 last one last pro uh. And I'm sure that we 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.960 hear this all the time, both on car stuff and 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:52.080 on forward thinking, but there is a compelling case for 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:56.920 safety in autonomous vehicles. And have some statistics. So according 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.600 to the n h T s A, there were around 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.040 five point three million motor vehicle crashes in that was Yeah, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.800 that's only the ones that were police reported, so it 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.560 doesn't count all the other ones that didn't get caught. 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.840 It's resulted in over two million injuries, over thirty two 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.040 thousand deaths. And on balance, here's the disturbing thing. That 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.560 was a really good trend. It reflected a forty five 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:25.879 percent dropping accidents from ve to that year. So of 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:30.760 these accidents are caused by anyone, right, I guess would 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:38.360 be that's a low number. Yeah, it's like like angry owls, 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:45.639 is uh, angry owls and occasionally yeah, and and sometimes 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:51.719 just Jonathan I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but yes, so Jonathan's 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.719 periscoping from the sidewalk. You see him and get distracted, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.199 So I I just I just say that because I 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.800 think it is it is important, um, even because to 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.240 me that is the most compelling reason for autonomous vehicles 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.880 in dense areas. Yeah. Absolutely, And I think that Google 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.600 is Google's autonomous cars up to having had like fifteen 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.600 accidents over its a few year lifespan now, but it 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.639 still has never had an accident that was not a 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.720 human fault. So amazing stat isn't it. I Mean, really, 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.560 all those miles driven and every time there's been a collision, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:29.720 it's been the the human on the other side that 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.200 every time. Oh, I think there's been an instance where 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:35.480 it was the driver of the Google car, but it 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:36.920 was a human driver, but it was still a human 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.800 driver doing something that messed with the programming. Interesting. Well, anyway, 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.640 I think we should transition from talking about autonomous cars, 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.320 which we have talked about a good bit on the 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.520 podcast before, to talking about other aspects of the computerization 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.480 of our vehicles, in the ways that adding software elements 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.679 and more and more layers of computerization to our cars 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:02.680 could give them hidden agendas, because it's kind of scary too. 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.000 I mean, we like to think that our cars can 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.640 be smart in the helpful ways that we always talk 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.439 about they can help keep us safe, they can reduce emissions, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.520 they can do all these wonderful things. But what if 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.439 they're not necessarily serving our interests. It's a very good question, Joe. Uh, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.159 it could serve. It could serve numerous third party interests. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.760 They could work on behalf of insurance companies, right, it 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.159 could work on, behalf of manufacturers, it could work on 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:35.439 behalf of third party entities, governments, advertisers, advertising. I've got 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.800 a scenario I want to bring up with that. What 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:42.280 about this idea of telematics. Yeah, okay, So telematics active 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:47.439 monitoring of driver habits, spatial chronological compilation of where you 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:52.520 go and when. So, uh, this will tie into your excellent, 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:58.120 your excellent hypothetical later, right, So who holds this data 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:02.280 on you? Right? Uh? So let's say, um, let's say 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.840 our super producer Noel Brown hops into his brand new 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.200 twenty seventeen Mercedes Dream Big, right, and he uh, he 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.160 has an active monitoring system and it is enabled in 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.879 his vehicle. So they know that every day at five 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.960 thirty he goes to his favorite coffee shop. It's always 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.120 the same coffee shop. He's always out of there by 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.040 seven thirty when he goes and he leaves from seven thirty, 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.120 he goes somewhere else from maybe a couple of hours, 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:30.560 and then he goes home, and they know the time 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.240 he goes home. Then they know the time he leaves, 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.280 they know the average speed he drives, they know the 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.720 roots he takes, and they can tell when they're going 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.360 to change. What do they do with this information? Does 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.840 he own it? Did they own it? Oh? Then it right? 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.720 And can they sell it? Because this has already become 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:52.040 a problem in other other fields, this big data idea. Yeah, 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.120 that's interesting, And the way you phrased it, it's sort 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:57.639 of undercut an objection I was going to make to 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.959 the telematics concern, which is that your cell phone is 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:05.520