Being totally serious here, given how terrible their mapping software is, I'm not really surprised they're not crushing autonomous vehicles. I'm by no means trying to say mapping is an easy problem but if you couldn't pull together a competent version of the much easier problem, chances are you won't do much better with the harder one.
> <i>“I couldn’t see any of the damage,” says Jason, the Uber driver, who requested Quartz withhold his last name because he feared being deactivated by the company.</i><p>Difficulties of self-driving tech aside, fearing that you will be "deactivated" by a company sounds rather dystopian...
This article reads like a fear-mongering hit piece rather than even remotely unbiased journalism. It's unfortunate because I think the author does have some detailed knowledge on governmental regulations of self-driving cars as well as differences in implementation between the various companies, but the article as a whole seems to dismiss all self-driving car technology as not even being remotely viable based just a few recent incidents.<p>>For now Uber’s cars have limited operating hours and terrain, and they must travel with two humans up front—a designated “safety driver” behind the wheel and an engineer in the adjacent seat. Even so, the company is pushing this technology onto the public when it remains largely unproven and other tests of driverless cars around the US have yielded their fair share of accidents. Earlier this year a self-driving Google car hit a public bus while trying to make a right turn in Silicon Valley. In May, the driver of a Tesla Model S died in an accident while he had the autopilot function enabled. Google suffered its worst crash yet just a few weeks ago when another driver ran a red light and barreled into its self-driving Lexus.<p>>Uber is taking advantage of a regulatory void in Pennsylvania, which has yet to enact autonomous vehicle legislation. Its self-driving cars are insured for up to $5 million per incident, in line with pending legislation in the state. Uber has repeatedly declined to specify to Quartz who would be held liable were one its self-driving cars involved in an accident, saying it doesn’t deal in hypotheticals. The company also doesn’t have an ethics board and is reluctant to discuss “trolley problem” scenarios, in which a car might have to protect one group of people (say, its passengers) at the cost of another (i.e., pedestrians). The DOT cautions in its guidelines that self-driving cars will inevitably have to be programmed to make “ethical judgements.”
Obviously lots of work to do for all the players in the autonomous vehicle game. And I actually like Uber's approach to testing: get lots of miles of testing while being paid to do it by your customers. Clearly not a cash positive venture but it's still a cool business model.<p>I'm wondering if the autonomous vehicle industry will fight for market share along the lines of which company's software platform is better. Will consumers who buy such a car be looking at safety records as much as comfort and looks? Will we end up seeing "Ford Fusion powered by Uber" vs "VW Golf powered by Apple" etc.? Maybe we end up with only a few platforms that fight for market share, like Windows vs Mac and Android vs iOS.