Homework 1

Claim: Autonomous cars will not be widely adopted by 2020 and will not necessarily increase life expectancy of the average human being.
Argument: In the article "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030," the committee of writers make a sweeping statement that says, "A recent report predicts self-driving cars to be widely adopted by 2020" (Stanford University, 2016). Assuming the source used in the article is credible, taking a closer look at it one realizes that the source talks about the predicted total number of self-driving cars on the road by 2020 to be 10 million (Intelligence, 2016). This instinctively does not indicate the wide adoption of self-driving cars. The article further mentions that the authors reached this conclusion by analyzing how car and technology companies are approaching autonomous cars, and what the market for this industry is expected to look like (Intelligence, 2016). In 2010, it was estimated that there were around 1 billion motor vehicles in use (Sousanis, 2011). The number of cars on the road have only increased since "2016 was a record-breaking year for global car sales," (Scutt, 2017) and the global number of cars owned by people is supposed to double by 2040 (Smith, 2016). Considering the 1 billion number of cars (even though data suggests that there are even more cars on the road now), 10 million makes up only one-hundredth of the total number of cars available globally. Furthermore, it is unclear what dataset was used to make this prediction and what the origins of the dataset are. It is highly unlikely that third world countries are prepared for autonomous cars with unpredictable traffic, potholes, problematic rules and regulations, and other such issues. Therefore, although there seems to be an increase in the adoption of autonomous cars, the statement in the article takes a more hyperbolic and optimistic approach than what is realistic. Similarly, another statement in the article says, "Self-driving cars will eliminate one of the biggest causes of accidental death and injury in United States, and lengthen people's life expectancy" (Stanford University, 2016). This is a classic causation versus correlation problem. Although accidental deaths and average life expectancy are correlated, it does not necessarily mean that an increase in life expectancy is caused by fewer car-related accidental deaths. In the article, the authors conveniently assume that since human driving mistakes will be eliminated by autonomous vehicles, there will be significantly fewer accidents, but they fail to address the new possible ways one could meet with an accident. In June 2017, a person driving a Tesla was killed during a car-crash as he failed to respond to the warnings set off by the car (Bomey, 2017). Additionally, currently the cars are not equipped to operate with high level safety under all weather conditions, such as heavy rain (Auto Insurance, n.d.). There also seems to be a problem if traffic lights do not work and a human is directing the traffic instead (which happens often in third world countries); self-driving cars cannot interpret human signals (Auto Insurance, n.d.). Lastly, the sensors in the car could easily fail, which could put the driver in grave danger, maybe in even more danger compared to if the driver had control over the car in the first place. Therefore, it is hard to make a claim that the life expectancy of the average human being will be increased by autonomous car adoption.

References:
Auto Insurance (n.d.). Top 20 pros and cons associated with self-driving cars. Retrieved from https://www.autoinsurancecenter.com/top-20-pros-and-cons-associated-with-self-driving-cars.htm

Bomey, N. (2017, June). Driver killed in Tesla self-driving car crash ignored warnings, NTSB reports. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/06/20/tesla-self-driving-car-crash/411516001/

Intelligence, B. (2016, June). 10 million self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/report-10-million-self-driving-cars-will-be-on-the-road-by-2020-2015-5-6

Scutt, D. (2017, January). 2016 was a record-breaking year for global car sales, and it was almost entirely driven by China. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/2016-was-a-record-breaking-year-for-global-car-sales-and-it-was-almost-entirely-driven-by-china-2017-1

Smith, M., N. (2016, April). The number of cars worldwide is set to double by 2040. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/the-number-of-cars-worldwide-is-set-to-double-by-2040

Sousanis, J. (2011, August). World vehicle population tops 1 billion units. Wards Auto. Retrieved from http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-population-tops-1-billion-units

Stanford University (2016, September). Artificial intelligence and life in 2030. One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved from https://ai100.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/ai100report10032016fnl_singles.pdf


