Would autonomous cars spell the end of Porsche's?

I heard yet another report this AM of progress being made by one company or another toward a fully-autonomous car. One benefit repeatedly touted is a huge increase in safety---a very high percentage of accidents are caused by driver error, and therefore, a car driven by a computer would be much less likely to crash as opposed to a human-controlled car. If these cars come to pass (and with companies as big as Google forging ahead at a fervent pace, who can say they won't), and the safety claims are validated, what then happens to human-controlled vehicles? Will high-performance, human-controlled vehicles become outlawed, or at the least, exceedingly rare and expensive? Would anyone buy a high-performance vehicle like a Porsche if it could only be controlled by a computer?

Well as long as it doesn't have to be driven like your grandma drives it. If I can still hear and feel it throttle with the thrill of being pushed back into my seat, sure. If I can't drive a Porsche, riding in one is the next best thing!

If we are autonomous cars, won't we be doing things other than driving? Kicking back and reading a book, taking a nap, etc... commuting won't be the entertainment it is now in a Porsche, it will be an opportunity to do something else. Like sitting on the bus or subway. I can't imagine you will be allowed to set your system to drive faster or weave in and out of traffic. I think it will be hard to figure out how the roads will handle a majority of autonomous traffic with only a few self-drivers. Once it reaches a critical mass, I can see the powers that be pushing for only autonomous cars being allowed - but that will be a LONG way off. We probably won't see that in our lifetimes. I'm also guessing there will still be racetracks or places you can go drive at will, but they will be dedicated locations, not general commuter highways. I want a flex-capacitor so I can drive into the future and see!

I am okay as long as I am not forced to drive one. Also, as long as they can't be hacked.

Outta my cold dead hands...

Have to look at the bright side, now I can sit back with feet up sipping whisky with my girl enjoying the view.

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I'm pretty sure people still ride horses for fun. In a world of autonomous cars, driving becomes a hobby/sport, not something you have to do.

insurance companies will jack up our rates by using the excuse that human drivers are much more dangerous than automated driving. the cars would be much safer as they are now loaded with sensors and scanners for faster braking and accident avoidance.

Jetsons, meet the Jetsons....... I have seen some of the Google auto cars on the road in San Jose. Frankly its a little scary

The concept of "technological singularity" spells doom for all of humanity. As a specie we are already overly dependent on the technology to do everything for us. The moment one piece of hardware/software becomes self aware, humanity becomes meaningless and expendable. My age group (millennials) has a real chance of seeing a real AI, and that day will change the world for ever and for everyone. Think Columbus landing in America, except humanity as a whole is now in the role of Indians.

If your Porsche becomes self aware, then it might be upset with you for not washing it frequently enough...

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Spell the end of Porsche's what? (Yeah, grammar dig. Sorry, I'm one of THOSE people). But, to your question: * The technology doesn't yet exist, at least reliably. The DARPA autonomous vehicle challenges are almost always a cluster***k. * Autonomous air travel doesn't yet exist - and various aerospace firms have been plowing millions and millions into better and better AI/autopilots for decades. Sure, they are getting VERY good - and some can even land themselves when the conditions are right. If we don't yet have it right for vehicles that cost many millions of dollars each, what's the likelihood of getting it right in vehicles that cost tens of thousands? * Assuming that computers are less prone to make errors than a human driver is a fallacy. Humans have a uniquely human ability to filter data. Unimportant data, like cars nearby that are traveling in the correct direction at the correct speed, don't even register in our consciousness. When one weaves unexpectedly, or the driver honks, or a tire squeals, it instantly becomes "important" and we react to it. Computers do not share this ability to subconsciously delete everything that does not need our attention - everything in the environment must be identified and quantified, and simulations must be run to determine if each object has the potential to become a hazard. Trying to transition into an autonomous scenario, with (in the beginning) just a couple autonomous cars, would be a nightmare. Unless quantum computing becomes a near-term reality, I have a hard time seeing how an autonomous car trying to merge onto and work across a 20-lane interchange in rush hour is going to be able to cope with the sheer volume of data, let alone the basic amount of simulation necessary to be able to avoid an accident for the 5 or 10 most likely incidents. It would be much easier - from a systemic perspective - to transition everyone over at once. However, that's completely impossible from a practical perspective - we'd all have to agree that on day X, everyone would stop driving everything except approved autonomous vehicles. At that same cut date, all roads, stop lights, street signs, intersections, draw bridges, gas stations, and EVERYTHING ELSE required to support the autonomous system would have to be ready to go. Further, there would need to be some fundamentally major changes to how many things work. For example, workers arriving to the office in an autonomous car should be dropped off at the front door, rather than parking in a parking lot and walking to the door - so traffic patterns to building fronts would need to change to maximize efficiency while offloading passengers. Parking lot density could be massively increased, and the valet would go the way of full-service gas and layaway. The autonomous car is, for some, a neat idea; for others, a truly horrifying concept. I think we'll see in our lifetimes a few autonomous cars that are designed to work in "normal" traffic, but I just can't believe that we will ever be disciplined enough, nor willing enough to spend the incredible sums of money required, to roll out an entire autonomous transportation system. All of that said, if we're willing to suspend reality and say that in the year 2025 we'll all have cars that drive us to work and back with no intervention - and we still have some kind of non-communist form of government - we will also have Porsches, or Maseratis, or FiskerII's, or whatever. Regardless of whether we're involved in the driving, man has always had the urge to demonstrate wealth by making possessions ornate and unique. I don't see that stopping...after all, what percentage of people who own 911 Turbos are in the 150MPH club? 200MPH? While many of us "enthusiasts" actually do push our cars, there are just as many - if not many, many more - who don't drive their GT2 any differently than they would an Accord or Camry. For those people, the name and the marque are what matters - and I don't see that changing as long as we live in a society where demonstrating excess is accepted. The short version: "God, I hope I never find out."

Heck we can't even agree on alternate fuels. Autonomous cars... well everyone must have a dream. I predict San Francisco will be the first government to mandate autonomous transportation for all citizens.

Would autonomous cars spell the end of Porsches? It would certainly spell the end of me..

As long as the autopilot module isn't made by Skynet, I don't care!

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I read an interesting book several years back on this subject: Hugo de Garis's " The Artilect War: Cosmists vs. Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines" The danger of building machines that make humans redundant is the risk that the machines will realize that humans are redundant...

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Another Necro-thread... I'm beginning to see a trend

Aw, dammit.

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I'm just wondering about the end "Porsche's" what?

sorry for resuscitating the DNR thread. It's the stupid feature in this bulletin board of when you scroll to the end of the thread you are reading, the system pseudo-randomly picks some other thread to show you. I didn't realize it had done that and typed in a message meant for another thread (thus the "deleted" text in the message).

^ Agreed...way too easy to scroll into the past, necropost, and get publicly shamed for it.

Your title says Porsche�s, so I assume there an implied possessive... maybe �Porsche�s existence�?

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I have seen JayG in cars on roads in San Diego. Frankly, it's a little scary.