Re:Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous drivi...
by ZeroGravitas on Monday August 28, 2017 @11:33AM
(#15117210)
One argument is just scale.
So, if it costs a billion dollars to make a good AI driver, then if you put it in a million cars then it's costs 1000 dollars each and you could eliminate lots of jobs where the main cost is the human (delivery, taxi) so providing a ready sales avenue for your self-driving car (or tech). If you put it in trains then you can maybe drive thousands of trains, and the human is a relatively low cost element of a train service so there's less room to expand.
I don't know if this is true, or even if the logic I outlined above pencils out with real data but it probably contributes in some way.
So, if it costs a billion dollars to make a good AI driver, then if you put it in a million cars then it's costs 1000 dollars each and you could eliminate lots of jobs where the main cost is the human (delivery, taxi) so providing a ready sales avenue for your self-driving car (or tech). If you put it in trains then you can maybe drive thousands of trains, and the human is a relatively low cost element of a train service so there's less room to expand.
I don't know if this is true, or even if the logic I outlined above pencils out with real data but it probably contributes in some way.