I recently wrote about how self-driving cars will revolutionize the world, for the better. Of course, not all changes will be for the good, although I believe the overwhelming effect of self-driving cars will be positive.
But here are some of the potential negative consequences of self-driving cars. For this list, let’s focus on externalities — that is, let’s assume that the self-driving cars work well enough that individual drivers still want to use them, and then let’s think about what kind of societal costs that might entail.
Unemployment — There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the US, plus 0.2 million taxi drivers. That’s a lot of jobs to lose, even though self-driving cars will likely provide even more new categories of jobs.
Infrastructure — Self-driving cars will lower the cost of driving, which should lead to people driving (really, riding) a lot more. This will cause a lot of wear and tear on America’s road system. And if self-driving cars enable travel speeds of 100 mph+, that will make the problem even worse.
Pollution — Assuming self-driving cars increase the number and velocity of car trips, that will require a lot of energy. Ideally, self-driving cars will develop in tandem with cleaner electric cars, but even electric cars cause pollution.
Urban Design — We have optimized our cities for people-driven cars (think lots of traffic lights, intersections, and parking spaces). This design may not be ideal for self-driving cars in ways that we can forsee (too much parking) and ways that we cannot yet envision.
Traffic — With more cars on the road, rush hour could get really bad. My hope is that the volume of cars is offset by their throughput (if cars are moving twice as fast, we can get away with approximately twice as many cars on the road without increasing congestion). But it’s not totally clear how that will play out, especially if self-driving cars reduce the human cost of being in a traffic jam.
Fatalities — Self-driving car accidents might start to look like airplane accidents — rare, but when they happen, everyone dies.
I’m sure there are additional costs that I have not considered here. My strong belief, however, is that the benefits of self-driving cars will far outweigh the costs.
Originally published at www.davidincalifornia.com on September 17, 2015.
David Silver 