HACKER Q&A
📣 alexander2002

Why dont we have more Remote Controlled Driving Cars?


Hi,Isnt it cheaper to have a person in a cheap country drive a car remotely. By Driving,I mean monitor the Self-Driving Car and take over the auto-pilot incase of some fatal error.I dont mean that the Person Drives all the time remotely.

Kind of like a VA but for self-driving car

Edit:The Correct Term might be tele-driving

  👤 42lux Accepted Answer ✓
Latency and I don't know who would really be confident in a driver that works "oversea" when everyone hates on these workers when they just need to talk with them on the phone. Besides all the working condition shit... but yay let's exploit them even more because you are to inconvined to drive your car around that costs as much as they make in a decade or worse.
👤 kstenerud
Because the first rule of data communications is that it goes down at the worst possible moment. No matter what, you can't win.

Scenario 1:

You're driving remotely and the connection goes down. The car then crashes into something.

Scenario 2:

You get clever: Whenever the connection goes down, the car automatically stops. The connection goes down, and the car now stops in the middle of an intersection, or the onramp to a ferry, or blocking emergency vehicles.

Scenario 3:

You get even more clever: Whenever the connection goes down, the car seeks a safe place to stop. The connection goes down, and the car runs over a collapsed pedestrian while looking for a safe place to stop.

You can't win.

👤 beardyw
> have a person in a cheap country

So, some sort of remote colonialism. Better be sure they don't rebel.

👤 mytailorisrich
This is a use-case for some key 5G features: low latency and extremely high reliability.
👤 h2odragon
It wasn't an idea that could be sold until cars had the hardware for remote control; which only came into being with the "self driving" hype storm.

When you say "remote control", though; the issues of trust come up in people mind. Those issues should exists when its onboard software you're trusting, too; but humans don't see it that way as easily.

How can you trust that your car isn't being driven by some methed up teenager playing 14 games of "carmageddon" at once for a "click farm" type arrangement?

... It never occurs to people to ask "how can i trust this software is better at carmageddon than the 14 year old?"

👤 lampposthotdog
Your remote employee driver idea is probably the single worst thought in human history.

But it might be cool if I'm at the bar getting schwilly and then I call my mom to remote control me home.