New work here STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

LING 102-002

Bethany Stallings

October 5, 2012

Summary and Critique of Sources Final Draft

On the Road with Google Driverless Car

Google Driverless Car is the latest project by Google to create self-maneuvering cars. Google Driverless Car is also known as autonomous car or driverless vehicle. Many people are curious about this new technology and how can it affect today’s society. I chose three separate articles to critique. They are “New Found Freedom with Driverless Cars” by Bradley Keyes, “Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment” by Beverly Lu and Matthew Moore, and lastly “Take the Wheel” by Sarah Rich. I chose these three articles because they each look at the Google Driverless Car from different aspects.

Summary (New Found Freedom with Driverless Cars)

Essentially this article talks about how autonomous cars will impact the non-driving community. Among all the articles I have read, this is my favorite. It offers a unique standpoint to the impact of Google Driverless Car. The non-driving community consists of the elderly, blind, injured, handicapped, and the young. Autonomous cars will allow all of these people to be on the road again without having them to take control of the car. It takes away the responsibility of driving but offers them the freedom to go places on their own and the liberty to pick the destination. It is indeed an interesting viewpoint that I will talk more about in my research paper.

Review/Critique (New Found Freedom with Driverless Cars)

The explicit meaning of the first paragraph is there are over 10% or 30 million people who do not own a drivers license. The implicit meaning is that this represents the demographic that the autonomous car industry will seek to attract. The article categorized the non-driving community into three categories: The Elderly, The Handicapped and The Young. In the first paragraph under “The Elderly and Driverless Cars”, the author seeks to appeal to the reader’s sense of emotion and persuade them of the pain of the elderly that are not allowed to drive anymore. It was a very good point indeed, because it sends a strong message to the children of the elderly to consider letting their parents get in the driver seat again. Under “Automated Cars and the Young”, the author suggests we “imagine ourselves being able to call up a car, on demand, to pick up both your children and their friends or teammates. It’s an on-the-fly, mini-car pool. It can save the parents and children time, cut down on the numbers of vehicle on the road, and it helps to give the children a new independence” (Keyes, 2012, p.3). I find that this statement offers a false sense of assurance and it’s a slippery slope to suggest letting children gain control of the vehicle and direction on the road. It is highly unlikely for parents to allow their kids to be in a vehicle by themselves for fear that they do not have the maturity and intelligence to maneuver a car. Besides, it is illegal for parents to leave their children in the vehicle. So this argument is very unrealistic and I am not convinced by it. The article as a whole opens a market for Google to market their product. The elderly and handicapped are valid opportunities, but the young prove to be an invalid suggestion.

Summary (Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment)

The authors of this article seek to answer the question of “where this technology fits into today’s personal vehicle marketplace” (Lu & Moore, 2011, p.1). This article covers the viewpoint of many experts in various industries on the Google driverless car. It covers many areas of the autonomous car industry and it explores different perspectives and viewpoints. It discusses the term “required human intervention” and “negative liabilities.” The article invites both praise and criticism of the product and this helps the article be less biased. It talks about the vision of some pioneers for the future of the product as well, which is to see autonomous cars on the road as soon as possible. Predictions of how soon the autonomous driving technology be used in other industries are made by several experts.

Review/Critique (Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment)

The authors of this assessment have interviewed over 11 experts from various industries and used 26 references from various sources. It shows that they have put in much effort to write a reliable assessment. An outstanding section in this assessment is the “technical opinions from the experts”. Ethos is present because it includes opinions and findings made by experts in various part of society. To offer a comparison of the autonomous car, one professor, Clifford Nass, from Stanford University gave a good illustration that “it took a long time for people to develop trust in air transportation, something that we almost take for granted now” (Lu & Moore, 2011, p.5). Air transportation is one of the most common ways to travel in today’s society. To think that there was a time when people can’t travel globally in planes is unimaginable. Professor Nass is trying to use that as an example to encourage people to put their trust in autonomous cars. “Professor Sebastian Thurn noted in his 2011 TED Talk that he looks forward to a future where people look back and wonder why humans ever thought to drive cars themselves” (Lu & Moore, 2011, p.10). This inspirational statement offers the unique viewpoint of one of the leading pioneers of autonomous car technology. Many experts argue that the autonomous car can be in the market in less than 10 years. But this seems a little far-fetched. The article is sending a hopeful message that the technology is advancing at a faster pace than it actually is. What is most likely to occur is the continual implementation of component technologies such as the adaptive cruise control and emergency braking system. This technology still face legal issues, safety issues, society perception and economic value; the implementation of this new technology relies on all of these issues being solved.

Summary (Take the Wheel)

According to the article, Nevada was the first state in America and the world to approve the test driving of autonomous car on their public streets and roads. It also mentions that Nevada passed a law in July 2011 requiring the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to adopt regulations that would authorize the use of autonomous vehicles on the state highways. It will become the first state in the US to pioneer the driverless car project, and will see the first batch of driverless car on its roads in the years to come. California is trying to imitate Nevada by developing regulations for safety testing and autonomous cars to be on the state roads.

Review/Critique (Take the Wheel)

The author uses the Nevada state regulation definition of autonomous vehicle. It states that an autonomous vehicle is “a motor vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator” (Rich, 2012, p.1). Then it goes into process analysis of the licensing procedures for autonomous car companies. Several predictions for when the product will hit the market were mentioned by the author, in which I will talk about in the compare/contrast section below. A picture of the technical components of the Google Driverless Car was inserted to give the readers an illustration of the technology used. Among all the articles I read, I find this article by Sarah Rich the most controversial. There were some contradictions and mistakes with the statistical numbers.

Compare/Contrast

Keyes offers some very interesting viewpoints that are counter-cultural in the “New Found Freedom with Driverless Car.” Allowing the elderly, handicapped and young to drive is unheard of. But the Google Driverless Car is able to do so with its technology. It causes people to wonder what the future will look like as the roadways will be filled with more people. The article “Take the Wheel” written by Sarah Rich was inconsistent with the number of miles Google Driverless Car has logged in California. In one section it said it has logged 140,000 miles, but in another section it states more than 200,000 miles. The DMV of Nevada requires only 100,000 miles of prior autonomous vehicle operation. Another contradiction I found was the predictions of when the autonomous cars will hit the market. Nevada DMV Director Bruce Breslow predicts it to be out in two to five years, which seems a little too ambitious and there is a burden of proof. As for the author of the bill, Senator Alex Padilla, he thinks it won’t be publicly available until 2020 (Rich, 2012, p.2). In “Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment”, the former CEO for General Motors Rick Wagoner predicts “commercial production of an autonomous car by 2018” (Lu & Moore, 2011, p.11). Three different experts, from three different fields, gave three different opinions, but all seem hopeful to see an autonomous car on the roads soon. Another contradiction I found in “Take the Wheel” was when the author states that “companies like Google have tested driverless car technology in the past, but none has officially announced that it will apply to test driverless car technology under Nevada’s new regulations” (Rich, 2012, p.2). But in “Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment”, the assessment entails that Google was pioneering the motion to pass a bill in Nevada for autonomous car. “In regards to Google’s recent lobbyist activity in Nevada clarified that the bill under consideration in that state aims to shift licensing from the driver to the vehicle” (Lu & Moore, 2011, p.6). Seeing as Beverly Lu and Matthew Moore have done more research and used more references, I am more inclined to believe their statements.

Hopefully with analyzing more articles I can learn the English linguistic writing style and different rhetoric tools used in their writing. These three articles gave good points and facts. Though there were some contradictions and mistakes, they were still well-written and I will still used some of their points as a reference. In “New Found Freedom with Driverless Cars”, the author needs to rethink the possibility of putting kids on the road. It sounds like a very dangerous thing to do. I will use “Autonomous Vehicles for Personal Transport: A Technology Assessment” as my main source of information because it has a lot of useful primary and secondary information. As for “Take the Wheel,” the author has to recalculate her statistics and reach a more consistent answer in picking a prediction date of the Google Driverless Car entering the automotive market. From reading these articles, I can learn to develop my own writing skills in a more reader-friendly style.

References

Keyes, B. (2012). “New found freedom with driverless cars.” Driverless World. Active