The last part, again, we could already do, but usually choose not to. Its called "timed lights". Cities don't often invest in it, cause having regular lights is cheaper and easier... Is a city which isn't willing to spend the money on a timed light system any more likely to spring for an entire network interface with cars?
Again, Bakari, you're looking at how AI can do things humans do, without considering that they won't need to.
Traffic lights will be obsolete, because all vehicles will know where all other vehicles are. They will weave around one another according to set rules and never crash. They might become stationery when there is a huge volume of traffic. But it won't be traffic lights telling them what to do. They will know.
I'm not saying that vision of fully networked AI traffic isn't technically possible, I'm saying that not everything possible gets implemented. We have a mostly car based society. Yet there is no universal law that says bikes and pedestrians, or even horse drawn carriages, are all banned from all public roadways. In Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana its common to see horse drawn buggies on the street.
What reason do we have to assume that one day soon 100% of the population is going to go out and buy full AI cars with no possibility for driver input? No one will bike or walk or ride a horse, or even keep their old car, ever again? That does not seem remotely realistic, at least not in the forseeable future.
Someone who buys a new car in 2018 is going to go along with it when in 2028 the federal government decides all cars operated by humans are now banned on all public roadways?
This is a democracy. And people don't make decisions based purely on what is the most rational approach to benefit society as a whole in the long run.
Which means that intersections in cities still need to accommodate flesh brains which don't have access to the traffic-net that AI taps into.
In other words: street lights and stop signs.
My point in mentioning timed lights was that many of the benefits of networked cars could
already easily be implemented with
today's technology, and yet it isn't done.
Private auto manufacturers will not be able to implement a fully autonomous traffic-net which includes re-configuring all traffic laws, independent of government, even if there was any economic incentive for them to. Which there isn't.
As for your concerns about people giving up privacy, for example regarding surveillance cameras, I really think people care less about privacy than they think. Most people, in general, want 'privacy'. But think how much information millions of people willingly give to Facebook, or Google. And all they get in return is a bit of entertainment and questions answered quickly.
It isn't my concern!
I just don't think having cameras on you 24/7, including in your personal bedroom, in all bathrooms public and private, and literally all other places, is equivalent to the information we give to facebook or cameras in public areas.
What I write keeps being taken out of context. That comment was in response to the claim that there will be no crime in the future because everyone will be guaranteed to be caught. Plenty of crime happens in personal homes, including bedrooms and bathrooms.
While I agree that tech will develop faster than most people think, many on this thread seem to think that tech is the ONLY factor in shaping society, and that anything which is technically possible will definitely happen.
All the technologies we already have, that aren't implemented in every way they could conceivably be, is proof enough that it isn't.