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OP t1_is1dq8t wrote

This actually might work and has a certain aesthetic that appeal to certain demographics. Would look great on a VW bug for example. From the article itself this is what it has to say.

>No matter how many cameras or sensors they use, autonomous cars will never be perfect, but research coming out of Japan suggests that a simple upgrade could help reduce the risk of self-driving cars hitting undetected pedestrians: a pair of animated googly eyes that make it obvious what the vehicle has or hasn’t spotted.

one issue I can see is that if the eyes malfunction and someone gets hit then that can lead to a lawsuit. Innovative though.

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t1_is1f394 wrote

Replying to Give_me_the_science (#86,923)

Unsupervised kids and Instagrammers getting a closer look are going to get hit left and right. Like, I love her but my 8 year old would definitely jump into traffic to get a better look at a car with huge googly eyes. Her survival instincts are way behind.

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t1_is1h97m wrote

Inspector Gadget's car has come to life. Would look terrifying on Christine.

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t1_is1h9jk wrote

I vote all cars of the future have eyes like the Catbus.

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t1_is1iiag wrote

Or, and hear me out now, how about we maybe cater to the people who aren’t in a multi-ton death machine?

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t1_is1jcbf wrote

I love it! And I think it's brilliant. Eye contact is key to how we avoid running into other people

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t1_is1kpht wrote

Truly, how many of the world's problems couldn't be improved by big googly eyes?

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t1_is1lmdo wrote

The following submission statement was provided by :

This actually might work and has a certain aesthetic that appeal to certain demographics. Would look great on a VW bug for example. From the article itself this is what it has to say.

>No matter how many cameras or sensors they use, autonomous cars will never be perfect, but research coming out of Japan suggests that a simple upgrade could help reduce the risk of self-driving cars hitting undetected pedestrians: a pair of animated googly eyes that make it obvious what the vehicle has or hasn’t spotted.

one issue I can see is that if the eyes malfunction and someone gets hit then that can lead to a lawsuit. Innovative though.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/y282mv/big_googly_eyes_could_make_autonomous_cars_safer/is1dq8t/

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t1_is1xao5 wrote

What if we just had more walkable cities and more bikeable areas as well. Really we design cities too much around cars

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t1_is23420 wrote

Replying to silentlycritical (#87,161)

But.. that is what vehicles are, we are talking about autonomous vehicles here. I have a heart for r/fuckcars too, but this is part of the future and a better future at least for some period of time in some places.

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t1_is2556m wrote

So if the passengers in the car are hot boxing, will the googly pupils get bigger and stop rolling around?

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t1_is25ow7 wrote

Replying to HumanSeeing (#88,093)

Putting googly eyes on a car shifts the responsibility of safety from the thing that kills people to the thing getting killed. It’s a cop out to avoid taking responsibility for designing and building a car that’s safe for anyone not driving (or riding in) that car. So yea, fuck cars, but also fuck the auto industry for always shifting blame and responsibility to pedestrians.

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t1_is2klpd wrote

Or maybe just put a neon sign on the front bumper that says "Robot behind the wheel, take cover". Same effect. This technology shouldn't be on public streets, honestly.

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t1_is2p2h3 wrote

Replying to silentlycritical (#88,195)

I think, or at least hope, that the idea is to use "eye contact" to help communicate things to pedestrians and other drivers, since that is something lots of people do now when both parties are human.

It's something to consider with self driving cars. There's lots of non verbal queues you can get with a person behind the wheel that we need to think about. It's probably going to be some combination of new rules and communication tools for the vehicles.

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t1_is2srhz wrote

And now, the mystery of the Cars universe’s origins has finally been solved

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t1_is32oig wrote

Replying to silentlycritical (#88,195)

This is absurd.

Electric cars are very quiet. Adding external sounds has been contemplated to help alert pedestrians to the presence of the car, and that's certainly not a cop out.

This is no different, except it's 100 times awesomer.

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t1_is3557j wrote

Winston Churchill once said, "The eyes are the windows of your face."

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t1_is36jep wrote

What a asinine idea. At least they’ll get a good laugh before getting hit.

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t1_is36yzg wrote

Oh my god this is why they start the war against humanity.

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t1_is37y2w wrote

Replying to HumanSeeing (#88,093)

It would be perfect to take these cars and have them communicate with each other in such a way that they can perfectly sync with each other and make identical, pre-planned moves through traffic, lined up one after the other. We could even put them underground so they don't have to wait for traffic lights. If we did something like that, no one would even need to OWN a car because they could just roam around the city in perfect sync autonomously all the time. We could sell tickets to ride them and have underground stations where you would board and leave them. Man the future could be so bright!

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t1_is39oga wrote

Replying to JebusLives42 (#89,658)

It's also a more globally workable idea than "just rebuild every urban area in the world to be more walkable" which sure, might be feasible on a local level, but beyond that would be an enormous undertaking which would take decades and require societal restructuring away from the current designed division of industrial, commercial and residential developments.

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t1_is3fdud wrote

Replying to alc4pwned (#90,124)

Yeah, I'm one of them. Living in a dense urban environment is notably worse for my general mental well-being than living in a detached, suburban house with a garden.

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t1_is3r44w wrote

The system has an unfortunate glitch: the eyeballs tend to stare at breasts.

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t1_is3t20l wrote

That is terrifying. And just in time for Halloween 👻

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t1_is3zc1m wrote

Replying to buffalorocks (#89,881)

And since rubber on asphalt is terribly inefficient, we could swap out the tires with steel wheels and road surface with steels rails that would also help guide this series of interconnected cars.

−1

t1_is4exgk wrote

Replying to buffalorocks (#89,881)

and the people living in the countryside can just teleport to the cities and their stations. How perfect would that be!? /s

​

mabey try not to be so condescending while you try to win people over with your arguments? Acting like the subway magicaly resolves all our traffic problems...

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t1_is4njjj wrote

Seriously clever idea. I can definetly see some form of this being the norm, maybe some kind of indication what pedestrians or bikers or dogs the car is aware of, displayed on the outside. Via small lights or some such. The eyes would potentially look too friendly for kids imo.

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t1_is5mee5 wrote

This will only work until people get used to it. Once it's normalized it'll stop being noticed. Unless there's some weird thing in the brain that forces us to see faces more readily. Which actually I think maybe there is. So never mind, why am I posting this?

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t1_is5wnc6 wrote

Of course this will stop pedestrian accidents. Seeing one of those monsters staring directly into your soul as it approaches at 60+ miles an hour is enough for anyone to keep a healthy distance away.

In all seriousness though, it probably helps grab the attention of people more than the front of a normal car alone just having large white visible eyes. Humans are great at face detection.

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t1_isuxa9d wrote

Let's be honest, this would be a bit creepy. Imagine waiting at a crosswalk, and looking to the left and seeing a car with the googly eyes focused on your and they slowly track you as you walk across the street.

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