Passing on the notice further below from the Belmont Information Technology Advisory Committee regarding an informative meeting on Monday, June 10.
I happened to visit Sasaki Associates in Watertown today and they shared this interesting site exploring how autonomous vehicles might affect urban design.
Another issue worth raising in this context is how much data self-driving cars will be sharing with their manufacturers and others about their riders — they will likely be very connected and there is a potential for additional surveillance.
I won’t be able to get to the discussion, but I hope someone asks WHY autonomous cars are being pushed down our throats when nobody outside of the tech and auto industries seems to want them. They will be expensive, unreliable, afflict pedestrians and cyclists, and kill jobs in the transportation sector. It feels like Asimov’s laws of robotics are being inverted to let robots rule us. Some people are already pushing back: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/681752256/why-phoenix-area-residents-are-attacking-waymos-self-driving-fleet
Rather than accommodating AVs, cities and towns should be resisting them.