Autonomous Vehicles in 3Q24: A Pause, A Scandal, and a Fine

They’re still in the news, so what has been going on with driverless cars?

On July 23rd, we had two stories on the status of one manufacturer’s efforts.  In “GM indefinitely pauses Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle while it refocuses unit” (Daniella Genovese, Fox Business), the word was that General Motors would be “focusing their next autonomous vehicle on the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt, instead of the Origin, which had been facing regulatory uncertainty because of its unique design.”  Later that day, though, we saw that “G.M. Will Restart Cruise Taxi Operations” (Neal E. Boudette, The New York Times), a report that “General Motors said on Tuesday that its Cruise driverless-taxi division has restarted test operations in three Sun Belt cities, using self-driving cars with human safety drivers who will monitor the vehicles and intervene if needed.”  The second half of that sentence is important to note, as is the word “test,” necessary since “the vehicles will not carry paying passengers for now.”  No clear progress here.

How about one of GM’s competitors?  They produced a nuisance, as “Endless Honking of Waymo’s Driverless Taxis Wakes a Neighborhood” (Sara Ruberg, The New York Times, August 14^th).  This was about a Waymo-rented San Francisco parking lot used for the vehicles to “idle in then they weren’t making trips or charging.  But because the vehicles are programmed to honk when nearing other vehicles and then change directions, the more crowded the lot became, the more honks erupted.”  Whoops.  The company has said it has since “updated the software.”  Three weeks later, another piece asked, since “Waymo’s Robot Taxis Are Almost Mainstream.  Can They Now Turn a Profit?” (Eli Tan, The New York Times, September 4^th).  Lost in the autonomous follies has been news that “Waymo is now completing over 100,000 rides in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles – double the number in May.”  That’s highly favorable news, even if “robot taxi services are not profitable right now.”  As for other locations, “autonomous vehicle experts” see potential in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Hoboken, Westchester County, and “even Long Island.”

I’m calling this a scandal since the public was deceived, but perhaps it wasn’t, given the results above: “When Self-Driving Cars Don’t Actually Drive Themselves” (Cade Metz, The New York Times, published September 11^th and updated September 21^st.  The author, a long-time writer on autonomous transportation, reported that he had taken “his first ride in a self-driving car nearly a decade ago,” and then “felt a deep sense of awe that machines had mastered a skill that once belonged solely to humans.”  He realized afterwards that he was wrong, that such cars “could not yet match the power of the human brain,” and as of the article date “they still can’t.”  He checked out a Zoox “command center” which provided “help from human technicians” when “the company’s self-driving vehicles… struggle to drive themselves.”  Among other things, these as-needed operators rerouted impeded cars, and “all robot taxi companies operate command centers like” that one.  We knew about the shortcomings Metz also mentioned, such as the similarly misleading Tesla “full self-driving” technology that wasn’t, but more such misrepresentations will only serve to discourage people from thinking the current state is as good as it is.  Perhaps all companies need to do is to label it accurately.  For now, though, the author has discovered that the capabilities of autonomous vehicles “and so many other forms of artificial intelligence… are not as powerful as they first seem.  When we, the people, see a bit of human behavior in a machine, we tend to think, subconsciously, that it can do everything we can do.  But we should give ourselves more credit,” a point also made in similar-topic article “Self-driving cars have a dirty little secret,” by Frank Landymore on September 14^th in Futurism.com. 

A sad follow-up to General Motors’ problems above was that “Cruise, G.M.’s Self-Driving Unit, Will Pay $1.5 Million Federal Fine” (Jack Ewing, The New York Times, September 30^th).  That was for “failing to properly report an accident in which one of its self-driving taxis severely injured a pedestrian last year.”  That’s not a lot of money in this industry, and I hope it will not slow the company.  We’re still looking at almost 40,000 driver-caused deaths per year, and we need to stay focused on ending that.

Kamala Harris for President

After most of this one-of-a-kind campaign, reminiscent of 1968 but hardly the same, we’re 18 days away from making our presidential decisions.  The right choice is no foggier than it was last time.

The Republican nominee in 2020 and election winner in 2016 runs again as the first major-party choice to stand for a third time since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.  That’s not the problem, and his age, 78, which would make him older on Inauguration Day than any other president, isn’t the main one either.  Donald Trump has more flaws and disqualifying characteristics than any Democratic or Republican nominee I have seen since I started following campaigns with Nixon-Humphrey.  He is a convicted felon who has consistently shown he does not want to follow our laws and Constitution.  He has a bizarre, apparently insatiable sweet tooth for lying, way beyond any of his competitors even in this often-sordid profession.  He has shown affinity with the world’s dictators, while saying many things indicating he would strive to be one himself.  He has threatened legal and even military retribution against those taking lawful measures to stop him.  His attitudes toward women, over a wide spectrum of areas, are disastrous.  His delusions, such as him being the true 2020 winner, which he has often insisted be supported by those working with him, have persisted.  And on jobs and the economy, his proposed extensive and expensive tariffs would drastically worsen both.

Nothing reported in news sources has been able to reverse the Trump tide.  His advocates have remained impervious to these issues, even when they are shown to be the truth.  And others have expressed a willingness to pollsters to join his side.  The reasons for his popularity will be discussed for decades or centuries to come, but common sense or prudent judgment will not be among them.  Some of his heavy contributors are extremely wealthy, expecting to save tens or hundreds or millions of dollars on his likelihood of taxing them less, but that does not make them worthy of emulation by the rest of us.  Perhaps the largest lesson of the 20^th century was that those who people find charismatic may lead us in devastatingly wrong directions, and caution about Trump seems a clear response.

His opponent, Kamala Harris, is a former district attorney who is currently the vice president.  She has shortcomings, but has shown in public appearances to be sober, reasonable, lawful, and almost always truthful.  We don’t know exactly how well she would work out, but it is obvious that her downside is vastly smaller.  As contrasted with her opponent, who has been described as a weak man’s idea of a strong man, Harris is forceful without being abrasive, and will work with politicians on both sides.  That is what we need in 2025 and beyond.

The best justification for a Trump vote I have heard was from one who said he was a reprehensible person, but she was not choosing a friend.  I don’t buy that, since the world is too dangerous, and our allies too valuable, for us to pick someone who needs to be contained.  And we still have a large nuclear arsenal with which the president would have great scope.  Junkyard dogs can be mean, but presidents need not be.

I have not mentioned Harris’s or Trump’s running mates, but both seem fair choices.  Either Tim Walz or J.D. Vance would rate to be adequate if circumstances put them into the top job, and, in the case of Vance, would get the presidency in steadier hands.  There is also little here about either candidate’s meager list of proposed policies, since that is not what this election is about. 

As of yesterday morning, the PredictIt site showed its contributors giving a combined five-point winning-percentage advantage to Trump.  We can do better, and massive amounts of safety and prosperity may depend on whether we do.  We need look only at what news and information sources, even including those generally favorable to his cause, say the realities are.  If this registered Republican who might have chosen a conservative nominee from that party can avoid him, so can you.  And please vote. 

Royal Flush Press endorses Kamala Harris for president.

A Strong Jobs Report Gathered Before the Interest Rate Cut, with AJSN Showing Latent Demand Almost a Million Lower

Commentary I read before this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary’s release said that it would be a critical installment, mainly because of the effect it would have on the Federal Reserve’s two remaining 2024 interest rate decisions.

It turned out to show real improvement.  The number of net new nonfarm payroll positions exceeded its 150,000 consensus estimate with 254,000.  Seasonally adjusted unemployment dropped another 0.1% to 4.1%, the same place it was three months before.  There were 6.8 million unemployed people, down 300,000, and the unadjusted rate fell from 4.4% to 3.9%, some but not all due to seasonality.  The count of people working part-time for economic reasons, or keeping such jobs while thus far unsuccessfully seeking longer-hours ones, erased the last report’s 200,000 gain, going back to 4.6 million.  Those officially unemployed and looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, though, gained 100,000 to 1.6 million.  The unadjusted number of employed grew 700,000 to 162,046,000.  The two best measures of how many people are working or one step away, the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate, gained 0.2% and stayed the same to reach 60.2% and 62.7%.  Average private nonfarm payroll earnings increased 15 cents, almost double the effect of inflation, to $35.36.  More people continued to leave the labor force, with those claiming no interest gaining almost 600,000 to add to last time’s 1.3 million, reaching 94,920,000.

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, the Royal Flush Press measure showing how many additional positions could be quickly filled if all knew they would be easy to get, lost 980,000, as follows:

The effect of fewer people officially jobless was responsible for 800,000 of the drop, and those interested but not looking for a year or more cut off another 340,000.  Gains in the second through sixth categories above offset that by 150,000.  The share of the AJSN from those unemployed fell 2.6% to 35.3%.  Compared with a year before, the AJSN has increased 433,000, almost exactly that amount from those officially unemployed. 

What happened here?  Still many more new positions than we can expect, and that along with continued workforce departures assured our unemployment-rate’s lowering.  The job market is healthy, but hardly overheated.  That means the Federal Reserve ball will go back to the inflation court, and then back to the next jobs report on November 1st, five days before the next Fed meeting starts.  We are very much in the hunt for another quarter-point decrease, but more than that, considering the progress above, is less likely.  The turtle did, this time, take a moderate step forward.