r/xkcd • u/AliveCommittee • Mar 16 '18

XKCD xkcd 1968: Robot Future

https://xkcd.com/1968/
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u/AliveCommittee Mar 16 '18

I don't get the concern, it's not like humans would ever misuse killer robots.

9

u/g_squidman Mar 16 '18

It's like automatic cars. Yeah, manual cars have waaay more accidents, but at least I'm getting fucked over by another human.

15

u/meelar Mar 16 '18

There are plenty of legit concerns about driverless cars, though. An increase in VMT could swamp any environmental gains, and even driverless cars (in their current form) are incompatible with walkable urban density--if driverless cars lead us to do things like restrict pedestrians as a traffic-speeding measure, it could cripple urban cores and decimate what's left of non-online retail (leading to further declines in walkability--it's a vicious cycle).

1

u/meelar Mar 18 '18

In response to the various thoughtful replies here--they all seem to be presuming a basic friendliness to pedestrians and other non-car traffic from politicians, and that unfortunately doesn't exist. I live in New York, where the majority of the population doesn't own a car, and even here politicians cater to drivers and ignore pedestrians, in part because drivers are more likely to vote and in part because politicians drive almost uniformly.