Here's a possibility. I'm not saying they will do this. It's just an illustration of what someone controlling the software in a fleet of self-driving cars could do.
You summon a self-driving taxi to take you to Bob's Bistro--known throughout the city for its steaks, and your call is serviced by a car using Google self-driving software. Google knows who you are and knows where you are going.
The car's route planner determines that there is a route that is within 10% of optimal that takes the car past Sam's Steakhouse, and Sam is currently paying for a Google ad campaign targeted at self-driving passengers. The car takes you past Sam's where Sam has a hard-to-miss sign touting reviews that say his steaks are better than Bob's.
Google is clever so the car might even time this so that you'll hit a red light in front of Sam's to give you a better chance of seeing Sam's sign. If the sign is electronic the message you see comparing Sam's to Bob's might even be specifically targeted at you. A moment later when the next cab goes by, carrying a passenger to Carl's Crab Shack, that sign might have a message touting Sam's amazing surf'n'turf compared to Carl's.
Right now, you go to Google when you want to drive more traffic to your website. With self-driving vehicles, you'll go to Google when you want to drive more traffic to your brick and mortar site.
This is a pretty paranoid and far-fetched scenario.
Generally, I'd expect that an automated taxi would operate under rules similar to current taxis - the obligation would be to take the customer to the destination via the most direct route specified, unless otherwise directed.
Taking someone on another route might constitute kidnapping - you're essentially transporting them against their will to somewhere they did not ask to go.
I didn't read the parent as paranoid at all. I thought it was pretty cool.
Further, wrt the optimal/most direct route thing:
* the algorithm could be tweaked to "adpresence" en-route fairly easily
* "most direct route" is an ambiguous term. There could be two routes that involve almost same distance in miles, but the slightly longer one is likely to take less time. Which constitutes most direct? It turns into an optimization problem, possibly with no obviously optimal point (particularly when you account for fuzziness needed to deal with unexpected traffic patterns, accidents, etc).
* Finally, the ad-laden route could be a free ride, whereas the "direct" route could be paid. This may or may not get around regulations, but as long as the time delta was not significantly bad, I would choose the ad route.
There's a crucial difference between what you're proposing and what the parent suggests - user choice. At least as I read the parent, he's not saying you're given a choice of what route, etc. That seems like a crucial distinction to leave out if he meant that it would be at the request of the user.
There is a crucial difference also between what you are responding to, and what I said. I am not necessarily proposing the user choice should be followed or is even necessary. It is just a possible variation on the theme.
If you get in a cab and say "take me to $x" it is the cab driver's responsibility to take the best route. However, since metering is distance AND time based, there is a lot of wiggle room in what best route means. It is always an optimisation problem, and relies on imperfect data of the future conditions of the route. Further, in most american cities, there are many routes that are no more or less direct, as a result of the grid system. Therefore the car taking you on the route that goes past paid displays is not kidnapping. It is choosing 1 of n equivalent routes - the one most profitable for the operator, while still meeting the criteria of the user.
Further, even with advanced traffic and condition understanding available to a robotic car, the ability to choose optimal path will probably improve significantly, even when the small fudge factor to go past advertising is accounted for. So what if it is 30s less optimal on your ride to go past the advertised place, when the human cabbie would have chosen a route adding 5 minutes?
"If you get in a cab and say "take me to $x" it is the cab driver's responsibility to take the best route. "
Obviously this can vary by municipality, but in most cities drivers are required to take the "most direct" route, rather than the "best" route, if for no other reason than the latter would be so subjective as to be useless for enforcement purposes.
So if you're in a New York taxi (for example), the driver in theory isn't allowed to take you off the most direct route without your permission, even if another path would be faster.
I'm at (1,1) and I want to get to (4,4). Assuming a restrictive interpretation of most direct[1] and no one-way streets factored in[2], there are still two equally direct and valid paths:
(1,1) -> (1,4) -> (4,4)
and
(1,1) -> (4,1) -> (4,4)
Which is most direct? If the cab driver chooses to go with the later because his buddy pays him to go past the billboard at (3,1), what's to stop him? What's wrong with that?
[1] If most direct means "shortest path", then there are many more equivalent routes.
[2] One way streets also offer a nice choice of where to do turns around a block under favorable circumstances. Similarly road construction offers extra choices by detour.
I'd assume that a driverless taxi would have an "I want to get out, please drop me off at the next safe opportunity" as well as some method of disputing the fare.
Besides, it would not necessarily even have to redirect you past a different location, it could just stream an advert to the speakers in the car.
It could also be possible that some routes would be subsidized, like you could enter the location of one restaurant and a rival restaurant could offer to cover your fare if you went to them instead.
Another aspect is that you would need an easy way to split the fare amongst multiple passengers, I almost never take a taxi if I am traveling alone.
Cabs already stream ads once the meter starts in many cities, so that's not new, nor is fare sharing - New York has had it for decades.
I'm sure any driverless cab would have the ability to ask to get out, but technically one might argue you're kidnapping someone as soon as you take them off the route they requested for any reason, if if there's an "opt-out"... at the level of an individual cab ride and human driver it's moot, but if you're operating a fleet of thousands of cabs, doing that over millions of rides, it could easily turn into a class-action suit.
What do you think a bunch of people in self driving cars with smartphones or personal wifi hotspots are going to do? Surf the internet, and therefore use more of Google's products. It's similar to Chrome or Android in that it enables more people to use Google's core services which they make money off of.
- Active internal displays that push ads based on detailed mapping information.
- Delivering you to a particular location after you look it up on Google. What's the Price per Delivery (PPD) on AdWords?
I dont work for Google, so I dont know. I'd imagine some projects aren't all about the strategic long term "money plan," rather that strategic long term "people plan." This is a cool project, and Google might just want to give talented people an outlet for their creativity. They work on this fun-project (and are having a good time so they don't want to leave Google), and they also work on another project that actually brings in money. Moreover, a project like signals prestige to outsiders (which attracts more talented people). Plain and simple
It'll give them very accurate information on where people are travelling from and to - much as Google Maps directions/navigation does, but on a much more precise and reliable scale.
Bear in mind that there's a completely alternative model for car ownership; with fully automated vehicles, there's no absolute requirement for people to 'buy' a car - there could be shared metropolitan resources of cars, which would arrive and pick you up 'on demand' (much like a shared taxi service, subsided by subscription)
Also, given that Google would probably know the locations of all the cars at any point in time, they could also get very, very detailed traffic flow information. This they could use to further optimize traffic - i.e. load-balancing traffic through different routes - but also this could potentially be sold to other transit agencies, or even tied to demographic data to suggest where stores should open new premises.
Probably some more ideas/data sources and uses in here that I haven't considered too :)
Everything except for some of the Google X Labs projects, of which this is one.
I'm going to take an optimistic tack and say they're doing this for the PR benefits of being seen as creating new technology that gives people tools they never thought they could have, somewhat like Microsoft has done with the Kinect.
Microsoft made bank with the kinect. Also, google is in serious danger of being killed by facebook (more data = better search results), so google needs another huge profit stream. Running the entire transportation infrastructure can be that (there will be competitors, but with google's superior tech talent, their vehicles will be safer and hence win).
If I were them, I would just run the vehicles as a fleet. The have many billions in cash and borrow any amount, so why not. Then innovate on the maintenance of the fleet with robots as well. Maybe start with franchising. Plus, they automatically set the rates for each individual journey dynamically and extract as much as possible.
More likely downvoted for making an unsubstantiated generalization - Google is a huge company with hundreds of products and projects, while many of them may connect to advertising / data mining, there are lots that don't.
Yeah, there is literally no chance that they're pursuing this because it will be a multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry selling hardware to people and changing the world for the better.
It must be because they have some dire plan to find out where I get my tacos!
How does self-driving cars fit in to Google's plans?
ETA: Downvoted for asking a serious question? WTH?