As long as the device is safe, yes. As long as a device is statistically safer than a human, yes.
Would I let 20 kids sit in a room for two hours unsupervised? No. Should a school bus full of kids be supervised by someone who is supposed to be driving? No. Should the school bus driver be sending texts while driving, and while supervising 30 kids? No.
Don't know how many people on HN have ever driven a school bus full of kids, but its a lot more than "Point A to Point B". Its fairly common for kids in K-6 to not know:
- Home Address
- Home/Parents Phone Number
- Last Name (you'd be surprised at how common this was)
Thats not to mention what to do in the event of an emergency. Just play out the follow events in your mind with a bus full of kids and no trained adults:
Young kids in the US are usually addressed by first name at home and at school, so maybe they simply do not get enough practice with their last name to automatically remember it?
I bet that with most kids who don't remember when you ask them their last name would remember if you asked them what people like appliance repair people, exterminators, receptionists at the doctor's office, or their parents' bosses call their parents. They may hear those enough to remember them.
Sure.
1. Put a bus monitor in an official looking uniform on the bus instead of a bus driver.
2. Have the bus route programmed into the bus.
3. Have each student badge/scan in to the bus, and determine which stops to make based on that.
4. Announce which student the stop is for, and have them badge/scan out.
5. Have a (opt-in) system that can alert parents if the student fails to scan in to the bus on the prescribed route.
This system could also be used for management of permission slips for students going home with friends, and help homeroom teachers determine which students came to school, but decided to skip class.
Can't help but concur, indeed. Sadly, I feel that I need to warn my children against this now. Plenty of harmless, curiosity-minded things that I did in high school 15 years ago could potentially result in a prison sentence these days. =(
So many obstacles to this working! Vandalism, no adult supervision, even the extremely goofy design point that it can go forward or backward - both ends can be the front end - so others in traffic can be completely fooled about where its going next. Let's put our kids in a problematic tin can and make it move erratically! Not a genius idea.
You say that like those are impossible obstacles. It's been a while since I rode a school bus, but the driver wasn't exactly adult supervision, and there was plenty of vandalism already. If anything, a self-driving school bus would be a positive as it would then allow the former driver to actually focus on the kids.
Not sure I agree with the idea that others could be fooled by where it's going in traffic, given that it's programmed to obey traffic laws.
Adult supervision for extraordinary events (fire, collision, sick kid) is very feasible on an ordinary bus. We're not talking singing songs around the campfire, but a baseline of a responsible adult is very important.
It is always highly amusing when Silly Valley engineers pontificate on life outside their engineering bubble. The idea of the self driving adult free school bus is brought to you by the same people who brought you Juicero and Bodega.
If there is no driver to pay it probably doesn't make sense to put 20 or 30 kids on one bus.
Around here (a larger rural county) there are kids that ride the bus for really long periods of time, like more than an hour each way. Much of that time is picking up other kids. I mean, I fully expect penny pinching to win the day, but it would be evil not to take the lower operating costs of a self driving vehicle and give it to those kids as time.
Part of the problem with doing that is that it's not quite about filling the bus before going to school. It's usually done because there's only so many buses and they have to get X number of kids to the school on them, so the routes they take end up with some kids getting on and then riding for so long. That said more smaller self driving buses would help in dealing with that, which they can't do now due to the extra cost in personnel costs for drivers, but it'd also need cheaper buses to be able to afford enough of them. I'd also then expect them to try to convince other normal staff members to also ride the bus and act as a monitor instead of driving in themselves to further reduce costs.
I remember walking to school myself when I was six, and taking a regular city bus every day since age seven. It was fine, never had a problem really.
A self-driving bus from door to door would have been fun... But on the other hand, getting familiar with the city environment by walking was useful at that age too.
(This was in Finland. I know Americans don't really let their kids outside on their own anymore.)
I live in America and went to school in rural New York. We walked to school in elementary (primary?) even when it snowed. The only kids who got to ride a bus were unable to walk (broken legs etc). 30 years ago, but friends in my home town say kids still walk!
Knowing how many school bus accident there are, between sleepy/drunk/drugged drivers and other factors, I'm ready to bet that once the tech is there, it'll be a WHOLE LOT safer for your kids. So, heck yeah.
Just kidding of course, but a new paradigm shift ;-) is still possible.
We could lock each kid in a (shockproof and fireproof) "capsule" with a seat (to which the kid is tied with belts) by the parents at home and released by the teacher at school and viceversa on the way back.
The capsule would have a QR code, a smart tag and possibly also a two way communication cellular system (besides of course GPS).
The kid inside would have a tablet with Wi-Fi [1] so that he/she is entertained during the transport.
At this point there is no difference between the (poor) kid and a "package" and he/she/it can be loaded and unloaded by a robotic arm.
There would still be issues with the kids suffering from claustrophobia, though, and probably - from time to time - some slight incident involving the lack of prompt access to a bathroom/WC ...
[1] More seriously, I noticed in the last few years at the restaurant/pizzeria the trend of entire families where father and mother are immersed in their smartphones (each on their own), the bigger kid(s) are playing games in (each on thir own) tablets and the smaller kid(s) watching some cartoons on their tablet, sometimes fixed with a support/arm to the stroller ...
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Would I let 20 kids sit in a room for two hours unsupervised? No. Should a school bus full of kids be supervised by someone who is supposed to be driving? No. Should the school bus driver be sending texts while driving, and while supervising 30 kids? No.
- Home Address
- Home/Parents Phone Number
- Last Name (you'd be surprised at how common this was)
Thats not to mention what to do in the event of an emergency. Just play out the follow events in your mind with a bus full of kids and no trained adults:
- Fire
- Break down on a major highway
- Collision with another vehicle
(Edit for formatting)
How does this happen? Is knowing your surname just a weird European thing?
I bet that with most kids who don't remember when you ask them their last name would remember if you asked them what people like appliance repair people, exterminators, receptionists at the doctor's office, or their parents' bosses call their parents. They may hear those enough to remember them.
This system could also be used for management of permission slips for students going home with friends, and help homeroom teachers determine which students came to school, but decided to skip class.
/s
With a wry smile I cannot wait to see what the next generation of preteen hackers do with school-related automation.
Not sure I agree with the idea that others could be fooled by where it's going in traffic, given that it's programmed to obey traffic laws.
Adult supervision for extraordinary events (fire, collision, sick kid) is very feasible on an ordinary bus. We're not talking singing songs around the campfire, but a baseline of a responsible adult is very important.
1) bullying
2) assault - especially sexual assault
3) harassment
It is always highly amusing when Silly Valley engineers pontificate on life outside their engineering bubble. The idea of the self driving adult free school bus is brought to you by the same people who brought you Juicero and Bodega.
Around here (a larger rural county) there are kids that ride the bus for really long periods of time, like more than an hour each way. Much of that time is picking up other kids. I mean, I fully expect penny pinching to win the day, but it would be evil not to take the lower operating costs of a self driving vehicle and give it to those kids as time.
Tesla to the rescue! /s
Deleted Comment
A self-driving bus from door to door would have been fun... But on the other hand, getting familiar with the city environment by walking was useful at that age too.
(This was in Finland. I know Americans don't really let their kids outside on their own anymore.)
We could lock each kid in a (shockproof and fireproof) "capsule" with a seat (to which the kid is tied with belts) by the parents at home and released by the teacher at school and viceversa on the way back.
The capsule would have a QR code, a smart tag and possibly also a two way communication cellular system (besides of course GPS).
The kid inside would have a tablet with Wi-Fi [1] so that he/she is entertained during the transport.
At this point there is no difference between the (poor) kid and a "package" and he/she/it can be loaded and unloaded by a robotic arm.
There would still be issues with the kids suffering from claustrophobia, though, and probably - from time to time - some slight incident involving the lack of prompt access to a bathroom/WC ...
[1] More seriously, I noticed in the last few years at the restaurant/pizzeria the trend of entire families where father and mother are immersed in their smartphones (each on their own), the bigger kid(s) are playing games in (each on thir own) tablets and the smaller kid(s) watching some cartoons on their tablet, sometimes fixed with a support/arm to the stroller ...