Autonomous Vehicles is the Future
It seems like autonomous vehicles is the next big thing coming up in our future. This will allow to alleviate the driver’s driving load partially or completely depending on the driver’s preference. Many, however, don’t completely agree with the idea of autonomous vehicles being on the road and fear for their safety on the road. In the following sources, you will see the perspective of people on autonomous vehicles and more about the advancement on autonomous vehicles.
The author Michael Rowthorn may not be the most credible person when writing about this subject due to there not being any other work he was worked on and this being his first published work however, he does make some very important points on autonomous vehicles (AVs) and does support it with data collected from different companies. Rowthorn’s purpose for writing this piece is to inform people that for AVs, “the chief obstacle to acceptance is the absence of public trust,” and in order to succeed and advance, it first needs to be accepted by society and pass various scenarios. Throughout his writing, the targeted audience is towards people who are for and against AVs. With his choice of words, this article seems to be targeted towards people who are interested in AVs. To the ones who are against autonomous driving, Rowthorn shows a table of data collected from different countries and shows them their opinions on the subject. He shows that most people around the world are neither for nor against AVs, but rather in between. Most people are interested in the idea of autonomous vehicles being introduce into the roads and shows that only a minority of people are totally against it. Throughout Rowthorns’s writing, he shows that he is writing in an informative tone and the type of genre would be a scientific scholarly journal. This is shown since he provides data and tables to prove many of his points that he has stated in order to back up his idea. Rowthorn would have a positive look on AVs due to him writing and defending it. He has a biased opinion on this subject matter since he defends these types of vehicles by stating that these vehicles will eventually advance and be able to judge certain situations based of other people who, “… drive in a reasonable manner, and are adjustable rule-benders.” His medium for this piece of writing would be through a scholarly journal online.
In the next writing piece, there is a total of six authors for the article. Two out of the six authors have past writings on AVs, so this article is not 100% credible however it does seem the authors who wrote this does seem to know what technology they are dealing with and how important it is. This article is targeted towards an audience who are experts in the technology that goes into how AVs functions. The use of their language shows that this article isn’t for targeted for anybody. The authors use words that only certain people who knows the technology and their function understand what this article is mostly about. The purpose of this article is to inform the reader about this new technology that was created for AVs and how this new technology must meet some requirements. With all new technologies, it must be able to safely operate and with any technology for autonomous driving it must meet some requirements, “accuracy and safety-critical operation.” The author also showed that this new technology must not send private information to any other person and must be able to withstand any suspicious attack towards its software. The genre would lean towards a technological magazine and the medium would be through a magazine article. The article’s tone would lean towards an informative writing. Throughout the article, the authors explain what this new technology brings to the table and how well it performs. It can be concluded that the authors’ stance in this article is a bias towards this innovation. They compare this new technology to other technology out there and believe this will “…represent the key for a successful solution to enable safe and reliable positioning in autonomous driving applications.”
The next author, John Browne, writes for the Washington Post. He was “a former chief executive of BP and co-head of the world’s largest renewable-energy investment fund,” so he has knowledge over the car industry. This article is targeted to people who don’t know anything about AVs or to those who have the wrong idea of AVs due to all false promises that’s, “fueling a great deal of hype and ungrounded speculation.” Browne clarifies any misconceptions that people may have on AVs due to false news or rumors. You could say his purpose in writing this article is to inform society what AVs really are. This can be seen in one of his points where people mistakenly thing AVs are all electric vehicles. He clarifies that AVs could also mean gas powered cars with the technology of driving itself. “People commonly conflate AV technology with electric vehicles. It is easy to forget, however, that autonomous-vehicle software can be applied to existing hardware; both electric and gasoline-powered automobiles can be self-driven.” In this article the tone would also be as an informative righting. Browne shows what are the true benefits of AV and clarify any leading facts about AVs. Browne has a neutral stance towards AVs. He doesn’t show that he is for it, but he also never says he is against it. He just wanted to clarify the true benefits of AVs. The genre for this writing would informative newspaper article. The medium or the way the author delivers his work would be through a newspaper and/or newspaper website.
Marcus Strom, the founder of the social media page Autonomous Driving Research is very credible in the topic of AVs. He was been writing and doing research on AVs for a couple of years now and all the work he has done has been backed up with evidence. His posts are more directed towards people who are responsible in making AVs. In one of his posts, he clearly stated an error in the system of AVs which led to the AVs first death casualty and pushed those who are in charge to change and fix the issue as soon as possible, “A single death, even while developing these technologies, is unacceptable and must be clearly understood by all participants as to why they occurred.” Storm uses language that only those who designed the AVs system would understand and others who know the terminology for the many of the systems AVs has. Storm’s purpose is to indicate the fault and the error in the system of why the AV failed to identify the pedestrian as an obstruction on the road and why the AV didn’t break. Like all the other articles, the tone of this article is an informative article. Storm specifically points out many errors in the system with the data of that AV and informs others who oversee the software making about the error in that software. Its clear that Storm’s stance is for AVs. He points out all the faults in the system of the AVs not to ruin their reputation but to let the ones in charge of the software know what’s wrong for them to fix it and to improve the name and reputation of AVs to the public. The genre would be an informative social media post. The medium for this writing would be through social media, Facebook.
In conclusion, all these authors had the same tone, an informative tone. They all pointed out the good and the bads about AVs and showed how successful it could be if the technology improves. The purpose varies but, in the end, they have a similar purpose and stance. They are for AVs and they defend AVs saying how it’s just a new technology and that its only just getting better as time continues. The audience of the authors does vary, however. Most of them are for the general public since they word choice are words many know what they mean, but other authors use specific words and definitions that only the software engineers of AVs only understand.
WORK SITE
[1] Rowthorn, Michael “How Should Autonomous Vehicles Make Moral Decisions? Machine Ethics, Artificial Driving Intelligence, and Crash Algorithms”, Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice(Vol. 11, Issue 1.), July 1, 2019
[2] Pisoni, Fabio; Di Grazia, Domenico; Avellone, Giuseppe; Serrano, Luis; Kruger, Brett, and Norman, Laura “AUTONOMOUS DRIVING GUIDANCE: Multi-Band GNSS with Embedded Functional Safety for the Automotive Market”, GPS World(Vol. 30, Issue 6.), June 1, 2019
[3] Browne, John “Five myths about autonomous vehicles”, The Washington Post,
[4] Storm, Marcus “Uber Post-Mortem: Perception and Distraction”, Facebook, March 22, 2018, https://autonomousdrivingresearch.org/2018/03/22/uber-post-mortem-perception-and- distraction/
