Two years ago, MIT launched the Task Force on the Work of the Future, an “institute-wide” effort to study the evolution of jobs during what the college characterizes as an “age of innovation.” The faculty and student research team of more than 20 members, as well as an external advisory board, published its latest brief today, focusing on the development of autonomous vehicles. It suggests fully driverless systems will take at least a decade to deploy over large areas and that expansion will happen region-by-region in specific transportation categories, resulting in variations in availability across the country.
Beyond the technical challenges, coauthors John Leonard (an MIT professor of mechanical and ocean engineering) and Erik Stayton (an MIT doctoral candidate) point to costs as a barrier to adoption. Truly autonomous vehicles require complex sensors and computers whose production volume is lower compared with even advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). And teleoperation, in which humans monitor autonomous vehicles for safety, is likely to be a “non-negligible” cost in light of research raising concerns about business models.
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