Freakonomics Radio
Hosted by Stephen J. Dubner
A glimpse into our driverless future.
1,665 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely-not-yolo type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.
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From APM, American Public Media and WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio on Marketplace. Here's the host of Marketplace, Kai Rizdal.
Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio. It's that moment every couple of weeks. We talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name, The Hidden Side of Everything is What He Does. Hey, Dubner, how are you?
Hey, Kai, I'm great. Hey, I've got a question for you today. How well do you think that a computer would do your job hosting this radio show?
What, are you kidding? You've been probing my nightmares, what? That's not a good question.
Here's the thing. It strikes me at this very interesting point in history where we've all become very reliant on computers, and yet there are some things that humans do and will always do better, like radio hosting. But let me ask you this parallel question. How good are you at driving, let's say?
Ooh, well, I'm a man, so of course I say I'm a great driver.
There you go. So no matter how good you are, even good drivers obviously pose a risk. I was talking about this with a fellow named Raj Rajkumar. He's an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.
Because 93% of accidents happen due to human error. We really are trying to basically take the human error tendency out of the picture.
Okay, 93% I get, but how do you take humaner tendency out of the picture, dude?
Here's what you do, Kai. You do not let humans drive, okay? So Rajkumar heads up a Carnegie Mellon team that's been developing a driverless car. A couple of weeks ago, I went for a ride in the
Really?
Yeah.
I was about to ask if you got to drive it, but I guess not.
I didn't get to drive. Nobody get to drive it.
So did you go out like on the city streets of, where's Carnegie Mellon? Pittsburgh, right?
We didn't. It's in Pittsburgh. In this case, we just drove around a big track that Carnegie Mellon has built on the site of an old steel mill. But there were, on this track, there are other cars, bicyclists, there's a skateboarder in the road, there's stoplights, there's construction, all the elements of real driving.
Does it, what does this thing look like? Does it have like the big camera turret on top so it can see what's going on and sensors and all?
Actually, no. So that's the Google car that a lot of people have seen pictures of. So Carnegie Mellon is developing this car for General Motors. So this was a Cadillac SUV, and their mission is to build a driverless car that A, doesn't look like a robot, and B, is relatively affordable. So all the cameras and sensors and radars are embedded in the bumpers and elsewhere. It looks pretty much like a stock car unless you open up the spare tire compartment, that's where all the computers are. And then there's also a big red kill button on the dashboard.
Is that from when the car's about to crash into something and you're sitting there going, "Ah!"
Well, that's the issue here, okay? So GM and Google are not the only ones developing driverless cars. There's a lot of competition, which I would argue is a very good thing. And from all the evidence so far, it appears to be astonishingly successful at low speeds and high speeds, city streets, highways. And it looks like a driverless car will screw up a lot less than a car driven by us, by humans. So then the question gets to be, when do we get it? When does this happen for real? And what interests me really is what kind of effects will that have on society?
Spitball it for me. I mean, what's gonna happen?
Well, honestly, I personally think it's a revolution waiting to happen. You just think about all the industries that get affected, for better or worse. So the auto industry, of course, the insurance industry, older people could live on their own longer if they don't have to drive themselves. Drunk driving wouldn't be such a big concern, which is good news for restaurants and bars. But to me, the biggest impact by a long, long shot is safety.
Yeah, because lots of people die in car accidents.
Thirty-four thousand traffic deaths a year roughly in the US. And if you look worldwide, 1 million deaths from traffic fatalities. And there's injuries. And in the US, traffic accidents send more than 2 million adults to the ER each year. And of course, the economic cost of all this danger is massive. There's also the fact that most people enjoy driving. Pry this steering wheel from my cold, dead hands. Well, that is a common sentiment. Yeah. But the fact is that most of us don't drive anywhere near as safely as we think about. Here, get this, Kai. About 80% of drivers rate themselves above average, which is, of course, statistically not possible.
And believe me, if we found out that human error by, let's say, public radio hosts was causing 1 million deaths worldwide, my friend Kai, I would replace you with a computer in a heartbeat. Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics.com is the website. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thanks for having me. All right, man. Bye-bye.
Hey, podcast listeners. On the next Freakonomics Radio, it's something you do every time you eat at a restaurant or get your hair cut, but we're going to tell you everything wrong with it. I don't like to tip. I think tipping's unpleasant.
It's discriminatory. The more tipping you see in a given country, the more corruption you generally see in that country as well.
Should tipping be banned? That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.
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Page updated September 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
