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Cake day: June 5th, 2023
  • Dima@lemmy.onetoTechnology@lemmy.world•Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worseEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    Seems like they thought that ride-sharing an Uber would reduce traffic, but the cheaper prices just ended up with more people using ride-hailing services instead of public transport.

    Full article text: ##Uber was supposed to help traffic. It didn’t. Robotaxis will be even worse ###Our research at MIT helped make the case for ride-sharing. We were wrong. We don’t want to make the same mistake with robotaxis Carlo Ratti, John Rossant Sep. 16, 2023

    A rush of feet, a cone, and screech! The pinnacle of human technological prowess grinds to a halt.

    Activists in San Francisco have discovered that they can immobilize robotaxis with nothing more than a simple orange traffic cone.

    This attention-grabbing, legally ambiguous stunt has succeeded in showcasing the limits of autonomous vehicle technology. But it may ultimately miss the bigger picture.

    The real threat from robotaxis is the underlying technology. Once these cars inevitably learn to get around the traffic cones and gain the public’s trust, their convenience could seduce us into vastly overusing our cars.

    The result? An artificial-intelligence-powered nightmare of traffic, technically perfect but awful for our cities.

    Why do we believe this? Because it has already come to pass with ride-sharing.

    In the 2010s, the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where one of us serves as the director, was at the forefront of using Big Data to study how ride-hailing and ride-sharing could make our streets cleaner and more efficient. The findings appeared to be astonishing: With minimal delays to passengers, we could match riders and reduce the size of New York City taxi fleets by 40%. More people could get around in fewer cars for less money. We could reduce car ownership, and free up curbs and parking lots for new uses.

    This utopian vision was not only compelling but within reach. After publishing our results, we started the first collaboration between MIT and Uber to research a then-new product: Uber Pool (now rebranded UberX Share), a service that allows riders to share cars when heading to similar destinations for a lower cost.

    Alas, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

    Our research was technically right, but we had not taken into account changes in human behavior. Cars are more convenient and comfortable than walking, buses and subways — and that is why they are so popular. Make them even cheaper through ride-sharing and people are coaxed away from those other forms of transit.

    This dynamic became clear in the data a few years later: On average, ride-hailing trips generated far more traffic and 69% more carbon dioxide than the trips they displaced.

    We were proud of our contribution to ride-sharing but dismayed to see the results of a 2018 study that found that Uber Pool was so cheap it increased overall city travel: For every mile of personal driving it removed, it added 2.6 miles of people who otherwise would have taken another mode of transportation.

    As robotaxis are on the cusp of proliferating across the world, we are about to repeat the same mistake, but at a far greater scale. The futuristic allure of autonomy — and the enormous profits it could generate for its creators — will be hard for governments and the public to resist. But we cannot let a shiny new piece of technology drive us into an epic traffic jam of our own making.

    The best way to make urban mobility accessible, efficient and green is not about new technologies — neither self-driving cars nor electric ones — but old ones. Buses, subways, bikes and our own two feet are cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than anything Silicon Valley has dreamt up.

    What’s the Cadillac of reducing our dependence on Cadillacs? The good old-fashioned bus.

    This is not to say self-driving technology has no role in the future, just a different (and perhaps a bit less lucrative) one than GM-backed Cruise and Alphabet-backed Waymo seem to be currently focused on.

    Autonomous technology could, for example, allow cities to offer more buses, shuttles and other forms of public transit around the clock. That’s because the availability of on-demand AVs could assure “last-mile” connections between homes and transit stops. It could also be a godsend for older people and those with disabilities. However, any scale-up of AVs should be counterbalanced with investments in mass transit and improvements in walkability. Above all, we must put in place smart regulatory and tax regimes that allow all sustainable mobility modes — including autonomous services — to scale safely and intelligently. They should include, for example, congestion fees to discourage overuse of individual vehicles.

    To get new technologies right, our cities might follow the example of Singapore. Thanks to its Smart Nation program, the Asian city is now at the forefront of experimentation with autonomy. Yet, like San Francisco, it has experienced hiccups with its self-driving car pilot programs; young people have taken to confusing the vehicles by throwing balls or, more boldly, getting in front of them and dancing. The first reaction of the government, unamused, was to mull a law banning the harassment of self-driving cars.

    However, unlike San Francisco, Singapore has little to worry about in the long run because it already has robust systems to control traffic — a highly efficient mass transit network and a system of Electronic Road Pricing that dynamically taxes cars to prevent congestion.

    These types of measures are easier said than done. To pass even one such efficient, top-down measure in an American city would be no small feat. But this is still a gold standard we should strive to emulate.

    The allure of the self-driving car is that it will liberate us: from thought, from action, from responsibility. But that is not how new technology, from the wheel to the internet, has ever worked. By unlocking new possibilities, technological progress forces us to make new, difficult choices about how to manage it. The next few years will be crucial; we all need to be alert to the unintended consequences of this technology.

    Self-driving cars are coming, but it is all of us who need to take the wheel.

    Carlo Ratti is a practicing architect and a professor at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He is a co-author of “Atlas of the Senseable City.” John Rossant is founder and CEO of CoMotion, a conference and media platform focused on future mobility.

  • Dima@lemmy.onetoWorld News@lemmy.world•Bogus Supplier of Jet-Engine Parts May Have Faked Employees TooEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    Here’s the full text of the article:

    Bogus Supplier of Jet-Engine Parts May Have Faked Employees Too

    Stock photos on purported LinkedIn profiles and murky career paths point to a company built on fabricated claims.

    By Siddharth Vikram Philip, Sabah Meddings, and Supriya Singh 8 September 2023 at 05:00 BST Updated on 8 September 2023 at 13:28 BST

    As chief commercial officer of aircraft-parts supplier AOG Technics Ltd., Ray Kwong can look back on a well-rounded career at A-list companies including All Nippon Airways Co., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co.

    That, at least, is Kwong’s two-decade corporate journey on what appears to be his LinkedIn profile, from which the self-proclaimed executive beams with a broad smile and striped tie in blue hues. Trouble is that — much like the company for which Kwong now claims to work — not all is as it seems.

    Kwong, if he even exists, was never employed at Nissan, or at ANA for that matter. Neither company has records of him as a former worker, they said in response to queries by Bloomberg News. His employment history could also not be verified at Mitsubishi. What is used as his profile picture turns out to be a stock photo that’s also washed up elsewhere on the Internet, from promotional material for a German textile startup to a clinic in Northbrook, Illinois.

    After Bloomberg reported on the case of bogus jet-engine repair parts being investigated by regulators, a deeper dive into AOG revealed that the fabrication not only concerned components, but extended to major aspects of the company behind the scandal. The proliferation of undocumented parts has sent shock waves through an industry where every component requires verification to ensure aircraft safety, leaving manufacturers, operators and authorities scrambling to determine the fallout.

    “We’re talking about cowboys”

    The parts supplied by AOG went into engines that power many older-generation Airbus SE A320 and Boeing Co. 737 planes, by far the most widely flown category of commercial aircraft. These single-aisle jets are used by millions of passengers each day and by most airlines, mainly on short-haul flights. Airbus said it’s aware of media reports surrounding AOG, while Boeing said it will defer to regulators on the topic.

    General Electric Co. and Safran SA, who jointly make the CFM56 powerplant, say they’ve been assisting in the probe of what regulators determined were faked certification documents and unapproved parts for the engine repairs.

    Bloomberg News first reported last week that European aviation regulators had determined that AOG Technics supplied bogus parts for repairs of jet engines and that “numerous” certifications for parts supplied by the company were forged, according to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

    Based on the UK’s Companies House records, AOG was established in 2015. The supplier of parts to third-party engine repair shops was created by Jose Zamora Yrala using the address of a three-bedroom terraced house in Hove, a sleepy residential town on the UK coast about an hour south of London.

    In the ensuing years, it bounced around other residential properties in Hove and London before settling into the Nova Building, a modern office block in London’s Victoria district, according to records at Companies House.

    While AOG Technics is registered at The Argyll Club, a co-working provider that lists the Nova Building among its properties, the company doesn’t actually have a physical presence at the upscale address, instead using space as a virtual office, according to a person who answered the phone at the Argyll office.

    On its website, The Argyll Club offers virtual offices as one option that lets businesses rent an address for as little as £100 a month, giving them a venerable address without the cost of actually maintaining a physical office space.

    “Choose the location that gives your business extra industry gravitas, or makes an enviable first impression,” Argyll says on its website.

    Argyll said it’s unable to discuss agreements with clients.

    AOG and Yrala have not responded to calls or messages from Bloomberg seeking comment. Kwong, AOG Technic’s purported chief commercial officer, did not respond to requests for comment via his LinkedIn profile.

    “We’re talking about cowboys,” said Simon Peckham, the CEO of aerospace supplier Melrose Industries Plc, who expects regulators will ultimately tighten rules around engine spare parts.

    Others identified as senior managers at AOG also have a questionable pedigree. The photo identified as Executive Sales Representative Johnny Rico, who claims to have previously worked for discount airline Ryanair Holdings Plc, also features on a dentist’s practice blog. Ryanair didn’t respond to queries whether Rico was a former employee.

    Similarly, stock images were used for the profile picture of people described as AOG Technics Quality Assurance Manager Michael Smith and Account Manager Martina Spencer, whose photo decorates a dementia care specialist’s website. The Spencer profile lists Siemens AG among her past work experiences on LinkedIn, although the German engineering company couldn’t find a record of her employment there.

    Federica Taccogna, managing director in forensics at restructuring and advisory firm Interpath Advisory, said fake LinkedIn profiles could often be an indicator of illicit activity.

    “Due diligence should easily uncover these ‘tricks’ or at least trigger further research,” she said.

    AOG’s business partners have meanwhile begun distancing themselves from the company. Aircraft parts distributor B&H Worldwide, which claimed to have worked with AOG on exports to Europe and the US, has deleted a press release announcing a March 2020 deal to manage the logistics of aircraft spare parts and engine materials for its Frankfurt facility. Its chief executive officer, Stuart Allen, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

    Another business associate, Ricardo Maquilon Chedrauy — who set up a separate company with Yrala in 2021, according to Companies House data — now says that he only listed his now-deleted stint at AOG Technics on LinkedIn “to enhance my experience” and that he in fact had never been an employee or been paid by AOG. The other business sold kitchen appliances “on Amazon to kill time during the pandemic,” he said.

    Lately, though, Chedrauy said he’d lost contact with Yrala.

    “I do not want anything to do with this,” Chedrauy said.

    (Updates with analyst comment)