100 years of submarines but no cars that drive themselves?

Awe isn't that awesome. The government is giving us the opportunity to use technology we have had for ages.

www.npr.org...

They say this new tech can save 20k lives a year but we have had this tech finely tuned for at least 25 years just look to aircraft. And the cost saved even if this new tech is pricey is worth it to everyone involved other than insurance companies.

reply to post by marbles87


Googles Driverless cars - So it's already being done....just not to general public....but cars already have crash avoidance technology which isn't far from driverless..

But I personally couldn't do it.....My car......1993 Nissan Skyline R32 GTR. I needs to be DRIVEN!!!!

I think people are coming to ask "can we" far more than they are asking "should we". That covers a wide range of technologies recently, but this one is just plain dumb at this stage, IMO.

My opinion comes out of my career of trucking and living on the road as a way of life. Computers may someday be able to look at the world in the same 3 dimensions any game world is depicted in and react to that (our) world in the full 3 dimensions, with 100% accuracy, 100% of the time. No fail. No Oops. No BSOD. One once. Ever.

Until then? I'll very gladly drive my own car, if it's not fixed very firmly to a track which makes any judgement my own and no one or nothing elses. Much less a computer.

It's not that I don't trust computers. I certainly do. They do precisely what they are told to do...and now, to millions upon millions of lines of code for general programs. Computers Faithfully execute the code people enter.

It's people I don't trust. People code and program the computers. When those are 5,000lb objects in motion around me, and in the real...not digital world? It's bad enough I have to deal with PEOPLE and their own direct judgement. I really hate to imagine people and their ability to perfectly instruct, every time. (runs for exits)

Oh..and that just counts the people acting in GOOD faith.

I don't believe this will end well.... Not at first and not for a few generations of the tech. Who doesn't mind being among the Oops stats to make the omelette?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


And I get that there will be errors as there are in everything even your own judgement sometimes. There are lots of arguments saying "we are not there yet" but we are it's just uncle same is just now graciously selling us this tech finally. Even if they went to automated mass public transit and freight and people just drive their own cars that would be better than what we have now. And the tech exists already in aircraft and military stuff.

I can really see two very good reasons for this type of tech in our daily lives. Designated drivers for Those Nights out and for the person on long road trips. There are probably a whole host of other reasons but for those two major reasons alone I think will saves many lives *Once truly perfected*

I know sometimes I'll fight to stay awake on long road trips when I should just pull over at a rest area but often times one isnt readily available nor a motel.

The only thing holding this tech back is that in busy areas the car will drive more slowly and other people will be mad. It's either everyone has one or no one has one. We all know no one drives the speed limit on the freeway (5-10 over) and the other cars will be slower and then comes the complaints.

I look forward to kicking my feets up and doing some reading while a car drives itself.

On the darker side of things, however, I see a whole new type of homicide entering the courts; homicides committed by people that have programmed cars to specifically kill the people inside them, and/or suspend governorship to allow a pilot to run over anyone and later blame machine malfunction.




Even scarier; abducting people by remote control potentially becomes easier.
Imagine entire bus loads of children disappearing under the remote control of a hacker pedophile.

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


We can easily avoid the whole "hacker" thing is to make it so the computer can't be accessed wirelessly and there is no reason it should. What is happening with the vehicle is being handled off line because the driver is the one that enter the info.

reply to post by marbles87


um, the designs I've seen bandied about and discussed, cars would communicate with each other in maintaining constant contact to ensure crash avoidance with one another.
If cars are communicating with each other, then, there's a signaler and a receiver which could potentially be compromised.

Additionally, how would such cars get updates to their Operating Systems to ensure reliability, and patch bugs that were overlooked or missed during initial development and rollout?
My guess is there's going to be wireless communication, and this will further be tied into law enforcement, and other systems that manage and direct traffic as the system evolves.

I'm doubtful any of these cars will be a closed off shell without any outside communication.

AliceBleachWhite
um, the designs I've seen bandied about and discussed, cars would communicate with each other in maintaining constant contact to ensure crash avoidance with one another.
If cars are communicating with each other, then, there's a signaler and a receiver which could potentially be compromised.

A vehicle sends out a laser which bounces off the other vehicle and determines speed and distance from what I've read about in some versions.

Additionally, how would such cars get updates to their Operating Systems to ensure reliability, and patch bugs that were overlooked or missed during initial development and rollout?

During routine maintenance like oil changes and tuneups etc

What about us that like to go off-roading on the edge of steep mountain cliff trails? I can't imagine these automated vehicles would 'like' that sort of thing much. Or be able to navigate such jeep trails or any back-country roads for that matter.

I'd be cool with an automated vehicle for long distance road trips for sure, but I'd need to be able to turn it off when I want to.

reply to post by marbles87


I think that this tech will initially show up on our Interstates. The back roads more than likely won’t receive them at all. Not in our lifetime any ways.

I wouldn’t mind being able to snooze on a long road trip instead of arriving all worn out and tired.

If I could afford it, I would have one of each. Robo-Car/Truck and my trusty old fashioned 4x4.

negative opening sentiment and statement which is irrelevant due to the two problems being absolutely different in every sense of the word. Pinging cars around you for an avoidance system is nothing new or suppressed.

Aircraft for example have autopilots, many aircraft and simply fly themselves. But the difference is that as many aircraft as there are in the sky at any one moment, the density is nowhere near that of a rush hour commute. Thus avoidance systems are a somewhat secondary concern.

Its not the computer driving the car under normal conditions that i worry about.

Its the computer when the car blows a tire at 70 mph.

Or comes around a corner and hits black ice.

Or hydroplanes in heavy rain.

ANNED
Its not the computer driving the car under normal conditions that i worry about.

Its the computer when the car blows a tire at 70 mph.

Or comes around a corner and hits black ice.

Or hydroplanes in heavy rain.

Aircraft have computers that already handle things far more serious than those mentioned and enable a pilot to land a plane that otherwise would not be possible for him/her to land. So having such placed in a car is not a real problem and it does have benefits along with its drawbacks.

Yeah, systems have been developed to control aircraft in the case of a hydraulics failure. Typically such a failure means the aircraft has zero control from the stick.

Control is then totally performed by controlling the thrust of each engine (assuming there are at least two, one on each wing) The system was developed because of a number of air-crashes caused when minor problems bled the oil dry from the aircraft. Although the pilots realized that they could gain control using the thrust, i think there was only one case when a craft was put down in a semi-crash landing. The rest all resulted in a big hole in the ground.

You will be surprised how good a well programmed AND well supported traction control system really is. The issue with many cars these days is that they have the software, but not the hardware to make it extremely useful.

No surprise really about the disparity between military (kill people) tech and civilian (protect people) tech.

I saw a few years ago a story regarding development of some super-crazy optical system and how one person tied to the project - a former intelligence engineer said that civilian optics are roughly 15 years behind technology-wise from military tech.