Clueless.
Posted on 02/09/2016 8:52:56 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
Elon Musk's Tesla recently became the latest big shot company to enter the self-driving car sweepstakes. Mr. Musk recently announced the hiring of software architecture veteran Jim Keller, who previously had played key roles at Apple and AMD, to lead its Autopilot Engineering team. Teslas move follows the recently announced partnership between General Motors and Lyft, in which the automaker is investing $500 million in the ridesharing company as part of a joint venture to develop self-driving cars.
And of course Google, Uber, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Apple, Audi, Bosch and Delphi Automotive (the big auto parts manufacturer) all have their own much-hyped development programs for autonomous vehicles in full swing. Forget cures for cancer, climate change or world peace, the media has made it clear that self-driving cars will be the Next Great Step in civilizations drive toward magnificence.
It's time to hit the brakes for a reality check.
Despite how much Uber CEO Travis Kalanick likes to crow about our "driverless future," outside of The Jetsons this one is...not...happening...soon. Besides the remaining technological challenges, the liability and regulatory issues involved in letting a 3,000-pound death machine steer itself with no human at the controls are huge.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.com ...
Wilton Knight’s molecular bonded shell is too pricey.
The Washington D.C. metro subways are completely controlled by computers except for the doors. They have human train operators who open and close the doors and who are present if there is an emergency or technical issue. Otherwise, the trains operate via computer control
I believe the BART system in the SF bay area works in a similar manner.
Never.
The funny thing is your link is to an article where a self driving car was rear ended by an inattentive human...
The self driving cars don't need to be perfect, they need to be better than humans. I'm sure they're better than a lot of humans already...
I don't live in a sewer, so this isn't a concern for me personally. Inattentive drivers are a much bigger threat to me and mine.
The possibility for government to dictate who goes exactly where, when and at what speed is a tantalizing concept for Big Government types. Add in insurance companies collecting money and not paying it out, and law enforcement being able to stop any car or ground all cars in a tri-county area (for safety reasons. The greens think they’ll be able to dictate how many polluting miles you can drive. Politicians and marketers will want to see the driving history of everyone for their predictive databases.
Lots of pressure to get driverless cars.
But, will YOU buy a car that has "Autonomous Braking" and can park itself?
As I said, A.I. and driverless cars simply cannot account for all the (stupid) human variables that occur while driving.
People blowing red lights and stop signs are probably the best example. I had someone just a few weeks ago blow through a left turn signal that was red in their direction and almost hit me head-on while I was doing 45mph obeying my traffic signal.
The jerk first made like he was going to stop, then accelerated and turned right in front of me. It was a good thing I had my foot off the accelerator and ready to hit the brake as I went through the intersection. If I hadn't, I'd have surely t-boned the idiot.
As it was, it was a good lesson for my youngest son who I'm teaching to drive. We were on our way to our church's parking lot for a driving lesson when it happened.
"That's why you have your foot ready to hit the brake going through an intersection, son. Because of idiots just like that moron!"
If I had $250 K to spend on a car, I would buy a Bentley today.
Yup!
My 90 yo dad drives a massive Yukon or Tahoe and you do not want to be near that! I desperately need an auto-drive car for him so that he can surrender the controls but maintain his independence.
These same people think we already have self-firing guns.
Oh they’re happening. Most of the big decisions we make while driving can be lumped into 2 categories: dealing with other people’s mistakes, making our own mistakes. Driverless cars stop making #2, and with enough of them on the road #1 becomes unnecessary.
Insurance policies already cover the car in most cases, that’s why the price of your car, and crash rating, have so much impact on the cost of your insurance. And lacking injuries car accidents are leaning more and more “no fault” and each insurance company is just handling their client.
The legal hurdles will be navigated. And once they’re out there consumer acceptance will follow. Once upon a time there as very little consumer acceptance for cars all, we can see how that changed. A lot of people used to think the internet was silly and or evil too. Times change, technology gets accepted.
Clueless.
There is really only one thing that a driver needs.
Situational awareness.
I.E., PAY ATTENTION !!!
Autonomous and even worse, semi-autonomous vehicles will lead to individuals paying less and less attention to the world around them.
We all ready have a huge problem in America with people that don’t pay attention and these so-called advances will make things so much worse.
Robo cars are never going to happen. A very highly advanced cruise control may be a possible for hi-way driving.
We lack driverless trains because unions won’t allow it. They easily could be automated with the exact same technology running automated mine operations now, but somebody needs to protect the jobs. And driverless cars will START as prohibitively expensive, but as the technology gets mass produced it will become cheaper and move from luxury vehicles to midrange, to economy. Just like automatic transmissions, power windows, AC, GPS, anti-lock brakes... That’s the normal cycle of the market, new fangled tech starts expensive, gets adopted, gets commoditized, becomes cheaper, winds up everywhere.
And my tag would read;
Coal Pwr
.
Driverless vehicles (with no human backup) and drone and driverless delivery vehicles will be the target of so many thieves and pranksters that alone could make them impractical. And hackers will learn to hack the things and divert them to a different destination.
These things might be a bridge too far.
But they will leave their right turn signals on, camped in the left lane, at 55 mph, for 50 miles...
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