And once hackers get a hold of them?
Idiots. Of course they will until they are perfected. The cars of yesteryears were death traps and now they are pretty darn safe for the most part. These authors are so dumb.
So are fatherless kids.
A driverless car can’t be worse than 1/2 the morons out there.
Another short excerpt from F.R.’s resident I.B.D. pimp. Don’t bother to ask him a question, he won’t answer, he’s strictly post and run. Gotta get those hits ya know.
As usual, a misleading headline. So very typical of today's prostitute media.
Over-reliance on technology has already created the world’s worst drivers.
Is that supposed to be “unexpected”?
>> But can people trust computer algorithms to guide them safely through incredibly complex and ever-changing road conditions?
Aw HAIL no you can’t trust computer algorithms in this kind of task!
By the way, I’m a programmer. I KNOW. :-)
I do not understand this BS fascination with driverless vehicles. If you don’t want to drive, take the bus.
I love computers! I worked in IT for 30 years. Computers have automated so incredible tasks, supported by millions of lines of code and teams of IT people. Trust it with my life to drive my car? Ah, no.
Give me more advanced information - sure. I could use some infrared / night vision technology. Give me the sensor data of distances and vehicle locations.
But again, trust a computer with my life - never.
The blind spot monitoring is also very nice as it only gives visual and audio signals vs. taking action.
The "leaving the lane" function is about useless.
Traction control can be useful under the right conditions but should require user action to turn it on vs. being always on unless the user turns it off.
I hate having "turn the engine off at a stop" function and the fact that it has to be manually turned off after each start - at least the button is readily accessible and it is punched every time I start up.
I also hate the "stability control" which can hit an individual tire's brake to get you out of some problems - if it kicks in while one is going over gravel/sand etc., and or on the brink of a drop off (that the car is blissfully unaware of) it can lead to disaster by screwing the pooch with a driver's attempts to maintain control under a dicey condition - only way to turn mine off is to enter the menu available from the steering wheel and disable the ESP option - it automatically enables at the next start.
Under specific conditions, some of the "enhancements" can be very useful, but under the wrong conditions, they can cause more harm than good.
Presumably, driverless cars will be designed so they automatically stop for pedestrians in their path.
Most cities I’ve been, pedestrians already walk out in front of traffic. The only thing that stops them is the chance that a driver may not see them and plow into them.
My prediction - once driverless cars are ubiquitous, pedestrians won’t even bother looking at traffic. They’ll just walk out into traffic anywhere that’s convenient knowing that all the cars will stop.
Then all the police formerly used to control drivers can be reallocated as jaywalking stormtroopers...
My theory is this: As long as there is a mix of driverless and non-driverless vehicles on the road, there will be crashes. Driverless vehicles can only be programmed for logical circumstances and they expect sane, logical actions by other drivers. Anyone who has been on the road for five minutes knows that sanity and logic are two very rare commodities, especially in traffic.
There are more situations on the highway than can be programmed for, and things which happen in adjacent areas which affect what happens on the highway, so an attentive human can react before the situation becomes critical. Without true AI in the cars, they won't be able to do as well as a good human.
Well I guess that puts a fork in personal vehicles, get in your city run people movers and leave the driving to professionals. < /sarc >
All I can think to say to that headline: Ya think?
Really? And how much did we, the American taxpayers, pay for that study...? I would’ve told you that for a cup of coffee.
Just wait till they get hacked.
I know a network security guy who only buys and drives older cars. His reason? The ease of hacking into the computer.