Posted on 10/23/2017 8:28:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
On my fourth day in a semi-driverless car, I finally felt comfortable enough to let it stop itself. Before then, I’d allowed the car — a Volvo S90 sedan — to steer around gentle turns, with my hands still on the wheel, and to adjust speed in traffic. By Day 4, I was ready to make a leap into the future.
With the car traveling 40 miles an hour on a busy road in the Washington suburbs, I pushed a button to activate the driverless mode and moved my foot away from the brake and accelerator. The car kept its speed. Soon, a traffic light in the distance turned red, and the cars in front of me slowed. For a split second, I prepared to slam on the brake.
There was no need. The cameras and computers in the Volvo recognized that other cars were slowing and smoothly began applying the brake. My car came to a stop behind the Ford ahead of me. I began laughing, even though no one else was in the car, as my anxiety turned to relief.
If you’re anything like most people, you’re familiar with this anxiety. Almost 80 percent of Americans fear traveling in a self-driving car, a recent poll found.
When a friend saw me in the Volvo last week and I explained that I was test-driving it for work, she asked which roads I’d be using — so she could avoid them. Another friend asked if driverless cars could be hacked. Colleagues said they feared semiautonomous cars lulling people into ignoring the road.
Driverless cars tap deep into the human psyche. We want to be in control, or at least to give control to trained professionals, like doctors. We don’t want computers to be in charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Driverless cars. Like a bus for one?
Author is a total left-winger who was in the tank for Hillary in 2016.
If he told me water was wet, I’d look into it before I believed him.
>>Do the jets also take off and land pilotlessly, or just cruise pilotlessly?<<
They can — and do a better job than the pilot.
No, don’t believe that will happen. There are too many deaths coming with widespread implementation fo the concept.
Machines fail. Humans make mistakes. I trust human control much more than machine control of autos.
More government control and surveillance, more social engineering, more breaking down the essential aspects of American culture, etc., etc.
The pilot flies because he/she wishes to (to keep experience hours up, just because, etc.).
Wrong. When everything goes perfectly, a computer can handle the job. There are situations, though, that require the skill of the pilot and they range from the routine to the extreme. You don't want the "blue screen of death" to result in actual deaths.
Yeah, sure....Uber is going to take me on a rugged road along the Blackfoot River near Missoula, MT? Uh huh...Oh...rugged roads will only be for the ELITES who OWN their OWN cars.
You sound like a left-wing fascist which is really the only kind there is anyway. Who the hell wants to ride in a smelly public-transport used vehicle someone recently puked in that you aren't allowed to personalize or customize? There are so many negative connotations to this scenario it's positively repulsive. What about serial rapists lurking in the trunks or back seats of cars that are dispatched to unsuspecting female users? What about bombs surreptitiously placed underneath vehicles dispatched out to innocent users? This is a terrorists' dream come true. So the only people who will have control of their vehicles will be first responders and law enforcement? The rest of us will just be stuck in robotic vehicles, right? This is nothing more than the left's next incarnation of "buses for everyone, just minus the bus driver". Mass transit is mass transit which is really what YOU ALL want. The left wing's most fashionable wet dream, to finally take the automobile away from the masses. I have a lifted truck which cost me a lot of money to set up the way I want it and it is unique. I'm not interested in some leftist snivelling control freak telling me what kind of machine I can and can't drive. You leftists just can't stand anyone making their own decisions because you think you know how to live their life better than they do. Just another attempt to "engineer" more freedom and independence out of the lives of Americans, and turn us into sheeple. Arrogant twits with your "change" bullshit. It's NOT CHANGE. It's more of the same old leftist Marxist crap. You don't ram anything down my throat. What's gonna get changed is YOU.
I am looking forward to this very much.
Most people just shouldn’t drive; they suck at it. We should still allow people to manually drive, but make it pretty difficult to get the license; I know VERY few people who should be allowed behind the wheel, if they can’t land on a carrier at night in a storm I don’t want them in control of a vehicle anywhere near me. I used to like to drive, but the older I get the more I realize my limitations.
Who is going to insure a driver-less car? Can the passenger be sued? What if the car develops a mind of it’s own and a sense of humor that would make the passengers Horrified like on a roller coaster. Its like Steven King’s novel Christine.
Try first for long haul trucks on special "truck only" highways.
>>Wrong. When everything goes perfectly, a computer can handle the job. There are situations, though, that require the skill of the pilot <<
No probably not — a human could take over remotely. The pilot is just a redundant backup system to make people feel good. His role is more administrative than anything.
Regarding ‘creativity’, I could see future computer programs making movies with next to real computer-generated characters and incredible graphics - and doing so from a basic plot inputed by someone sitting in their kitchen. Clearly we can robotize ‘painting’ - particularly realism - as a computer can digitize a real image easily, and recreating it with paint would just involve fine-movement robotics. Definitely doable. Novels? Music? All of this can be automated - but, will it be the same?
This leads to the bigger question, which is ‘what is our role in the universe’? To me, it always comes back to spirituality, and however we evolve as people will be driven by this.
Regarding the reality of where we are right now, anyone who has been frustrated by GPS knows that currently there are limitations to how accurate computer-based navigation is. The human brain is incredibly facile at dealing with the unexpected and operating on incomplete data sets. Computers, not so much at this point.
People will rant, whine, rail about conspiracies, say ‘hell no’... much as they did with cars in the first place.
Me, I’ll put my money where my beliefs are and invest in things that will grow as these become more common.
I think if TPTB try to FORCE people to give up their cars it won’t go over well, many like customizing their vehicle and some can actually drive well; but for a LOT of people having the option is going to be really nice, and for people who no longer are able to drive it will be a Godsend. It will be GREAT for the entertainment industry, specifically bars and nightclubs.
Computers are like political polls and climate models. Only as honest or good as the least honest/capable person who last touched the programming.
Sure, change is coming. I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to participate until I’m forced to.
Let’s just suppose somebody decided to abuse this... “Yes sir, Mr. President. If you hit that red button, all cars carrying conservatives will lock tight and head for Leavenworth.”
Yeah, that’s crazy, but I bet you can name a couple of people in history who might have used it.
My bigger fear is a glitch. I’ve programmed - even the best software has what I call “phase of the moon” problems. For no other reason than it’s Tuesday and the waning quarter moon was last night, you get an elevator door that won’t close on the third floor, west side of the building...
Actually, I’ll bet that insurance companies will take the opposite tack; making it very expensive to drive instead of rely on the car. Properly programmed the occasional fatal error is still going to be much less death and carnage than the massive number of incompetent fools that make up the majority of drivers. Others may disagree, but I’ll put my investment money where my beliefs are.
How many times do we hear about drivers being mugged or killed by pizza deliveries into unsafe neighborhoods?
How many times do we hear about people who live in minority neighborhoods complain about not being served by delivery restaurants?
Driverless cars/trucks could be outfitted with lockers with PIN combinations. A customer orders a pizza or other take-out and pays for the order on-line or over the phone with a credit card. They receive a car#/Locker#/PIN for their order. When the driverless truck arrives at their address, they enter the PIN on their assigned locker and remove their order. A few minutes later, the driverless truck leaves for its next delivery address. When it's done, it returns to the restaurant.
The truck might even be able to automate a phone call when it arrives, to let the customer know it's there.
-PJ
We may no longer have a family car. Rather an Uber like app will summon a car from a central location, and take us to where we want to go???
Change is coming. Deal with it.
I can see situations where one weekend I need a pickup truck and another weekend I need a van or sedan, or perhaps a sports car.
The Tort attorneys may not appreciate them as much.
‘What if I don’t want to give up piloting my own vehicle? Will my future be “bright” too?’
At some point, it will not be economically viable to drive your own car.
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