Posted on 03/11/2016 7:09:11 AM PST by gridlock
Can computerized cars drive better than we can?
The cover story of Time’s March 7 issue makes “the increasingly compelling case for why you shouldn’t be allowed to drive,” claiming that computerized cars are (or, it is hoped, will be) safer drivers than humans, and so the logical thing is to ban humans from driving altogether. The plan is simple and familiar: First you use behavioral economics (higher taxes) to discourage a certain behavior — think of smoking — and once it’s gotten really unpopular, you ban it. Before you know it, you can’t smoke in Central Park.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I love driving sometimes. But the daily commute just has nothing to offer. I’ve got 20 minutes on flat crowded roads in the grid with a stoplight every half mile. Back when my daily commute included Pontatoc (great little winder with some dead falls if you screwed up in the wrong place) there’s no way I would have let my car drive itself, at least not that mile. Really the most exciting thing in my commute most days is that I’m in Tucson and it’s almost never not shorts and miniskirt weather, which frankly is a vote FOR self driving cars so I can pay more attention to the sidewalk show.
Rush lives on.
They might be atheists, but they are and have always been pro-freedom. Maybe some of that is because Geddy's mom (grandmother?) was in a German concentration camp. And Neil read Ayn Rand at an early age.
The monitor part will be easy. The car will get a GPS position, and report back where it is. If it can do that, then it can also report what destination is programmed into the navigation system.
If it can report it's destination, then it's just a small step to where its destination can be remotely programmed, and any in-car controls can be disabled.
Did you watch that video linked in post 46? You should. There's nothing there that is technologically impossible or even difficult.
The remote computer won't be processing the sensor data that the self-driving car requires to do it's job, you're right, that would be too much data. But it's entirely feasible for the car to act in a server capacity, under the high-level control of the remote (government) computer.
I must have missed getting my “loyalty card.”
Except it’s autonomous, it doesn’t report to anywhere.
It’s the scale that always crushes these things, on 1 car yes you can do that. But there’s hundreds of millions of vehicles in this country, if they’re reporting that kind of data back constantly the system will just be crushed.
Then of course there’s the fact that NOBODY has ANY plans for central control, so they simply won’t be having the necessary stuff in the cars.
And finally, why the hell would the government even care? That’s always the final rub for these control conspiracy theories. The government doesn’t give a damn where you’re going, they don’t care what your hobbies are, they don’t care if you’re a fat alcoholic. Heck, actually they kind of prefer out of shape people, they tend to live long enough to pay a lot into social security, but die young enough to not get much out.
So in the end, it is, much the loyalty card kerfuffle, and so many others, not going to happen. We will not have centrally controlled cars, period. Not this century. Maybe a dozen massive technological leaps from now we’ll have smart roads that drive the cars, but that’s a looooong way off, and we’ll all be dead by then.
You don’t have any grocery store VIP/ membership cards? Or pet store? Athletics store? Almost every store that’s national has a loyalty card program, get dollars off and stuff. Except for the ones that issue credit cards, they don’t need loyalty cards.
Except once the government gets its hooks into the cars’ systems, they won’t be truly autonomous. That’s not really the best word to use.
Most cars being built today have the capability to report back to the mother ship. GM calls their system “OnStar”, but every car maker has something equivalent. If they can unlock your door, they can do just about anything else that the programming allows.
Just because there aren’t any plans to do what we’re talking about, doesn’t mean there won’t be sometime in the future. And just because you don’t know about any such plans doesn’t mean that they aren’t being considered.
As you say, the government doesn’t care about tracking the great majority of people as they go about their business. But there will always be people that are not, shall we say, obedient and docile sheep, and that small subset of the population is what the government will be watching.
Anything that CAN be abused, at some point, WILL be abused.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Apple over that locked iPhone, and what the government will try to force them to do, most likely as a condition for having access to the US market.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
You just convinced me, boy. I'm agin' it.
But now you’re running 100% on your assumption that the government will get their hooks in. Again: not one single plan involves centralized control. And right now the government is one of the big BLOCKERS for self driving cars. The government WANTS fallible humans behind the wheel, earning tickets, getting into accidents, causing money to be spent (which always includes some for the government).
Actually a lot of those OnStar clones are going away, or greatly limiting their discussion. People didn’t like them, they didn’t use them, it was wasted tech. Just bought a new car in November, they never mentioned their onstar clone once, don’t even know if my car can have that system.
The government likes the non-obedient people. They get tickets and fines and pay the government more money. The last thing the government wants is for those people to not be able to get away with stuff, if they can’t get away with things they’ll stop doing them.
Anything can be abused. And will be. I’m pointing out that the favorite paranoid line about HOW self driving cars will be abused is silly, and they will NOT be abused THAT WAY. The government will NOT be taking control of cars. Between the technical hurdles and the absolute lack of anything to gain that WILL NOT HAPPEN. The group that is going to abuse the hell out of self driving cars is the insurance companies, not the government.
If you bothered to pay attention you’d learn something.
But, having seldom actually driven he would be unable to do anything useful in the emergency ...
No, thanks. There's a highly developed, indeed OVERqualified control system in my car every time I strap my sorry arse into the left front seat. No need for electronics to take its place.
Don’t forget Dimitri will want “gift”;also bring food for ox.
Speak for yourself. You most assuredly do NOT speak for me. Quite the contrary in fact.
I thought Hillary got rid of of Qaddhafi.
I'm learnin' all right, boy.
www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/
Just a hop, skip, and a jump from here. I not going to get into a long dissertation on how I disagree with your premise, but suffice it to say technological advances happen at exponential rates.
You are correct I didn’t present a premise, you did. As others pointed out to you there is good reason to be wary of these things. Governmental creep it never ends to which my point.
Well, the whole “Rights” argument was resolved sometime ago 1975 in Washington v. Fishing Vessel and other SCOTUS rulings ... basically the term ‘rights’ applying to every one was the idea or so we all thought. But it does not.
In three separate rulings (maybe more now) SCOTUS has said Rights only apply to Treaty Tribes - yep the guys with the casinos - everyone else has mere privileges which can be revoked at any given time ...
So no the is no such thing as ‘rights’ for everyone in the Constitution even though it looks like it, it is a long-standing misunderstanding by us common folk. Does not matter what color one is or sex or ethnicity, it only matters what race you are and only then if you belong to one of the Treaty Tribes - which treaties, despite plain wording, mean whatever the tribes say it does.
I realize this is confusing but it is unfortunately true. To overturn this would costs 10s of millions of dollars if you could bring a case the court would hear and have standing. Even if they ruled in you favor, the Circuit courts will and have over ruled SCOTUS - by that time only the people with government lawyers still have money to burn so it does not get contested.
When it comes to an uneducated public in the matter of who has Rights - most people are completely in the dark.
There’s always exceptions. But various surveys show the daily commute, which for many exceeds an hour, is a big complaint among the people. For most folks it’s a long drive, in traffic, on straight roads, with no opportunity for fun driving. It’s one of the big reasons people are clamoring for them. People are basically driving half asleep anyway, they want self driving cars so they can drive ALL asleep.
I visited a man today that drives 60 miles a day one way with 30 of those miles in very heavy traffic. He has a very responsible management job, but the cost is very high in my view.
A self driving car would be in control for perhaps 50 of those miles. That would allow him an additional 2 hours of work time
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