Ahem...opposition to self driving cars makes one a luddite?
You know, those machines the Luddites smashed were doing their jobs BETTER than they could do manually. However, I have yet to be convinced that self driving cars perform their task better than, or even as well as a human driver. And frankly, I don’t see much promise of it ever achieving even parity with a human driver in the far off future.
So, perhaps the term Luddite should be replaced with Realist.
This Luddite has worked with LIDAR - one of the technologies being used on self driving cars. I know how it works, I know its capabilities, I know how it is able to recognize a cloud of 3 dimensional points as an object from its library...neat stuff. I also know that it is a sensitive instrument that is currently being shipped halfway across the globe for calibration. I also know that it takes a large amount of computing power...’on board’, because cell coverage isn’t everywhere (I suspect Google’s test fleet is always in a coverage area to mask this need), and I know that the computing power is heavy (we’re talking about a car here and weight matters), expensive, needs its own air conditioner (more weight), and delicate. I also know that in the real world, stripes fade, snow piles up, rain falls, and sometimes my car is caked with mud for weeks.
I have no idea what the fascination is with the self driving car - but don’t get your hopes up.
No, opposition to new technology where one’s objections revolve entirely around paranoid fantasies and ideas that NOBODY WORKING WITH THE TECHNOLOGY ARE IMPLEMENTING makes one a luddite.
What you are or are not convinced of is not the discussion. Out here in reality self driving cars ARE going to happen, ARE going to be better drivers than us and are NOT going to be centrally controlled.
They are realists. They’re luddite paranoids making up accusations that have no basis in truth.