A cynical observation might be that road and other "accidental" deaths are simply Darwin's natural selection trying to clean our gene pool. This raises the question of what Darwin will do if/when we go down the autonomous route?
Personally I am not thrilled about the concept of sharing the road with autonomous vehicles. I enjoy the art of riding my motor bike without being killed by an idiot controlled vehicle and very much doubt that software could manage 2 wheels.
To put it in context, we all know about 'audiophiles'. Well (surviving) riders are even more extreme in their pursuits - tyre pressure, rubber type, suspension tweaks, performance tweaks, helmets, clothing, boots etc and then the search for those roads with the maximum corner grip, little traffic, no police, many corners etc and a coffee shop at both ends.
Personally I am not thrilled about the concept of sharing the road with autonomous vehicles. I enjoy the art of riding my motor bike without being killed by an idiot controlled vehicle and very much doubt that software could manage 2 wheels.
To put it in context, we all know about 'audiophiles'. Well (surviving) riders are even more extreme in their pursuits - tyre pressure, rubber type, suspension tweaks, performance tweaks, helmets, clothing, boots etc and then the search for those roads with the maximum corner grip, little traffic, no police, many corners etc and a coffee shop at both ends.
It was a Humvee in fluffy snow masking the ground and no it was not slipping or sliding.
Here a bicycle path is for bicycles. (Not to be confused with a trail for pedestrians.) Yes you have to enter and leave them, but those areas have enough bicycle traffic and marked restricted lanes. For my desired route that would be a few hundred feet of shared route with six or seven miles of bicycle path.
Exactly. It basically is a public opinion problem. There must be very little doubt that AI cars will dramatically lower traffic death toll, but people always have a problem seeing the overall advantage of something for the tribe if it clashes with their personal fear of having to give up control.
I wonder if that also was the case when air travel started to take off? When steam trains started to appear in the UK, they had a man with a flag walking in front of the train to warn people that the monster was coming.
Jan
Thats what people said about the horsless carriage. Driving is not a right, its a privilege. Why is drunk driving not allowed? Soon human drivers will not be allowed for the same reason.
I'm pretty sure the future holds that your road travel space / time slot will come with a price. Whether self driving or human driven, there will be a master orchestration machine that will track and know the exact position of all vehicles traveling at any point in time. Or, such a machine may be aggregated across all the smaller computation capability available in each vehicle. This machine will govern the speed of all vehicles in motion and ideally set the best course of each so that travel time is minimized for most. Outliers will suffer at the expense of the majority destination and high priced privileged tracks will be available to those who can afford it.
If you fail to get yourself on the road in order to occupy your "slot", you're either working from home, or you can buy another for more $, albeit at a later, non-ideal time. Your missed slot immediately goes on the market for another to acquire - at a higher $. I suspect in the future these "slots" will go like super-bowl tickets...with the ones that'll get you to work just in time for lunch being the least desirable.
All because hi-tech companies insist on aggregating themselves around a particular city (like "Redmond") so an employee can live and work in basically the same area no matter who their employer is. What a recipe for easy-peasy travel to and from; throw everyone's destination into a single point in space and time. I'll never figure that one out; yeah, good for corporation and its stockholders somehow.
Of course it'll be more like your electric auto-vehicle will show up at your door - with a few other commuters in it - at a prescribed time. You'll get < a minute to get out the door and in it, otherwise it's gone. Talk about missing the bus... To make it even more enjoyable, a different instance of such vehicle will show up each day. Hopefully you dont get the one that someone...beforehand.
Your cellphone will be - even moreso - the ubiquitous tool for managing all aspects of life, including travel to anywhere. The police will have a new excuse to pull you over - "freely" operating a motor vehicle without a valid time slot assignment. Oh, they'll know. Only on Sundays...
Oh, wait a minute - the future world will become so deeply competitive that in order to even survive, you'll have to work then too - because if you dont, someone else is willing to do so and investors money will naturally flow toward corporations offering that higher level of performance. Only when this system breaks due to unresolvable gridlocks that even (fully redundant AI with near infinite compute power) cant handle, will work destinations start to be distributed across the landscape, where "attainable destinations" will be a selling point for housing realtors.
So it's more than just self driving cars. They'll simply be part of a whole system defining how life will be lived in the near future. As the Beatles once said "Beep Beep - Beep Beep - yeah!"
If you fail to get yourself on the road in order to occupy your "slot", you're either working from home, or you can buy another for more $, albeit at a later, non-ideal time. Your missed slot immediately goes on the market for another to acquire - at a higher $. I suspect in the future these "slots" will go like super-bowl tickets...with the ones that'll get you to work just in time for lunch being the least desirable.
All because hi-tech companies insist on aggregating themselves around a particular city (like "Redmond") so an employee can live and work in basically the same area no matter who their employer is. What a recipe for easy-peasy travel to and from; throw everyone's destination into a single point in space and time. I'll never figure that one out; yeah, good for corporation and its stockholders somehow.
Of course it'll be more like your electric auto-vehicle will show up at your door - with a few other commuters in it - at a prescribed time. You'll get < a minute to get out the door and in it, otherwise it's gone. Talk about missing the bus... To make it even more enjoyable, a different instance of such vehicle will show up each day. Hopefully you dont get the one that someone...beforehand.
Your cellphone will be - even moreso - the ubiquitous tool for managing all aspects of life, including travel to anywhere. The police will have a new excuse to pull you over - "freely" operating a motor vehicle without a valid time slot assignment. Oh, they'll know. Only on Sundays...
Oh, wait a minute - the future world will become so deeply competitive that in order to even survive, you'll have to work then too - because if you dont, someone else is willing to do so and investors money will naturally flow toward corporations offering that higher level of performance. Only when this system breaks due to unresolvable gridlocks that even (fully redundant AI with near infinite compute power) cant handle, will work destinations start to be distributed across the landscape, where "attainable destinations" will be a selling point for housing realtors.
So it's more than just self driving cars. They'll simply be part of a whole system defining how life will be lived in the near future. As the Beatles once said "Beep Beep - Beep Beep - yeah!"
Not much different from today. I'm routinely checking the traffic conditions before going on a trip, and re-schedule it to try to hit a period without traffic jams on the route, or take another route.
I'll gladly relate that search to my cell phone ;-)
Jan
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The end game for the platform I’m using in my vehicle (Comma Ai) is to eventually become an automotive insurance company. General premise being it’s safer driving with an autonomous system than without.
For all the naysayers you are being naive about technology and it’s advancement. People said the same thing about not ‘trusting’ motorized vehicles, automatic transmissions, and more recently active lane keep assist/ adaptive cruise control features.
It all comes down to the money. The tech is definitely becoming a reality. The question is more so when will a company be confident enough to take responsibility for when something goes wrong. Who will be at fault in the case an accident occurs. The Driver, the automaker, or the maker of the autonomous system?
For all the naysayers you are being naive about technology and it’s advancement. People said the same thing about not ‘trusting’ motorized vehicles, automatic transmissions, and more recently active lane keep assist/ adaptive cruise control features.
It all comes down to the money. The tech is definitely becoming a reality. The question is more so when will a company be confident enough to take responsibility for when something goes wrong. Who will be at fault in the case an accident occurs. The Driver, the automaker, or the maker of the autonomous system?
Re the question of auto insurance, should we be amused, interested or shared shirtless at the prospect of https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/introducing-tesla-insurance
And, is it time to start thinking about shorting big oil in your investment portfolio, if not divesting altogether?
When was the last time you saw notoriously wacko Jim Cramer sit this still and not project spittle at the camera?
YouTube
And, is it time to start thinking about shorting big oil in your investment portfolio, if not divesting altogether?
When was the last time you saw notoriously wacko Jim Cramer sit this still and not project spittle at the camera?
YouTube
Ironically this sort of discounting is illegal in some states. This I like Small modular reactors – Rolls-Royce
EDIT - I did a double take on that cheesy PS Audio upgrade add on that video.
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I'm not against the technology, I am against the focus and direction of the money flow and the blind consumerism of it all.
It is my opinion that it would be more beneficial to work towards a complete restructuring of society, to have hardly any cars at all. It would solve a large number of issues, increased health because: less sitting still, less pollution because: less industry, fewer health issues because: strongly reduced exhaust fumes, less time wasted doing nothing because: reduced traffic so no lines. +++
Exactly! But the only problem is: in modern society, driving has become an absolute necessity.
It's not good, and there's never been a time where building more roads led to less traffic. So it's leading towards a sort of self reinforcing cycle.
If we where the same amount of people as in the 50's, there would not be such a big issue with everyone owning and driving cars. But we're about 4 times as many people now, and everyone wants to have their slice of the pie so to speak. It would be wrong to tell a specific group of people that: "sorry, you guys can't take part in this."
What worries me is the information gathering. Imagine every car has 6 cameras, which still work when your car is not being used, sending all the video back to Musk. ( whick I believe they already do, if not they will ). With the face regonition and other surveillance software ( are computers reading lips yet? ) he will be able to know exactly where almost everyone on earth is located. And if the state wants to grab you, your car will deliver you.
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Maybe a good way to identify snake oil salesman trying to foist an expensive speaker cable on a unsuspecting innocent audiophool, and then shoot the snake oil peddler on the spot!
That would make the world sooo much more enjoyable
Jan
We can still dream
Jan, with your expertise, you don't happen to have a small stash of non-traceable mini missiles laying about, do you?
Alas no, sold all to a nice man with sun glasses in a raincoat
Jan
I think one of the new cars from Toyota does that too. Auto-braking I mean. Probably needs some re-learning to be comfortable with it.
Jan
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