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Preparing for the DARPA Autonomous Vehicle Challenge
Little Hamster writes "Post-gazette.com has an interesting article on the DARPA funded 200-mile autonomous vehicle race across the California-Nevada desert. They interviewed teams from two of the early favourites, Carnegie Mellon University and the California Institute of Technology. The teams talked about challenges on driving at high speed over a combination of roads, rough terrain and brush-covered desert, where the robot would need to consider how fast it can make a turn, the possibility of spinning tires and the potential to become airborne when hitting bumps."
But some of it ends up benefiting the masses as well - like that little thing called the 'internet' that you used to post that comment detracting DARPA, for one ;)
find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
Get these robots to drive NASCAR to entertain the automatons known as fans.
A nice thought, but in reality the passengers would just piss the time away reading Slashdot over a cell phone connection.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
The first posters here don't have a clue as to the effects and circumstances of this. The purpose is not Autonomous Kill Vehicles though it might occur. Cruise Missiles etc already do this as does the Predator to one degree or another. The purpose here is to reduce the overhead cost on the army dramatically in hauling supplies etc over long distances with or without roads. To do this you need vehicles than can bypass disabled vehicles and overcome obstacles. They need to be free of drivers who get tired and eat up supplies.
The real effect here will be civilian. The project which like it or not will happen regardless of DARPA someday soon, is going to very nearly completely alter how we live.
To illustrate: suppose you are old blind and unable to drive. (It happens to the best of us) Now you will be able to go where you want without somebody driving you. Suppose you want to go to work but don't want to own a car? Mass Transit? No! you just get on your cell phone and call for a car. It arrives shortly and takes you where you want to go and without a driver. Freight? No more Truck Drivers and the wreaks from them being too tired. No more Taxi Drivers. Close most of the Hospitals because wreaks are not filling them up. Kids will not need parents to drive them somewhere.
There is very nearly nothing more profound than this race! It will reorganize our world. The issue here is how will we adapt. This isn't an esoteric question. We had better face it now.
For the Luddites amung us, give it up. Stopping DARPA will only give the technological edge to China. They will do the work. This is a very high amplification Technology. It Amplifies People a LOT. The issue as always will be the morals of those being Amplified, and will we allow this to cause others to be lost in the "noise."
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
We already have all of that technology available already.
Okay, so those may not be as glamorous as a fully-robotic car, but the technology is already there. And as far as future autonomous cars go, so long as I can still buy a car that lets me manage throttle, brakes, shifting on my own for fun, I'll be happy.
but 90% of it's about killing people, making nuclear war more practical, or causing other kinds of evil and terrorism,
Oh come on! What kind of crap is this? Perhaps you've heard of that little DARPA creation called the INTARWEB?! =P
No one wants to make nuclear war 'practical.' 90% of research is about NOT killing people, as killing a lot of people typically doesn't help win wars. This isn't the middle ages where you can hope to wipe out an entire society in a single war. What DARPA is interested in is destroying *targets* - things like launchers, tanks, fighters, satellite links, etc. Successful live tests are those that *minimize* casualties, not maximize them. We've had the technology to maximize death for decades now.
There are probably lots of game hackers trying to use the best of the best in pathfinding algorithms. It'll be interesting to see if what the game industry has been using for years actually does keep a speeding vehicle from getting embedded in rocks, children, and sandstone walls.
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