Still More on the DARPA Grand Challenge

The SF Chronicle has an in-depth story on the DARPA Grand Challenge, with emphasis on the several teams from the San Francisco area. The three teams covered are using a pickup truck, a six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, and a self-balancing motorcycle...

Comments

I think it comes down to...

[HappyCitizen]

Which one will be least elaborite. I mean, yes you need some complexity, but the less things that can go wrong the better. I like the sound of a self balancing motorcycle myself, but I bet the simplest will have a better chance at winning.

Re:rover

[Cyno01]

Yeah, but since it doesn't have to be tested and shielded like NASA spec hardware does, a similar system based on more modern hardware could probably handle input at a faster rate.

Re:what will sink this

[KrispyKringle]

Point being that while robotic cars may in fact be safer, the incidents that would get the press would be the rare accidents. Remember when airbags were becoming common, and you started to hear about airbag related fatalities? People reacted as if airbags were inherently unsafe, even though this was patently untrue.

For that matter, I read recently about a study done by a couple of psychologists in which they described to schoolchildren about accidents in which seatbelts saved lives, and then about ones in which they caused injuries. The children, after hearing about the first, said, ``oh, then you should wear your seatbelt always.'' After hearing about the latter, they said the opposite. When asked repeatedly by the researcher, ``so, when should you wear it and when shouldn't you?'', one subject replied, ``well, I guess you should wear the seatbelt half the time.''

People aren't rational; one theory is that we interpret probabilities by ``representativeness'', a heuristic in which the situation being judged is compared to a similar situation thought to be probable or frequently heard of. So the more people hear about robotic-automobile-caused deaths (which would certainly be more publicised than the same old same old), they'd assume such vehicles are less-safe than traditional cars.

Many people judge the risk of very rare, unlikely deaths (from rare diseases, freak accidents, and the like) to be far higher than they are, while they judge the risk of death from things like car accidents and other more normal causes to be significantly lower than it really is. This is because they hear about far more of the freak accident deaths--precisely because they are freak accidents--than the ordinary, normal deaths.

Of course, just as with airbags, after the breaking-in period, I think people would probably get used to it. And the economic demand, if great enough, would be enough incentive to let them on the road.

Re:Math is good

[cbreaker]

But if you plan on winning, you probably want to make it in before the last second.

Re:DARPA's usage of this technology

[Idarubicin]

I hope the participants realize that their technology is going to be used to blow the limbs off of children in the third world. I guess that's OK -- they are savages after all.

I see a picture of a child missing a limb. Though emotionally charged, there's very little useful information.

The parent poster may be making an honest claim, and he may not. I note it was posted by an Anonymous Coward, which doesn't help. Could have been an unmanned vehicle that did it. Could have been a landmine, too. Might have been a US vehicle, might have been Chinese. Was this a grisly industrial accident? Horrifying though the thought may be--was the child armed?

Context, please? It seems to be an awfully tenuous link to autonomous vehicles...

All we have here is a picture that suggests that military conflicts are bloody, grisly, destructive things, with wretched consequences. Well, duh. We knew that.

Thought experiment: Can the use of unmanned vehicles reduce this type of civilian casualty? Expendible vehicles might be less likely to be used to shoot innocent civilians, because they're not going to be frightened, or have an itchy trigger finger. Just a thought.

One possible alternate perspective: this sort of technology will further the perspective that war is a sort of video game--one that can be entered into more readily if there are no (ahem) friendly lives at risk. Just a thought.

Re:another contest

[DavittJPotter]

So I can assume you'll be out there, in your little booties, trampling the very same flora and fauna? And while you dismantle these vehicles, how do you plan on cleaning up the fuel you'll spill while breaking fuel lines? Brake fluid?

It's called Tread Lightly. Not everyone who enjoys off-road activity trashes the environment, dude. The responsible ones travel well-known trails, and we pack out what we pack in.