Robocars As the Best Way Geeks Can Save the Planet

Brad Templeton writes "I (whom you may know as EFF Chairman, founder of early dot-com Clari.Net and rec.humor.funny) have just released a new series of futurist essays on the amazing future of robot cars, coming to us thanks to the DARPA Grand Challenges. The computer driver is just the beginning — the essays detail how robocars can enable the cheap electric car, save millions of lives and trillions of dollars, and are the most compelling thing computer geeks can work on to save the planet. Because robocars can refuel, park and deliver themselves, and not simply be chauffeurs, they end up changing not just cars but cities, industries, energy, and — by removing dependence on foreign oil — even wars. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords." (More below.) Templeton continues: "The key realization is that while the safety and timesavings that come from having computers as chauffeurs is very important and can save a million lives every year, a number of interesting consequences come from the ability of robocars to drive themselves while vacant. This allows them to deliver themselves to us on demand, to park themselves and to refuel/recharge themselves. On-demand delivery makes car sharing pleasant and allows the use of "the right vehicle for the trip" on most trips. Self-refueling means the people using cars no longer need care about range or how common fueling stations are, enabling all sorts of novel energy systems with minimal "chicken and egg" problems. Because passengers don't care about the range of their taxis, battery weight and cost are no longer issues in electric cars and scooters."

Comments

Sheesh

[Reality Master 101]

Talk about a pipe dream. This guy acts as though no one ever thought of autonomous robots before. Let me give the guy a hint: there's a reason we don't have robot butlers yet that clean the house, cook the food, etc, etc. It's because we don't have a science of Artificial Intelligence yet, and don't have a clue how to do it. (And Roomba isn't even in the same universe).

Given that we don't even have autonomous servants that can slowly do our bidding, this guy wants to strap a computer into multi-thousand pound death machine travelling at 40/50/60 miles an hour (calculate that kinetic energy on that), give it a kick in the rear-end and let it fly? On normal, public roads? Yeah, right.

This guy is so in the dark about how far we are away from this that it's funny. Yeah, just ask the geeks to crank this out in their spare time. And then they can pick up their Nobel Prize in Computer Science that'll be invented just for them.