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Google Secretly Tests Autonomous Cars In Traffic
Hugh Pickens writes "Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as profoundly as the Internet has. Now the NY Times reports that Google has been working in secret on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver. With someone behind the wheel to take control if something went awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation. The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light."
Update: 10/09 22:37 GMT by T : Reader harrymcc points out that the dream of self-driving cars is nothing new: "Both Popular Science and Popular Mechanics have regularly reported on such experiments; I rounded up some examples dating as far back as 1933."
Deciding to live over 35 miles from your workplace is a pretty fucking stupid decision to have made.
The only people who think like this seem to be without any sort of corporeal responsibility. Their only perceived responsibilities are to themselves - their self-satisfaction.
They don't drive, because a car is a liability and a cost. Easier to mooch off of others.
They don't have families, because they're too immature and/or irresponsible to realize the benefit such things provide to society.
They don't own homes, because a mortgage (and the associated payments) demand stability and willpower to resist compulsive urges.
They're able to pay for small, single-person (or shared) apartments near their place of work because of the aforementioned lack of constraints. It's pretty easy to pay 1800/month for a loft apartment when it's just you living there and you haven't much more than a bottle of Jack Daniels and a pile of $300 shirts.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Google are not doing this to save lives. They are doing it to corner a market which they hope to help create.
I notice that nobody who had to negotiate roads, junctions or roundabouts in the vicinity of this thing have been given the opportunity to comment, and I doubt very much whether we will be told the truth about how many times the backup driver had to intervene or how disastrous the result would have been if they had not.
Pure unadulterated hype.
I'm petrified at the thought of Google-powered computer driven cars.
Not only will they know what web sites I look at, but now where I go and when.
Google = Big Brother
Or maybe they are looking for another way to deliver ads? You drive through a small town and the computer interrupts your movie watching with a quick flash up about which restaurants are there and since you haven't stopped for 5 hours, maybe you would like to stop and take a break at the diner on the corner....
NO FUCKING WAY!
Get Google Out Of Our Lives!