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Autonomous Audi TT Conquers Pike's Peak

Posted by samzenpus on from the mega-turbo-boost dept.

fergus07 writes "After a year long research program, this week Audi revealed that its Autonomous TTS car had completed the 12.42-mile Pike's Peak mountain course in 27 minutes. An expert driver in the same car would take around 17 minutes — now we have a benchmark, the race is on, and it's almost inevitable that a computer will one day outdrive the best of our species, and it may be sooner than you think."

187 comments

  1. This is how it's done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKgeCQGu_ug (Ari Vatanen with peugeot 405 T16, Pikes-Peak 1990)

    1. Re:This is how it's done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I immediately thought of that video when I read the title of this article. Too bad the article doesn't have a video :(

    2. Re:This is how it's done by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Awesome film. Kind of like a more rustic version of C'etait un Rendezvous, but without the urban legends :)

  2. Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is Slashdot, dammit, we're supposed to be talking about the tech the car uses, the sensor fields, blind spots, known bugs, and so forth. What do we get? A typical journalist "the narrative" story, where humanity is in a race against robots which will surely supplant us. Guh, it's like a rejected 1950s sci-fi manuscript. Bonus points for using the tech-y "benchmark" phrase like the car is some sort of Crysis.

    --
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  3. The most important benchmark would still be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...security. Once you could objectively demonstrate that it is actually safer to use automatic driving system it will be easy ride...

    1. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I imagine the big test comes a few years down the line, when all the major manufacturers let their cars run along Pike's Peak, with varying traffic patterns (i.e., try to hold 80KPH for three minutes, 30KPH for two, et.c.,) randomized for all the cars to see how well the systems handle unexpected events.

      In fact, I would probably insist on not buying an automagic car that hasn't been through a multi-car safety test along those lines.

    2. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not that easy. Liability allocation.

      Something like a car, in a natural environment(not some empty closed test-track stuff), will suffer an accident from time to time. Human error, mechanical issues, sensor faults, algorithmic fuckups, whatever.

      With a human driver(who basically all juries trivially recognize as an autonomous agent, since they think of all reasonably functional humans as such), the liability for accidents typically falls on one of the operators, unless a mechanical fault, braking issue, or something of that sort can be proven.

      With an autonomous control computer, a jury will be much more likely to see the "driver" as an extension of the company who built the car, just like the brakes or the steering column, and assign liability accordingly.

      Even if, lets say, computer-controlled cars delivered a 10-fold reduction in morbidity and mortality(which would save something like 35,000 Americans a year from death, plus an unknown but even larger number from serious injury, just to put things in perspective), that would likely be a net increase in liability for the vehicle manufacturers.

      Until autonomous vehicles prove superior safety and insurers and/or legislators recognize the new state of affairs, it'll be strictly test tracks, tech demos, and internal use....

    3. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Adding a black box that records the 'other parties' wrongdoing by keeping camera data,echolocation etc that can tell what happened is only a small step.

    4. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Given how bad many drivers are, this will be trivial to show in the not so distant future. However liability will be an issue. Also irrational thinking along the lines of "I know i am a better driver than the machine".

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    5. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      In the UK, you are legally required to have third-party insurance if you drive on the public highway. I'd expect the situation to be the same with robotic cars. The owner assumes responsibility for it and is required to have insurance. If the car is demonstrably safer than a human-driven one, the insurance will be cheaper. If an accident is caused by a fault in the car, then the owner (or their insurer) will be able to sue the manufacturer to recover the damages, just as they can with failures in any other automatic system.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by dwandy · · Score: 1

      Until autonomous vehicles prove superior safety and insurers and/or legislators recognize the new state of affairs

      Far more likely is that we will still pay insurance to allow the vehicle on the public road. The sale will include a disclaimer of liability and an agreement from the purchaser that they will buy insurance to drive it on the public road. We will all sign it, and continue to buy insurance. The combined interest of the car manufacturer and the insurance company won't let this go any other way.

      --
      If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
    7. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So do what we do with airplanes. If the autopilot is on the pilot is still in command, and responsible for the plane. A car must still have a licensed driver who is responsible for any liability issues, but now he is free to take a phone call or send a text message since overseeing the autopilot generally takes less attention than driving the car.

    8. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You're forgetting the inevitable problem of the robot driver going berserk and mowing down pedestrians like hobbled sheep under a combine harvester. Try insuring against that!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    9. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      No problem. Your insurer would pay the victims' families and would then go to the manufacturer to recoup the money. The manufacturer would pay up and then sell the video to recoup their money.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    10. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by mspohr · · Score: 1
      I think that Google already did this... they've logged 140K miles already.

      http://www.botjunkie.com/2010/10/12/googles-autonomous-car-takes-to-the-streets/

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    11. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by Amasuriel · · Score: 1

      I don't think its as black and white as this because on one area; governments and other organizations that have fleets of vehicles are already liable in most cases in the case of accidents, not the driver (excepting gross negligence, various somewhat by state / country...and IANAL).

      Organizations like this where driving is just a means not a business that already carry driver liability will be happy to do anything that reduces overall risk visibility. This usage will allow the general populous some time to get used to the idea and it will slowly bleed outward from there.

    12. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Can you cite even one instance where a robot has "gone berserk" and killed people? Robots don't go berserk. They can break, like any machine, but they don't go berserk.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    13. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      The problem comes when the pilot doesn't remember how to drive when the need comes to take over (if ever.) I can only imagine people freaking out if/when the alert light comes on trying to remember what the driving instructor told them to do and what pedal to push.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    14. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't call it completely irrational. There is still much that we can do with our brains that a CPU can't. Albeit, with a road and infrastructure made to suit autonomous vehicles, this becomes less of a problem, but I wouldn't just put a blanket statement on the whole thing and claim: "Computers are better drivers, period."

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    15. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Not sure if so trivial - the irrational thinking extends beyond the "I'm better than the machine", it's also "I'm among the best drivers" (80-90% think they are in the top 50%)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    16. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However vehicle manufacturers are liable if for instance the cruise control decides to take over accelerating the car to unsafe speeds with no way to disengage. Similarly they would be held liable if the computer controlling the car decides that the cliff is actually an extension of the road.

    17. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by northstarlarry · · Score: 1

      I seem to remember hearing about an AI that killed a few people. Must be ten years ago now. . . Yes, here's a Wikipedia article about it.

    18. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      What if the vehicle manufacturer licensed the AI software with regular payments, and used the payments as a form of insurance?

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
    19. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      My experience is that 80-90% think they are in the top 5%. ;)

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    20. Re:The most important benchmark would still be... by aug24 · · Score: 1

      This argument is old, and failing.

      In ten years, I will buy an automatic, self-drive-on-motorways car. It will come with insurance for that task, which is dependent on my having had the car suitably maintained (service stamps) and which runs for five years.

      I will need insurance for the human driver.

      After five years, I will need to buy insurance for the automatic self drive too.

      Sorted.

      It isn't about liability, it's about insurance.

      --
      You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
  4. Robo-Thelma&Louise by digitaldc · · Score: 5, Funny

    "It's an old racing adage that it's a lot easier to make a fast driver who crashes safe than to make a slow driver faster. The penalty for error on Pikes Peak is massive as the edge of the circuit is often a massive cliff.
    Audi is logically taking a cautious and considered approach because the negative publicity of a car plunging over a fatal drop would hinder the development.".

    Actually, the dash-cam video of the Autonomous Audi speeding off the road, going over a cliff and crashing in a fiery explosion would be pretty damn awesome.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by kieran · · Score: 4, Funny

      "All autonomous vehicles are fitted with extra gasoline tanks made out of cheap plastic for explosive awesomeness".

    2. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by digitaldc · · Score: 1

      Yes! Extra large explosions for posterity.

      --
      He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
    3. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Informative

      Audi is logically taking a cautious and considered approach because the negative publicity of a car plunging over a fatal drop would hinder the development.

      You mean like this? Lockheed Martin invited local media out to test drive their new vehicle. One of their guys started the day off by stating "You can't flip this vehicle." Care to guess what one of the reporters managed to do?

      Whoops....

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    4. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by rwa2 · · Score: 1

      "It's an old racing adage that it's a lot easier to make a fast driver who crashes safe than to make a slow driver faster.

      Is there any source for this old adage? Google only turns up this slashdot article :-P

      Would have thought I'd at least have run into it in the course of Gran Turismo 4, or even a parody of it in GTA training :-P
      That, and I /always/ do much better in races by taking the latter approach... and that's when there's not even a penalty for risking dangerous crashes in the video games...

    5. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by 14erCleaner · · Score: 1

      Local rumor has it that the car did run off the course at least once, requiring extraction by a tow truck. Audi was extra-tight with any information about the tests while they were going on - they didn't make the news in Colorado Springs until their film crew helicopter crashed.

      --
      Have you read my blog lately?
    6. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by tehcyder · · Score: 1
      Could they please, please be those ones that explode in mid air even before the car hits the ground?

      Thanks.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    7. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

      Actually, the dash-cam video of the Autonomous Audi speeding off the road, going over a cliff and crashing in a fiery explosion would be pretty damn awesome.

      If you want the full Hollywood experience, the car needs to explode BEFORE it crashes into anything. And after it crashes, you need to have a burning wheel roll out of the flame-encrusted wreckage.

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    8. Re:Robo-Thelma&Louise by nschubach · · Score: 1

      There's also a video of a braking assist vehicle crashing somewhere (at work, can't look right now...)

      But it brings up a point (question?) Are people so fearful now that ANY recorded incident is a terrible disaster? If we look at the history of human flight, it's full of accidents and disasters... but with each failure is a learning curve. That's how we work! Has the overload of video showing crashes prevented us from taking the next step faster than taking the slow and methodical "Public Image" route? Is it the lawyers?

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  5. I suspect... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd be inclined to guess that the easier(and for many purposes more important) area of computer supremacy won't be in absolute speed(outside of carefully-controlled-for-robotic advantage environments like pick-and-place machines and closed rail tracks); but in sheer endurance.

    Assuming that you don't totally cheap out on the fault tolerance or get horribly unlucky, the autonomous car should be able to complete the course every 27 minutes, with occasional pauses for refueling, and longer; but even more occasional pauses for hardware service on the car, virtually forever. That expert human driver, though, will do 17 minutes a number of times; but will be a downright danger to himself and others within 24 hours or so.

    For many applications(municipal bus service and low-priority-low-cost mail delivery and commodity trucking/train deliver come to mind), it is virtually irrelevant what a top-notch human in fresh condition can do. What matters is either how many of those you can afford as spares, or what an exhausted, bored, hopped-up-on-stimulants-just-to-stay-awake human can do. Computers, on the other hand, may take longer than one would expect to catch up with best of breed humans in anything resembling natural conditions; but will be able to catch up with real world, performance-degraded humans considerably faster...

    1. Re:I suspect... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      but will be able to catch up with real world, performance-degraded humans considerably faster...

      If you'd ever watched a semi truck driver cross the country non-stop running on speed (the driver, not the truck), you'd know it's possible to extend the number of hours a human can perform without significantly degraded performances. In my youth, I've always preferred hitching a ride with a truck driver than ride the bus, as I would invariably get there faster, and I never really felt unsafe.

      As for the economics of autonomous vehicles, they'll become commonplace when

      - a human behind the wheel is massively more expensive than the computer solution,
      - people get over their fear of runaway machines,
      - drivers unions are squashed

      In short, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. Heck, even trains, the one kind of vehicle that could drive itself completely safely today, are still manned by "drivers" who spend their time pushing a button to tell the computer they're still alive, because passengers would be scared without drivers and unions prevent their removal from the trains.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:I suspect... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem with using long-haul trucking as an example is that like so many jobs it consists of long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. You're either driving for long, boring periods of time, or you're having an "oh shit" moment due to equipment failure or driver error, usually the latter, and not necessarily yours. Why people like to cut off semis I'll never know. Even just hooking a travel trailer to the back of a 7 or 8 thousand pound pickup gives you lots of opportunities to have the same experience without getting paid. There is an answer to the problem that can be solved by machine, but it involves rails. Having robots drive trucks at this point would be dumb, but rebuilding the rail network where it's been neglected or dismantled and having robots drive trains makes perfect sense.

      --
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    3. Re:I suspect... by Tar-Alcarin · · Score: 1

      Heck, even trains, the one kind of vehicle that could drive itself completely safely today, are still manned by "drivers" who spend their time pushing a button to tell the computer they're still alive, because passengers would be scared without drivers and unions prevent their removal from the trains.

      Not true. At least not everywhere.
      The AnsaldoBreda Driverless Metro is already in operation in Copenhagen, Denmark.
      It feels strange to sit in the front seat of the first car, with a completely undisturbed view of the tracks, but (at least for my part) it still feels completely safe.

    4. Re:I suspect... by moonbender · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not sure if you're right about trains. I guess that in a modern rail network, the driver could be made superfluous as long as things are running normal. Normal might even include most everyday delays, minor hardware malfunctions, speed limits (e.g. right now due to lots of leafy mush on the tracks). But you need the driver for extraordinary occurrences.

      If you were dealing with an isolated vehicle, having an automated system that simply failed safe might be ok, but I have a feeling that the interconnected nature of rail makes that a lot more problematic both in terms of safety and in terms of spreading the effects of a single incidents. The characteristics of those railway systems that do use automated drivers (we've got one at my university) seem to confirm this -- comparatively small scale, controlled access to the tracks, few possibilities of an incident spreading.

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    5. Re:I suspect... by sirlatrom · · Score: 2, Informative

      Heck, even trains, the one kind of vehicle that could drive itself completely safely today, are still manned by "drivers" who spend their time pushing a button to tell the computer they're still alive, because passengers would be scared without drivers and unions prevent their removal from the trains.

      Well except in at least Copenhagen, Denmark, where our metro is without in-train operators. As far as I know there is no union for the operating computers, as they have yet to gain sentience.

    6. Re:I suspect... by chrb · · Score: 1

      even trains, the one kind of vehicle that could drive itself completely safely today, are still manned by "drivers"

      List of driverless trains

    7. Re:I suspect... by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      Drivers using illegal and imperfect chemical enhancement is not much of an answer to machine superiority, though I guess your other reasons show why it can be practical enough.

    8. Re:I suspect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed on indurance, but some people are very good at keeping concentration for extended time.

      Some human drivers are very close on the physical limits of driving, and often use each tiny aspect of car, surface etc. behavior to be faster (in specific corners). What's important, computer should know how to adapt the the car (setup) to it's own driving model, or adapt itself to a vehicle it gets. Some top drivers are very quick in adapting to a car behavior, therefore creative in extracting speed from a setup that computer could have problems with, and which could be faster than a setup that computer is able drive to the limit (as it's trained for it).

      Also, In F1 the car is more important than the driver. I think a machine couldn't be significantly faster, not to mention that overtaking, reacting to uneven road conditions (rain), tyre wear adaptation etc. could be a problem. All of it can be solved, but in some cases you still need improvisation and intelligence, which computers won't have for a long time.

    9. Re:I suspect... by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Trains use a driver because its still one of the best "camera" identification system. It can spot the difference between a pattern of leaves vers a person/tree/cow much better than machine vision systems can. For now.

      Of course trains like the TGV that can't stop fast enough anyway, its really a bit moot. Some train systems are becoming driver-less. But its pretty limited.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    10. Re:I suspect... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      And most of the elevated people-movers at airports, some (not all) of the Disney parks, etc. are driverless, or if there's a human driver, the driver isn't physically present in the vehicle. IIRC, even BART was designed to be driverless, though the trains are not operated in that mode, last I checked.

      --

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    11. Re:I suspect... by hitmark · · Score: 1

      Air travel is mostly automated, with the pilot spending most of the time setting and adjusting the autopilot based on orders from area controllers on the ground (or even just confirming the corrections delivered via data link when crossing something like the pacific).

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    12. Re:I suspect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are lots of these systems, the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) in London is also driverless. But the staff member riding the train who helps passengers and makes sure they get on and off safely is actually trained how to drive it (albeit at low speed because there are no signals a human can understand).

    13. Re:I suspect... by renoX · · Score: 1

      You forgot a little detail: normal driving don't happen in empty roads!
      Going fast on a road is only a small part of what human drivers have to do: they also have to monitor the other cars, the pedestrian, etc.

    14. Re:I suspect... by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 1

      The computer isn't going to distract itself by dicking around with its phone, blackberry, makeup, or -- as I saw this morning on my way to work -- a Nintendo fucking DS.

      --

      I write sci-fi for metalheads

    15. Re:I suspect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you're using a traditional camera to sense something on a track, you've done it wrong. There are much better systems that can be used to scan a section of track for debris and identify what it is. This can be done at a much further range and much faster than a person could. Remember, you only need to determine a) is there something in the way and b) is it either person-sized or big enough to pose a threat? Set up a couple IR cameras, laser range finder, radar etc. and you're good to go. Train operators are on trains because people still don't trust computers when the shit hits the fan

    16. Re:I suspect... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      , are still manned by "drivers" who spend their time pushing a button to tell the computer they're still alive

      They are also telling the train that they concur with its assessment that the train is operating safely. Consider the driver a backup safety check. For the amount of fuel a train typically consumes to move just the locomotive, the cost of employing the driver is already irelavent, and may just save the train during that one in a million malfunction.

      Of course, the reality of it is, as with almost all train accidents in the past, the fault that cause a crash is not 'a fault', its like 20, that all combined together finally throw things into mayham. In most of those accidents, a computer couldn't have saved the train either because of bad input information.

      A locomotive alone weights far too much to be such a cheap bastard that you can't put a guy on it with a clue. Its just silly when you're talking about large trains, the cost savings simply isn't worth the risk in the grand scheme of things, even though the risk is so tiny and the likely hood that the human can fix it is equally tiny.

      Slashdotters of all people should be fully aware of the advantages of over building your redundancy when the cost to do so is so trivial.

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    17. Re:I suspect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm going to call BS on that. Keeping in mind that (with a quick google search) an average train takes over 1.5km's to come to a stop on perfectly flat terrain in perfect conditions... there's no way in hell a person without the help of some ridiculously powerful binoculars and a constant, unceasing watch will be able to tell if that vague shadow several kilometers away is a drift of snow, a pile of leaves, a car temporarily stopped on the tracks before moving again, or an animal.

      And at that point, if you need a ridiculously powerful binocular and a constant, ceaseless watch... you might as well have a computer do that.

    18. Re:I suspect... by iinlane · · Score: 1

      the autonomous car should be able to complete the course every 27 minutes, with occasional pauses for refueling

      I think the variable space in this problem is too big for high repeatability. Also the car is most probably fitted with non-deterministic algorithms that generate bit different path on each run. Even TFA notified that it took 6 tries before the car could reach the mountaintop without stopping.

    19. Re:I suspect... by jafac · · Score: 1

      A human behind the wheel will become massively more expensive the moment some insurance adjuster (runs a spreadsheet that) determines that a human behind the wheel is statistically more expensive for his employer to underwrite.

      On that day - kiss your god-given-right to drive legally on public roads good bye.

      --

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    20. Re:I suspect... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      And neither am I... so that's why I think I might be better at seeing someone playing a DS (better than a camera that would have to determine the amount of distraction something causes) and making sure I keep a good distance from them.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    21. Re:I suspect... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Of course, the reality of it often is - "human error" ;p

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    22. Re:I suspect... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      We can probably throw in almost all the elevators around, too (basically a small train on a very short vertical track? ;) ). Many of them were manned by a "skilled operator" long after that was no longer necessary...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    23. Re:I suspect... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      I don't see many "manned" elevators around nowadays...

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    24. Re:I suspect... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between keeping high concentration and merely being convinced about it. Especially in mass traffic.

      (but yes, we need improvisation and intelligence - for example no elevator can be safe and speedy without its human operat...hm, wait)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  6. And here I was just thinking... by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 1

    ...that NASCAR will be the first auto-race to be fully computerized, and maybe then my dream will be answered. Once computers completely control NASCAR, Billy Nochin and his spawn will completely lose interest (one would suppose), and maybe it will just disappear. One can hope.

    1. Re:And here I was just thinking... by Mr+Thinly+Sliced · · Score: 1

      Actually NASCAR are going the other way FYI.

      They've taken the physical car out of the loop and are using technology to replace it.

      Together with iRacing they've endorsed the first official NASCAR series champion for virtual racing:

      http://www.iracing.com/partners/

      Richard Towler has become the first non-resident crowned champion of their online world drivers championship:

      http://www.nascar.com/news/headlines/official/iracing.standings/ .-)

    2. Re:And here I was just thinking... by dave420 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Huh? You can fully automate NASCAR with a steering lock and a brick on the gas pedal.

    3. Re:And here I was just thinking... by ledow · · Score: 1

      Yeah, NASCAR isn't really racing now is it? It's a practice track. I get bored by Formula 1 cars because they all finish within tenths of a second of each other but at least there's something interesting to navigate round. NASCAR is like watching a giant dragster race - interesting for the first few seconds and then it's just more of the same forever.

      Tip to Americans: The classification of a "sport" does not entail the spectators wishing everyone would just start fighting to actually provide some entertainment... ice hockey, NASCAR fall under this rule.

      Seriously, do NASCAR drivers have one arm's muscles grow longer than the other? Can they even steer right?

      It's not a sport, it's a practice track, the sort of thing FIAT had on the roof of its factory to make sure cars ran okay. Short of making a major motion picture (The Italian Job, and no, not that recent heap of shit) which features the track, it's not interesting.

    4. Re:And here I was just thinking... by puto · · Score: 1

      Because "football" and rugby fans are never privy to fights.

      --
      The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
    5. Re:And here I was just thinking... by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

      AFAIK NASCAR cars actually cant steer right, the entire suspension setup is built to only either drive straight or turn left, maybe a very small bit of right turning to exit the pit, but those things are built asymmetrical

      And yeah F1 can get boring, but the recent season was quite good, with a rather interesting finale.

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
    6. Re:And here I was just thinking... by Mr+Thinly+Sliced · · Score: 1

      AFAIK NASCAR cars actually cant steer right

      This is a fable.

      Oval cars are setup like that to run on ovals - when they visit the road courses (watkins glen, sears point) they have no trouble at all.

      It's all in the cambers, caster and springs. Making some of the wheels "softer" (springs) and forcing more grip on the outside wheel (camber).

      The Dallara Indy car is the same - it offers suspension geometry settings that allow it to run both street / road courses and ovals (the dallara is actually more complicated than the C.O.T. - it has differing aero packages based on the track speed and downforce required in addition to the suspension package freedom).

      It might look like it's a bunch of crazy rednecks going in a circle but you'd be surprised how much tech there actually is behind it.

    7. Re:And here I was just thinking... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      Obviously, the grass is greener on their side of the Atlantic so they fight less.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  7. Re:in shaa'a Allah by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 1

    No, but they might dream of electric sheep

  8. The best of us? by chill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't care about autonomous cars out-driving the best of us. I want to see common cars that can out-drive the morons on the freeways! Out-drive the mediocre and worst of us and I'd be happy.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    1. Re:The best of us? by iinlane · · Score: 1

      The road versions of these cars are probably tuned for safety so they out-drive none of us but I think they can ease traffic as they don't sleep at stoplight and can maintain short cap between cars. I hope this problem will be solved in near future.

    2. Re:The best of us? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Ahhh, but remember there are hardly any mediocre or worst drivers - 80-90% thinks they are in the top 50%.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:The best of us? by nschubach · · Score: 1

      50% think that the faster person is going to cause an accident by losing control and crashing, causing a fiery inferno of out of control death that kills everyone.

      50% think that the slower driver is going to cause an accident by driving slow in the left lane, causing a line of cars to brake resulting in a rear end collision and traffic jams somewhere along the line.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    4. Re:The best of us? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      More to the point: "anybody driving slower than me is a moron, anybody driving faster - a maniac!"

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    5. Re:The best of us? by nschubach · · Score: 1

      I think it's more of a demonstration of the individuality of people and how you really can't create one rule to fit all people. You are going to upset someone, somewhere by creating a rule that you think is best for everyone. That's why I feel that decentralization of decision/power is a good thing for everyone (no matter what the case.) Humanity seeks freedom of choice and expression and rules only seek to inhibit that process. Most will say it's for the safety of all (think of the children, et al.) but it slowly drives everyone insane. If this were not the case, we'd all be perfectly accepting of public transit or one body style painted all the same color for cars using all the same engine.

      I'm not against automated cars. Not at all. What I am against is mandating it. If there is to be a truly successful automated driver it will have to cope with everything we do on a daily basis (stray object falling off a truck in front of you, faster car passing you on the right or left, slowing traffic a mile up the road that you can see from the top of the hill...) or it will have to run on it's own closed system (subway, dedicated/isolated lane...)

      Let it become a mandate and be prepared for mundane cars with even less personality and a continued vacuum of human interaction. We'll grow more and more hate for each other or anything that's different.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    6. Re:The best of us? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Well, that's not how modern societies work, not how they can work. Going back to agrarian population densities would necessitate some drastic measures... (but everybody is free to move, to be within like-minded people)

      We are perfectly accepting public transit. Haven't you heard of airplanes? Now up to ~500 passengers(*) at a time (and see what people generally put up with en masse (TSA) to fly them). While there are few enthusiasts, they do it in a designated airspace - almost analogous to racetrack or offroad course.

      Or school busses. Or - do you see many manually operated elevators, to exercise "individuality"? (pushing a button, telling an automated system what to do, is not what manually operated elevators are about)

      How trains or local general public transport are quite unpopular in some areas is largely because of how they didn't have the chance with lobbying of automotive industry; and specifically building the surroundings to make it impractical to use anything other than a car. I'd say that's at least largely also a case of forcing a conformist behavior. The bike would seem more "individualistic" anyway...

      In reality, people follow very strict fashions (and readily consider distant ones as "weird") - but yes, being under an illusion of nonconformism is enough...

      (*)That's the key. Surely you don't think in the terms of "500 pilots" - so think in the terms of "passengers" also for cars. That's damn common, contrary to how people would like to perceive driving (otherwise 2-seaters would be probably most common, with virtual absence of cars having 4+ seats). So many "individual" things to do with the travel when don't have to care about it, instead of doing essentially mindless (but still requring constant attention) automatism, the same as every driver around. Travel time probably decreasing would be a nice bonus (things you mention in the first post ceasing to be an issue; human drivers are the biggest cause of trouble not only for automated ones)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  9. Question though... by TheCarp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While I do not doubt that these e-drivers will quickly come to out drive most of us, doesn't it come down to a question of how close to the physical capabilities of the car the driver can go or is going already? I expect them to be more reliable overall, more attentive (obviously) and more able to repeat their own performance. However, I am not necessarily so sure that there really is that much more capability for them to squeeze out of the cars than a trained pro driver on a test course is already able to squeeze out.

    Driving maneuvers are a constant trade off, the closer to the physical capabilities of the car you come, the faster you can traverse a course, however, it also means having less ability to make adjustments and corrections. It is a crude example but, If 99% of my available traction is being used to make this turn, at this speed,I only have 1% more to add if I need to make an adjustment to my course, or speed.

    Admittedly cars can then be redesigned to push those limits.....but thats another issue.

    -Steve

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    1. Re:Question though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So will we be able to text while the car is driving itself? ;)

    2. Re:Question though... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The driver has to perform a mystical brain computation in order to integrate everything they're learning about the car through their five senses. The car can have as many senses as you have processing time and I/O to handle. The car can [theoretically] make more decisions per second as well. Ultimately the car is going to be faster... someday.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Question though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You aren't taking into account that it makes no sense to drive a car at its limit for long. No car, economy or high performance can handle the rigors of being close to its maximum for long. You'd burn up tires, tear up control arm bushings (always a costly thing to replace) blow shocks, eat up rotors and brake pads... waaay before they were close to their expected service life. Ask any race team (especially the non professionals who like to race street cars on the track) and you'll see how often things break when you push a car to its limits.

      Proper application of car automation will take into account wear and tear on the car and will drive somewhere between sensibly and what most people are accustomed to/expect.

      Don't forget that even after autonomous cars become the norm it will be a long time before most of them are, which means you can have chains of autonomous cars traveling at 100 mph following within 100 feet of each other... not that a inter-car computer communication system couldn't make that work, but because the redneck farmer in the other lane might swerve his 1950's pickup into that chain of cars without a computer to tell the chain of cars it's coming.

    4. Re:Question though... by Cyberax · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Look at this as an example and cower in fear: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~aim/?p=video ( http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~aim/video/fcfs-insanity.mov )

    5. Re:Question though... by ledow · · Score: 1

      An autonomous car would be incredibly boring. Hell, driving down long motorways is already incredibly boring and it's nowhere NEAR the most efficient way to do that.

      And e-drivers can outpace us already in every statistic. They're still shit for driving in general, though, because like voice recognition, image recognition and everything else where you try to get a computer to do a job in a machine designed for human senses, it'll hit a limit that makes it entirely unable to actually *APPLY* any of those abilities to the job in hand. No point having a Formula 1 driver's reaction times (or better) if you still don't recognise that the blob on the camera is an old granny crossing the road until it's too late.

      Think that's a "solved" problem? Just the other month two "uncrashable" cars designed with every sensor you can possibly imagine (including "cheating" by having ultrasonic distance sensors as well as video cameras etc.) by one of the largest car manufacturer's in the world crashed, head-on, several times, in a demo to press about how they would avoid all crashes. They couldn't handle their own test-case reliably enough not to make the manufacturer look like an idiot, let alone a real road - and that test case was basically driving them at each other on an test track knowing they were both going to meet somewhere in the middle. They didn't even *TRY* to apply the brakes because the sensor data was not interpreted as the other (identical) car being a threat to them despite heading towards them, front-on at high-speed with identical systems enabled (so no "sun in your eyes" excuses).

      Autonomous cars for the next few generations will REQUIRE their own, individual, separate roads. If not technically, then legally. That's an INCREDIBLE expense and requires all sorts of work and income to just get off the ground. And it will take several generations of those roads being low-risk in terms of accidents before you can merge human and autonomous drivers, or have every road autonomous.

      Give the idea up. Maybe your grandchildren will see one operating on a separate road and not raise eyebrows at it. Maybe their grandchildren will be chauffeured everywhere. But the problem is not the technology, response times, engines, or anything else. It's how to TELL the computer, using a programming language, to do things in such a way that it's ALWAYS (or even MOSTLY) safe for it to drive on roads that present unknown obstacles (and that includes entirely autonomous roads where a deer strays into their path, or where debris from a natural disaster like a tree collapsing covers their lane). We're not even 1% of the way to solving that problem yet.

      When you can literally put an autonomous car in London, give it a destination and TELL people that if they are run over by the car they get a million pounds, and it can do so without anyone being able to claim that "prize" (and not through being dead), then you can start thinking about driving alongside them. Think of the equivalent in whatever your area of expertise is (e.g. a machine that can keep a patient alive and always respond to their heartbeat / breathing rate / blood content / other symptoms properly) and you'll see why it won't happen for a long time.

    6. Re:Question though... by amorsen · · Score: 1

      Formula 1 cars are hampered by restrictions because the drivers can't handle 10G+ in the turns and because there is a limit to how survivable you can make 500km/h crashes. Take away the restrictions and you would immediately see a significant reduction in lap times, but the drivers wouldn't last long.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    7. Re:Question though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoops - made a mistake, that should be can't in this: "which means you can't have chains of autonomous cars traveling at 100 mph following within 100 feet of each other..."

      My post. I've really got to memorize my /. username

    8. Re:Question though... by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      I wasn't trying to take any of that into account. The original post was about a car that made it through in a time that was approaching that of a skilled human driver.

      The time to make it through a course, being the only consideration, since it is not "how many times can it make it through the course at that speed before the car mechanically fails".

      Otherwise, why not compare its ability to make it through the course against my grandmother? (who, I seriously believe, is unaware of the fact that she has a gas peddle and could use it)

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    9. Re:Question though... by umberleigh · · Score: 1

      The driver has to perform a mystical brain computation in order to integrate everything they're learning about the car through their five senses.

      What the hell does taste have to do with driving?

    10. Re:Question though... by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      You aren't taking into account that it makes no sense to drive a car at its limit for long. No car, economy or high performance can handle the rigors of being close to its maximum for long.

      Actually, in terms of car life, vehicles that are mostly driven at 65-80 MPH on the highway last much longer than vehicles that are mostly driven in town, with fewer breakdowns and other problems. What causes the most damage to vehicles is in-town driving at slower speeds. Between the steering, the constant starting and stopping, etc., you have a perfect recipe for wearing cars out.

      Ask any race team (especially the non professionals who like to race street cars on the track) and you'll see how often things break when you push a car to its limits.

      To be pedantic, race teams push cars beyond their safe limits. They burn up tires because they're peeling out all the way around every curve. They break struts because they're operating at G forces that are beyond the vehicle's true tolerances. And so on. Yes, the vehicles can handle such abuse for a short period of time, but that doesn't mean they are operating at their limit. They're operating way, way past it, and every minute those cars remain functional is more luck than anything else.

      ...the redneck farmer in the other lane might swerve his 1950's pickup into that chain of cars without a computer to tell the chain of cars it's coming.

      This is why the law should require all cars, including vintage cars, to have a transmitter installed that reports steering wheel position, brake activation, and vehicle location. It's not ideal, but it would at least help automated vehicles identify manually driven vehicles and avoid them better.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    11. Re:Question though... by MartinSchou · · Score: 1

      The driver has to perform a mystical brain computation in order to integrate everything they're learning about the car through their five senses.

      Five? You only have five senses?

      Okay, let's see
      Taste
      Sight
      Hearing
      Smell
      Touch

      Which one handles balance/acceleration? Seems rather nifty while driving a car
      Spatial sense (ability to know where your body parts are with your eyes closed)? Knowing exactly where your feet and hands are without looking at them comes in handy when changing gears and breaking
      Temperature? Is the car overheating?
      Pain? Has the car just crashed
      Direction? You've just done 25 hair pin corners - are you still going in the right direction?

      The classical idea of "five senses" is not only obsolete - it's factually incorrect in trivial circumstances.

    12. Re:Question though... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Drivers currently outperform cars, even the most expensive race cars, consistently.

      Fighter aircraft are one of the few places that the machine out performs the driver.

      In all cases however, most 'computer' drivers are far more consistent in general and can be designed to do the 'ideal' reaction to pretty much every situation thats been analyzed. Eventually, a computer driving a car should be fully capable of out performing the car just like a human, and be better at it than a human.

      That translates to ... the computerized driver will likely be faster, more consistent and safer every time ... but the new record for running Pikes Peak is unlikely to change very much due to the computerized driver. Remember, people have been driving Pike's Peak for years and the only reason times get lower is because the cars get better, not because the drivers are evolving that fast.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    13. Re:Question though... by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Along with smell it can allow you to pick up on the cars situation.

      You can test gases in the air, like those that fill the cabin of a race car. Gases that can give you hints about engine performance or failure.

      Don't get me wrong, its not as useful as your eyes noticing the smoke pouring out, but you probably REALLY underestimate how much all 5 of your senses feed information into your brain about your environment.

      The test in the air can tell you about your environment ... ever taste or smell the rain coming? Or the ocean as you get near it when you've been or lived inland?

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    14. Re:Question though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, in terms of car life, vehicles that are mostly driven at 65-80 MPH on the highway last much longer than vehicles that are mostly driven in town, with fewer breakdowns and other problems. What causes the most damage to vehicles is in-town driving at slower speeds. Between the steering, the constant starting and stopping, etc., you have a perfect recipe for wearing cars out.

      I understand that moderate speeds like highway driving are ideal - I was just trying to call out the obvious expectation people will have after learning about articles like this. You know, the idea that: "hey if the computer can do better than any human, why cant MY car race me everywhere?"

      This is why the law should require all cars, including vintage cars, to have a transmitter installed that reports steering wheel position, brake activation, and vehicle location. It's not ideal, but it would at least help automated vehicles identify manually driven vehicles and avoid them better.

      Do you have any idea how hard and expensive it would be to retrofit every car on the road with a system like that? Do you have any idea how hard it would be to even legislate a requirement that all car companies come up with a standard for autonomous car inter-car communication?

      I think we've seen what happens with non govt bodies like ISO with a relatively trivial matter like standardizing word documents. :rollseyes:

    15. Re:Question though... by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Boring? Don't think about it in terms of operating a car - it could be more like a train or bus (or, you know, as a passenger of a car), with many ways of filling the passing time.

      Especially in case of "long motorways" - where most of your reservations might not apply much sooner.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    16. Re:Question though... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Temperature and pain are senses of touch. Spatial sense could be valid, but cars do know what gear they're in, and robot cars usually know things like suspension compression, and they certainly know how they're steering. Direction is computed in the brain and it's an example of what I'm talking about. Also most courses are marked. The point still stands.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    17. Re:Question though... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You aren't taking into account that it makes no sense to drive a car at its limit for long. No car, economy or high performance can handle the rigors of being close to its maximum for long.

      Actually, in terms of car life, vehicles that are mostly driven at 65-80 MPH on the highway last much longer than vehicles that are mostly driven in town

      You're right, but that is because even 80 mph is nowhere near the limit for most modern cars.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  10. You car has been sued - please leave it. by icebraining · · Score: 1

    Working together, Audi, Stanford University, the Volkswagen Group Electronics Research Lab and Oracle developed a distinct engineering achievement. The Autonomous Audi TTS Pikes Peak integrates advanced algorithms, the Oracle Java real-Time System (Java RTS), Oracle Solaris and GPS with safety and navigation systems found in stock Audi TTS models to maintain control at a physical performance extreme.

    --
    Dilbert RSS feed
  11. Maybe in 50 years we will take it for granted? by voss · · Score: 1

    "Grandpa you mean you actually had to DRIVE A CAR?? What if mom forgot to pick me up from school...she couldnt just send the auto-cab for me?"

    1. Re:Maybe in 50 years we will take it for granted? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      And quite possibly no reason to send it (a waste really, one way empty...), might be just in the form of car sharing as part of public transport (though it would require us coming to our senses, also including things like bikes in the process)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  12. we already have that robot... by mug+funky · · Score: 1

    the computer that will outdrive the best human? we've had Michael Schumacher for years. he's a pretty good driving program.

    1. Re:we already have that robot... by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

      recently the germans produced AutoFahrer 2.0, they called it sebastian vettel, it is already outpacing the old version, but still has some compatibility problems with australian software components

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
  13. Fatal exception by leptechie · · Score: 1

    Uh, does anyone else have a problem with this thing running on Java? Java causes death

    1. Re:Fatal exception by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Bad code in *any* language is bad and unsafe code, but java (as a language) has some features that make certain types of errors hard to make. Having said that, to "certify" a java app for say FAA standards, you would need the whole JVM stack(java platform) to be certified. Its a long way from that, that's for sure. The license even says something to that effect (as your link shows).

      On the other hand, cars have very lax rules with hardware and software compared to medical and aeronautics. Hell just about any loser can work on a car, including the breaks.

      So yes. I think java (the platform) is the wrong tool for the job. I would expect some kind of real time OS and associated tool chain and hardware.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    2. Re:Fatal exception by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. Java is a terrible choice for anything remotely realtime, and any sort of autonomous control system for a vehicle meets that definition, by definition. I hope that they at least ensure that objects are always reused and that their code never relies on any garbage collector. Otherwise, this is quite literally an accident waiting to happen.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    3. Re:Fatal exception by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Well there has been work done on real time GC (as in with true real time guarantees). But i don't know if its out of the lab yet.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
  14. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    This is Slashdot, dammit, we're supposed to be talking about the tech the car uses, the sensor fields, blind spots, known bugs, and so forth. What do we get? A typical journalist "the narrative" story, where humanity is in a race against robots which will surely supplant us. Guh, it's like a rejected 1950s sci-fi manuscript.

    Well, an automated journalist could be programmed to write about the facts, the technology, like you said. Maybe we should face off a /. writer with a computer to see who writes the most compelling story? As a prize, the winner could enslave the loser's race.

  15. Liability? Is a solved problem by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 1

    You're seeking a problem where none exists. There's many fields already where there's someone operating potentially deadly equipment (the user), and manufacturer that might face charges if their product was faulty. Existing cars for one, industrial robots, household appliances, etc, etc.

    Once the tech has proven itself, surely some laws could be passed to make it clear who's responsible and/or liable for what. In the mean while, there's nothing stopping a manufacturer from having customers signing a waiver that says "use at your own risk". Besides: if the technology proves safer than cars are currently, it might be a net positive for a manufacturer even if they'd hold a larger part of the risk.

  16. Expensive humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The relative cost depends on the environment: when trucking in hazardous environments, the squishy tragedy of a dead driver is more of a problem (and the premium for delivery is higher, too). Which is why DARPA is so gung-ho for this technology as a means of automating logistics deliveries in war zones.

  17. Vapor ware smoke and mirrors as a general case. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lets take the driver to an similar yet unfamiliar course and see how both drivers do.

    The test conditions allows for a unique to pikes peak success to the bot driver.

    If the point of the test is to leverage trust and confidence that due to not seeing the bot driver drive off the cliff, I see smoke an mirrors.

    Further if the bot driver completed "pike peak" in 5 minutes it would (be amusing) but would not / should not engender any confidence in the ability of the bot to not dive off any other cliff.

    Where an expert driver would have a reproducibly safe experience on the first try without any initial information.

    Meh

    1. Re:Vapor ware smoke and mirrors as a general case. by sznupi · · Score: 1

      There is almost no "unfamiliar course", for a bot driver, in the era of GPS maps now. Will be much more the case when autonomous vehicles will go on sale.

      (oh, you want to purposely handicap the abilities of bot driver? Why not blindfold the human while you're at it?)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  18. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Urkki · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot, dammit, we're supposed to be talking about the tech the car uses, the sensor fields, blind spots, known bugs, and so forth. What do we get? A typical journalist "the narrative" story, where humanity is in a race against robots which will surely supplant us. Guh, it's like a rejected 1950s sci-fi manuscript.

    Well, an automated journalist could be programmed to write about the facts, the technology, like you said. Maybe we should face off a /. writer with a computer to see who writes the most compelling story? As a prize, the winner could enslave the loser's race.

    As a member of the same race as current /. editors, I strongly object to this idea. But if it comes to pass, I'll strive to be the first to personally welcome our new automated journalist overlords, of course.

  19. Should have used a DeLorean by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    It's a question of style...

    --
    No sig today...
    1. Re:Should have used a DeLorean by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, they should have used a Corvette convertible.

  20. WRC by Overunderrated · · Score: 1

    "it's almost inevitable that a computer will one day outdrive the best of our species, and it may be sooner than you think."

    Sounds like the author has never seen a WRC race.

  21. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Shakrai · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot, dammit, we're supposed to be talking about the tech the car uses, the sensor fields, blind spots, known bugs, and so forth.

    It uses magic pixie dust. There are no bugs. It will eventually replace humanity. All our base are belong to it. I for one welcome our new machine overlords.

    See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  22. I hope it remembers to stop by ishmalius · · Score: 1

    When it gets to the top.

    1. Re:I hope it remembers to stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When it gets to the top.

      Awesome complete sentence there...

  23. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Urkki · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot, dammit, we're supposed to be talking about the tech the car uses, the sensor fields, blind spots, known bugs, and so forth. What do we get? A typical journalist "the narrative" story, where humanity is in a race against robots which will surely supplant us. Guh, it's like a rejected 1950s sci-fi manuscript. Bonus points for using the tech-y "benchmark" phrase like the car is some sort of Crysis.

    Yeah, like that's news. It's a certainty, that humanity will either exploit itself to extinction, or be surpassed by AI creatures of our own making.

    All we can hope for, is that those AI creatures will find us amusing, and perhaps, wether out of pity, curiosity or boredom,will guide us in our otherwise futile attempt to keep this planet habitable for human-like life forms. Of course we must remember, that those AI creatures will be the "humanity" of that era, and if anybody will carry human/Earth legacy to to the stars, it will be them. For them, preserving us will be roughly analogous to us preserving chimpanzees and gorillas and their habitats.

    I think this probably will not happen in our lifetime, unless there are major advances in life-prolonging technologies, but it will happen unless humanity goes extinct first.

  24. Re:in shaa'a Allah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

  25. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a member of the same race as current /. editors,

    What race is that, dyslexic morons?

  26. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Shakrai · · Score: 1

    It's a certainty, that humanity will either exploit itself to extinction, or be surpassed by AI creatures of our own making.

    Neither one of those are a "certainty".

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  27. Hurry up, dammit. by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 1

    The sooner this sort of autopilot technology is refined and made standard equipment, the happier I'll be. I fucking hate driving, and would love to just put the car on autopilot, reach down between my legs, ease the seat back, and take a nap.

    --

    I write sci-fi for metalheads

  28. The real test by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 1

    I drove my car to the top of Pike's Peak several years when I was on vacation. Driving up is easy. Driving back down, on the other hand, is the real challenge.

    It was especially fun considering that my car was sold in a part of the country that was basically at sea level so the computer had trouble dealing with the air at that altitude. How will their automated system deal with the engine stalling out, causing a lose of both power steering and power braking ever couple of minutes?

    There's something else I took issue with in the article:

    Humans are not very good at driving cars, as is evidenced by our ability to destroy 1.3 million souls on our roads each year.

    I don't know where to get good statistics for the rest of the world but you can get information about accident rates and total miles driven in the US and it works out that in the USA the averages are about 1 accident (any severity) for every 500,000 miles driven and 1 death for every 80 million miles driven. That's pretty damn good.

    1. Re:The real test by ledow · · Score: 1

      That means that a driver has an accident (of ANY kind) only once or twice in a driving lifetime, or thereabouts. I call rubbish on that, I think the statistics don't show what you think they show - given that the average "no-claims bonus" is about 3-4 years and there's only one man in the entire UK who hasn't had an single accident (actually insurance claim, which isn't the same thing at all) in over 50 years of driving (according to a news article I read a year or so ago). I think you've looked at *insurance* claims (which isn't the same thing at all) and probably even "fault" insurance claims (i.e. where someone messed up rather than it being unavoidable).

      For instance, the UK has about 7 deaths on the road each day, with a population of only 60 million. To fit your statistics there would have to be an enormous driving population and/or an enormous amount of mileage for each. 250,000 are injured on the roads each year. That's 700 a day or thereabouts. I have no reason to believe the UK is significantly statistically different from the US in terms of driving accidents, on average.

      I think your statistics are vastly skewed - mainly because most people actually couldn't tell you how far they drove in a year anyway. I also think if you looked at *motorway* deaths it would vastly increase the statistics - almost no-one dies on little side-streets in comparison.

      However, I agree that the statistics for cars are probably less scary when expressed as accidents per million miles, but the same would happen for aircraft, trains, ships and anything else and I bet cars are STILL more dangerous in those terms. Large passenger aircraft might kill hundreds or thousands but when they do it makes the news and they mostly do daily trips of 1000's of miles all the time. Hell, I can easily drive 50,000 miles a year if I had a driving job, and that would only see me in an accident every ten years. I have a "near miss" about once or twice a year where only sheer luck and/or psychic ability has prevented an accident.

    2. Re:The real test by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      The US has a annual road toll of about 50000. That's pretty high and IIRC quite a bit higher per capita than the EU. Yes Europeans drive less. But we still love our cars, and still drive a lot.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    3. Re:The real test by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 1

      Here's the data from the US DOT for miles driven and death rates.

      As far as the 1 per 500,000 miles I am using 6 million car accidents per year in the US. If you have better data I'd be glad to see it.

      I have a "near miss" about once or twice a year where only sheer luck and/or psychic ability has prevented an accident.

      Exactly - near misses happen all the time but rarely result in an accident.

    4. Re:The real test by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 1

      Where did you come up with that number?

    5. Re:The real test by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

      How will their automated system deal with the engine stalling out, causing a lose of both power steering and power braking ever couple of minutes?

      with a turbocharger setup, the TTS has a 2 litre TFSI engine

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
    6. Re:The real test by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Its a IIRC one.. Which i originally dig up off the WHO site. But can't be bothered doing again right now.

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    7. Re:The real test by ledow · · Score: 1

      Mmm.... http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ tells an even more unbelievable story, but that's because it measures total road usage in "passenger km's" which is a bit unwieldy. But there's plenty of source data there - especially under http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/travel-transport/index.html.

      The document here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/adobepdf/162469/221412/217792/4212241/transportstatisticgreatbrit.pdf is very enlightening, for example, especially table 8.1. - 45 casualties per 100m km (62m miles). That's one reported casualty per 1.3 million travelled miles (if I did the maths right). Know I want to know why those statistics are a third of your stated figures, from one extreme to the other!

    8. Re:The real test by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

      The US has about 33,000-34,000 deaths a year from auto accidents, down from 40,000 at the begining of the decade.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

      And the rate of accidents per kilometer driven for the US is along the same rate as EU countries, higher than some, lower than others according to data from 2003.

      http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/statistics/stats-multicountry-percapita-2004.htm

    9. Re:The real test by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Power steering and power braking don't just instantly vanish after engine cutoff in general, and newer systems are shifting to electric in particular.

      Buses are an order of magnitude safer, so there's quite a lot of room for improvement when it comes to training and abilities of an average driver.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    10. Re:The real test by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

      Thanks--I got the stats from WHO around the time of 9/11 (so probably data from 2000), that's quite a drop. Per km I assumed the US would be better. However per capita, well we have a lot of people here in the EU that don't drive...

      --
      The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
    11. Re:The real test by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

      Yea, the fatality rate in the US, western EU, Japan and Australia is dropping quickly.

      Places like Israel where you'd think they would know how to drive with the insane licensing program are dangerous as hell still.

      The US has alot of people who don't know how to drive coupled with alot of drunk and drugged driving and we still have lot of secondary and tertiary roads that get alot of miles, which can be death traps.

      I'm in Alaska and what highways we have are very narrow with 65 mph speed limits.

  29. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Urkki · · Score: 1

    It's a certainty, that humanity will either exploit itself to extinction, or be surpassed by AI creatures of our own making.

    Neither one of those are a "certainty".

    There may be a few oscillations (like a global war, but so mild that human race survives it), but I don't really see any other endpoints.

    Maybe a world that is so starved of resources that developing AI just can't happen is a possiblity, but I doubt even that. As long as there's energy (even if it's just sun & short-delay derivatives like wind and hydro), there's potential for recycling ancient waste if nothing else is available. It's not like matter disappears when we use it (except in nuclear fission).

    I find the alternative that humans evolve so much dumber that computers/AI will be out of reach very unlikely. Evolving smaller brain is about as hard as evolving a bigger brain, there's the same barrier of having too big head to be practical, yet still too small to be technologically smart. Just look how long it took until natural evolution got over that barrier (like a quarter of a billion years, depending when you start counting). And there were probably many potentially smart species that went extinct before humans made it, but there's just one species to evolve "stupider", so it's virtually certain that result is extinction.

    Conclusion: either we eventually develop the AI that leaves us to eat dust, or we go extinct very very soon in evolutionary time-scale.

  30. Oracle Solaris and Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Audi's press release says that the car runs on Solaris and uses Java for the GPS. What was that about Oracle killing its open software business units?

  31. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Cryonix · · Score: 2, Informative

    A quick google search for "Autonomous Audi TTS hardware" turned up these articles, offering various details on the hardware used:
    http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/143/2/feature/22601
    http://www.audiusanews.com/newsrelease.do;jsessionid=2CB13CF6B9E286A75E8E2B1663E63318?id=1589
    http://www.topspeed.com/cars/audi/2010-autonomous-audi-tts-pikes-peak-ar92542.html

  32. like robot == steel man, and he's taking our jerbs by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    I was born a steel driving man, parse that as you will... ;-)

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  33. HUmans not good at driving? Oh really? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    FTA:

    "Humans are not very good at driving cars, as is evidenced by our ability to destroy 1.3 million souls on our roads each year"

    Apart from the fact that you don't just measure driving skill by the number of fatalities, thats just BS anyway. Considering how few accidents there are per mile driven we're EXCEPTIONALLY good at driving. If say 1 billion people in the world drive and they each drive 10000 miles a year
    on average then thats 10 TRILLION miles a year, so in other words thats 1 death for roughly every
    1 million miles driven.

    I don't know about you but I'd call that good driving.

    1. Re:HUmans not good at driving? Oh really? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Bus drivers do an order of magnitude better than average drivers, so I wouldn't call what the latter do "good" (well, except that of course 80-90% of them thinks they are in the top 50%...)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  34. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not sure how long it will be for truly intelligent machines (could never happen / be impossible without wetware).

    But machines able to do our jobs are here now. And for a lot of jobs the annual cost is $15,000. Compare that to $32,000 (after benefits) for even minimum wage jobs and you have to think things get ugly soon.

    Already diapers.com has "hundreds of robotic warehouse workers" (business week) and some hospital has "hired" 19 robotic workers *instead* of humans. It seems great as a cost savings measure at first-- but then you have to ask, long term, how do people get even a single dollar to afford the less expensive hospital?

    Seriously, we could be looking at 50% unemployment in 20 years. It will be concentrated on the low end. How do we handle that as a society? If we don't, it is going to get violent.

    What currently produces more taxes? A robotic factory making a billion a year with 3 human owner/managers or a human factory with 500 workers and 3 owner/managers that makes the same amount?
    Substantially lower sales tax, use tax, home property taxes, school taxes, etc. from the first. States will be hurting unless they institute income taxes.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  35. Computer driving faster? So what? by drgregoryhouse · · Score: 1

    As if I want to watch 20 computer racing each other on a race track. Nobody is putting their health at risk. It's more academic than sports. Like 20 geeks trying to prove who is a better programmer. Get a life and actually drive a car.

  36. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by smitty97 · · Score: 1

    you forgot "what could possibly go wrong?" and "in Soviet Colorado, car drive you!"

    --
    mod me funny
  37. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by TheTurtlesMoves · · Score: 1

    ..but I don't really see any other endpoints.

    This is a classic failure of the imagination on your part.

    Its also devoid of facts, or historic perspective.

    --
    The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
  38. Where is 17 minutes from? by TurtleBay · · Score: 1

    I just watched a video of human Rhys Millen doing Pike's Peak in 12:09. The computer is only at half speed. At those speeds and with a good car like the TT, the computer shouldn't even have to use advanced cornering techniques. If it is a Sunday drive up Pike's Peak, even I could do that. I can see what they are trying to do by useing an autonomous vehicle on one of the world's most dangerous tracks. Just going 30 mph up the course completely misses the point of why the drive is considered to be so dangerous.

    1. Re:Where is 17 minutes from? by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

      did millen use a TTS for that run? (at work, so no youtube for me)

      a TTS is a pretty serious sportscar (by my standards anyway, it outperforms 99,9% of other traffic), but compared to the monstrous racers they use on pikes peak, i wouldnt be surprised if 17 minutes is a realistic goal for a pro-driver in a TTS

      --
      People, what a bunch of bastards
  39. *Ahem* by PhxBlue · · Score: 1

    No apostrophe in Pikes Peak. It's a common mistake, because you'd think, "It should have an apostrophe in it." But for whatever reason, it doesn't.

    --
    !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
    1. Re:*Ahem* by iinlane · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia entry refers to Zebulon Montgomery Pike who originally documented it so Pike's Peak is also correct.

  40. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by need4mospd · · Score: 1

    Sounds like this would be a perfect article for the new Top Gear US then...

  41. Re:OK, let's see it do Mt. Everest then by Vectormatic · · Score: 1

    i'd love to see you drive up Mt. Everest in an audi TTS

    --
    People, what a bunch of bastards
  42. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by hitmark · · Score: 1

    It could be that what is missing is for software that can reason. So that when it is told to grab something from a shelf, it can work out how to do so using internal simulations and observational data.

    As for your employment/tax worry, i agree. Except that right now, China have moved that somewhat backwards as there is a long line of workers willing to work for pennies rather then live the life of subsistence farming. But even there the high water mark is rising, and China is sending out "feelers" to the last source of cheap human labor, Africa.

    Thing is, the robotic labor issue may well propel the world into a post-scarcity scenario. That is, if we at the same time adopt local "just in time" production rather then the legacy centralized bulk production we have right now. So that when someone wants a new shirt, a 3d scan is fed into a self contained mini-factory that will cut and construct the shirt from a roll of cloth.

    This rather then attempting what sunk soviet russia, and what the multinationals are attempting to a lesser degree, predicting or directing the wants and needs of the population at large and producing to cover those. The multinationals need to have a certain level of predictability for their mass production, and so they employ marketing to direct the wants of the public. Russia attempted to predict the needs via massive data collections and computer models, tho i suspect predicting the weather had better success rate.

    It is kinda funny how similar the soviet communist system and the corporate capitalist system is at that level, as both need a level of predictability to function.

    --
    comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
  43. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by mini+me · · Score: 1

    It wasn't many years ago that 75% of the population were employed as farmers. A new invention, the tractor, replaced the majority of farm workers with machines. Today, only 2% of the population still work on farms, yet we do not have a 73% unemployment rate.

    Twenty years ago people were claiming that robots would be the death of the employment and that we'd all be out of work in twenty years. Here we are. The employment rate has not changed significantly over that time.

    We have been replacing jobs with machines for a long, long time. Will the result in employment rates for the next twenty years really be any different than the trends of the past?

  44. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by timeOday · · Score: 1

    What do we get? A typical journalist "the narrative" story, where humanity is in a race against robots which will surely supplant us.

    It's especially bad because the robot didn't even come close to breaking the record! Let's celebrate this technical triumph for what it is, but save the robot overlords concession speech for when it actually applies.

  45. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    typical ./ elitist comment from an atypical ./ socially challenged pud with an expressively lame ./ nick... save your super smart comments for the super smart posts hero... let the rest of us enjoy this very interesting story that completely belongs on the best user submitted and evaluated current affairs technology-related news website in the world... jackass

  46. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Urkki · · Score: 1

    ..but I don't really see any other endpoints.

    This is a classic failure of the imagination on your part.

    Its also devoid of facts, or historic perspective.

    I'm unable to imagine what I'm unable to imagene? Well, duh.

    However, you appear to be even more devoid of imagination, because you replied, but only complained about lack of imagination, facts or historic perspective in my post, thus actually contributing nothing useful. Good job.

  47. We Need Robot Cars In Ohio by mattwrock · · Score: 1

    I am sure everyplace would have their share of stupid drivers, but I think we have a higher share of them here. The standard operating procedure for merging here to never let anyone in front of you... ever. Just speed up move and brake hard. Since you don't want to let your adversaries, er... fellow drivers know your intentions, never signal your turn. Given that our fastest drivers drive in the lanes designated for slower drivers because some drivers drive just under the speed limit in our fastest lane to "set an example" for the faster drivers, Ohio is a real mess. The other fun thing is our cops (local and state) will bust you if your even 5 miles over the speed limit. Beside the obvious life saving measures, our traffic flow, and even our wallets improve. On a side note, has anyone done research on the impact of NOT losing 35,000 people every year. I don't want to sound morose, but wow that would have major implications on our resources. I would rather keep people alive and try to fix our resource problems though.

    --
    "Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender
  48. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Defenestrar · · Score: 1

    ... our new automated journalist overlords...

    As opposed to our current geopolitical journalist overlords?

  49. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    But if it comes to pass, I'll strive to be the first to personally welcome our new automated journalist overlords, of course.

    You are assuming that this has not already happened....

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  50. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by tehcyder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seriously, we could be looking at 50% unemployment in 20 years. It will be concentrated on the low end. How do we handle that as a society?

    Try reading Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". Over a hundred years ago he was imagining a world where machines were the new slaves and the majority of mankind was released from the drudgery of labour.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  51. Re:like robot == steel man, and he's taking our je by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you're missing either a comma or a hyphen.

    I was born a steel-driving man.

    or

    I was born a steel, driving man.

    With that grammar fix, it resolves the ambiguity one way or the other. Not nearly as fun as the one-eyed eater who eats one-horned, flying purple people, though.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  52. helicopter crash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The chopper didn't fare so well:

    http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/article_dff0b04e-c2eb-11df-942c-001cc4c03286.html

  53. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    I understand that.

    I think this one is different- a paradigm shift.

    You say, "A machine that can replace farmers".

    I'm saying, "A set of machines that can replace ANY physical labor."

    Plus, since the 1990's they've been messing with unemployment numbers.
    Real unemployment is now over 20%.

    http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

    ---
    Now, on top of those factors add a huge number of highly intelligent, well trained indians and chinese willing to work for $15k as well.
    So we lose jobs both at the bottom (due to automation) and the top (due to offshoring).

    ---

    That's part of what makes this decline so ugly- if you have a job, you are fine. Once you lose it, replacing it is difficult. (I have friends with degrees, experience, and under 50 who have been unemployed over 2 years and a lot more who are scared it will happen to them).

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  54. New Delhi by hotsauce · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, the metro in New Delhi is driverless, too.

    --
    Lies about crimes
    1. Re:New Delhi by khoonirobo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the metro in New Delhi is driverless, too.

      Uhh ... I live here (New Delhi) and no, the DMRC trains aren't driverless.
      Included are some links that tell about an accident that happened when a driver did something stupid.

      http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_driver-started-metro-train-before-getting-signal-dmrc_1282211

      http://www.indianexpress.com/news/driver-started-metro-train-before-getting-signal-dmrc/501738/2

  55. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by kvezach · · Score: 1

    Yeah, like that's news. It's a certainty, that humanity will either exploit itself to extinction, or be surpassed by AI creatures of our own making.

    Everybody imagines AI. I find IA (intelligence amplification) another possibility. Perhaps the nascent superintelligence will be ourselves. "They" will be "us" and we'll have a reason to keep the planet habitable.

    Or perhaps marginal improvement in intelligence gets much harder the further you go. Singularity-style extrapolation involves physical parameters, not a measure of intelligence, and maybe it takes exponentially many more transistors to improve intelligence linearly. If P != NP, there are at least some puzzles that Moore's law won't make go away.

  56. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by SnarfQuest · · Score: 1

    Well, I for one will not be impressed until it FLIES over Pike's peak.

    I want my flying car, dammit!

    --
    Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  57. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    Good game, felt repetitive at times though. Oh, you meant crisis ...

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  58. Open source project.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I noticed this the other day: http://bitbucket.org/djlyon/smp-driverless-car-robot

  59. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

    Humans got lucky with the right addons, brain, hands with good fingers and a thumb, and long life spans.

    Other animals are out there with the potental and the brains, whales, porpoises, octopus and corvids. But they either lack the ability to make tools easily because of their limb shape (marine mammals, corvids) or because of short life spans (octopus) or a combination (corvids).

    With the intelligence and problem solving skills of octopi, if they lived to be 30-40 like early humans did, they very well might have developed technologies. If corvids could fashion tools with anything other than a beak, they too could have developed farther.

    I don't see humans evolving "stupider", but I don't see humans lasting more than 50-100,000 more years either.

  60. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    True AI (machines that think, rather than simply calculate) won't come with present archetectures. Thought is chemical, not electronic. A computer's intelligence isn't artificial, it's the programmer's intelligence, just like an encyclopedia isn't intelligent, but it holds the facts that intelligent people gathered.

    As to running out of resources, I don't see that happening. Energy, for example -- all energy on earth is either fusion of fission, fusion coming from the sun. Materials can be recycled or reused. Future people will mine our landfills if they run out of, say, copper or aluminum.

    Throughout human history, peoples' welfare has gotten better and better. I see no reason that won't continue, short of an big asterooid smashing the Earth.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  61. Re:like robot == steel man, and he's taking our je by mcgrew · · Score: 1

    No, it's a hyphen.

    "I was born a steel" makes no sense. "I was born a steel-driving man" makes sense, "I was born a man who drives steel" makes even more sense, but it isn't poetic.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  62. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by slick7 · · Score: 1

    you forgot "what could possibly go wrong?"

    Well, let's load it up with gasoline and C-4, send it on its way and find out.

    --
    The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
  63. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i'm surprised there's no terminator references.

  64. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by guruevi · · Score: 1

    It's the transition period from most people working through some people working to no people working that is the main problem. It was the same problem with Communism why would you work hard if the rest of the population doesn't have to work hard and still gets paid.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  65. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by nschubach · · Score: 1

    From what I saw last night, ANYTHING would be good for the US version of the show. I might actually feel bad for the people involved in the show when I see it crash and burn.

    It's almost as if someone gave the guys a camcorder and $50 to edit it. Not to mention the whole Chopper vs. Viper thing felt like a direct rip-off of the BBC version, but with more whining and less intelligence.

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  66. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

    Easy, we'll task the machines with fixing our situation. After careful calculation it will decide to euthanize us and turn us into large plates to build beautiful patterns with.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  67. Re:like robot == steel man, and he's taking our je by dgatwood · · Score: 1

    Depends on whether you are human or an android. An android was born a steel man, and a driving man. Therefore, it was born a steel, driving man.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  68. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by sznupi · · Score: 1

    Thought is chemical, not electronic.

    What does that even mean? Both reduce to quantum mechanics... (programmer's intelligence, or generally of intelligent people gathering facts, doesn't exist in isolation, too)

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  69. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by sznupi · · Score: 1

    For them, preserving us will be roughly analogous to us preserving chimpanzees and gorillas and their habitats.

    Not quite - chimpanzees and gorillas are parallel branches, not our ancestors. The latter do live in a way, in us. And considering probably quite rapid (if ever), on evolutionary scale, shift to "AI" - but still gradual - there's a possibility those type of descendants will be us in a much stronger sense than good old biological lineages. Making the question of what "they" will do with "us" a bit moot.

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  70. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Urkki · · Score: 1

    For them, preserving us will be roughly analogous to us preserving chimpanzees and gorillas and their habitats.

    Not quite - chimpanzees and gorillas are parallel branches, not our ancestors. The latter do live in a way, in us. And considering probably quite rapid (if ever), on evolutionary scale, shift to "AI" - but still gradual - there's a possibility those type of descendants will be us in a much stronger sense than good old biological lineages. Making the question of what "they" will do with "us" a bit moot.

    Well, that's way I said roughly analogous, because that was the closes analogy I could think of. Though slightly better real analogy might be us preserving Neanderthals... oops.

    Any non-biologically evolving AI or other kind of super-intelligence would have it's origins in humanity, but would very rapidly evolve into something quite different. I'd say such being(s) would soon be "us" about as much as we're the last common ancestor of human and chimp... or maybe human and shrimp.

    Anyway, asking what "they" will do with the 10+++ billions of old-fashioned non-enhanced biologically evolving and breeding humans is not moot (just extremely hypothetical). They wouldn't be breeding with "us", so they'd be different... "species".

  71. Drifting. by w0mprat · · Score: 1

    Going fast on a loose surface takes considerable skill, it's probably the most difficult task you could set and AI driver. Sure a computer could in theory react faster than a human, but in the case of an AI driver it has to assess it's entire situation and take action in a split second faster than a human does. In this case 150ms.

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
    1. Re:Drifting. by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Going fast while drifting, on the level of technology, doesn't seem much different from preventing drifting / skid at all costs - what modern stability systems do quite well.

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      One that hath name thou can not otter
  72. 97% decrease in human labor, other industries? by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    Perhaps your example could be used to support the opposite viewpoint as well. If farm machinery reduced the percentage of the population employed as farmers from 75% to 2% (a 97% decrease!), imagine what would happen to each industry as it became mechanized or roboticized (new word?). If each industry's need for human labor were reduced by 97%, new industries and jobs couldn't be conceived of quickly enough to employ all the newly-laid-off workers, even though it would happen gradually.

    Combine that with outsourcing to foreign countries and you may have a recipe for disaster.

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
  73. The Grand Scheme of Things by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    In a debate it could be considered useful to point out the fallacies in a party's argument. I think he did do a good job.

    Who KNOWS what will happen in a few hundred or thousand years. By far the majority of our technology could not have been conceived of a few hundred or thousand years ago.

    Wait and see. Meanwhile, live your life and don't worry. In the grand scheme of things (from an atheistic perspective) it's not long enough to amount to a hill of dirt.

    And in the end, thanks be to God for his everlasting promise of eternal life to those who love Him. We really don't need to worry one bit about things like AI taking over or moving to another planet.

    (I would argue that from a secular perspective we need not worry either. If the human race were to gradually go extinct...so what? Who would it harm, other than the last few people left who might be lonely? Why do we need to preserve our species for eternity? So some aliens can come along and laugh at us someday? I don't think they'd miss us. Those of us who are alive today surely wouldn't know the difference. We place so much importance on ourselves, but other than our spiritual value, we matter very little.)

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
  74. We know nothing. by gottabeme · · Score: 1

    I don't see humans evolving "stupider", but I don't see humans lasting more than 50-100,000 more years either.

    "The beginning of wisdom is the admission of one's ignorance."

    It's absolutely ludicrous to think that one could have even a vague idea of what will happen in the next 100,000 years.

    --
    "Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
  75. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by Phoghat · · Score: 1

    Try reading Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". Over a hundred years ago he was imagining a world where machines were the new slaves and the majority of mankind was released from the drudgery of labor.

    Sure it's all beer and skittles if you don't have to think about how the "majority of mankind" is going to clothe and feed itself. For those things you need money or a system instead of money like a barter system. Then again we could try living in "Bitchun Society" and try to accumulate "Whuffie"

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    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
  76. Re:Bah! Stupid "the narrative" by sznupi · · Score: 1

    Curiously enough, recent research suggests how we do have some neanderthal DNA ... yes, I do think there's a possibility the "AI" will be us, upgraded. Yes, the "human part" will probably quite quickly form only a small portion of it - so what?

    We use non-human intelligence and memory amplification devices already. And the perception of monolithic, unbroken consciousness forming "us" is largely itself an illusion, a myth (look at what happens (or rather - what almost doesn't happen) with split-brain patients; or how closer we are to our peers than to ourselves at distant life stages - essentially dying and being reborn many times during the course of our lives). We do like to attach to ourself undue importance - for example with the myth of "more people alive now than ever lived" (while there are 100+ billion homo sapiens dead, and we are oblivious to the existence of almost every living human...not that they are very different from us)

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    One that hath name thou can not otter