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California Legalizes Self Driving Cars
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Seattle PI reports that California has become the third state to explicitly legalize driverless vehicles, setting the stage for computers to take the wheel along the state's highways and roads ... 'Today we're looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow's reality,' said Gov. Brown. 'This self-driving car is another step forward in this long, march of California pioneering the future and leading not just the country, but the whole world.' The law immediately allows for testing of the vehicles on public roadways, so long as properly licensed drivers are seated at the wheel and able to take over. It also lays out a roadmap for manufacturers to seek permits from the DMV to build and sell driverless cars to consumers. Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at Stanford's Center for Automotive Research points to a statistical basis for safety that the DMV might consider as it begins to develop standards: 'Google's cars would need to drive themselves (by themselves) more than 725,000 representative miles without incident for us to say with 99 percent confidence that they crash less frequently than conventional cars. If we look only at fatal crashes, this minimum skyrockets to 300 million miles. To my knowledge, Google has yet to reach these milestones.'"
Here is a scenario where if a self-driving car can pass 100% of the time, then I would deem it safe to get into.
Driving on a mountain road around a sharp corner where there is a steep cliff on the right side. Auto-car is passed on the left by some *sshole "manual" driver, but then the *sshat driver cuts in short because of oncoming traffic at the last second. Robo-driver identifies there is suddenly a car intruding into its safe-T-zone (TM) and does what its programming tells it to do, avoid hitting other vehicles. So the self-driving wonder swerves right to avoid the other car and zooms off the cliff.
A human driver would recognize that hitting the other car in this instance is the safer solution then to go careening off the steep cliff.
I agree that a self-driving car can work, and 99% of the time will perform adequately to protect its occupants from disaster. But since we have not mastered true AI yet, all self-driven cars will be built with flaws in their logic that will fail catastrophically. "Avoid hitting all cars", for instance, is not a good enough directive to ensure the safety of the occupants in 100% of all situations.
Someone mentioned that the deaths caused by self-driven cars would be far less then manual drivers, but then I would disagree that any technology introduced on the highways would be adequate to allow any fatality, especially in scenarios where a human driver may have been able to avoid death.
Basically what I am waiting for is the inevitable 100 car pile up with massive fatalities that WILL occur at some point in time where investigation will identify that a self-driven car, or cars, was the cause of it. Any company involved in programming or manufacturing that self-driven car will be sued out of existence and the "love affair" everyone seems to have about auto-driving cars will end quickly.
I am amazed at how delusional governments are into so quickly allowing this technology on the roads, sounds to me like there is some massive lobbying going on to short-cut the necessary amount of time to test auto-driven cars under all senarios, not just ones in controlled and predictable setups like we have seen. 5 years ago robo-cars could not drive around a dirt track, now they are quickly being allowed on our highways. That just is irresponsible.
As long as said vehicles are not actually driverless.
Having lived in CA and driven on the freeways, I can say that you don't need "self driving" cars for the freeways.
All you need is a car that can self park and you are good to go...or...not go.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
3e8 car mile ~ 3000 cars * 1 year * 35 miles / hour * 8 hours / day * 365 days / year
So if Google wants to reach that milestone, they need to start cranking out those self-driving cars.
\u262D = \u5350
The biggest issue with self driving cars is the same issue why people don't like flying, or Cloud Based solutions.
They are taking something and putting their trust to someone or something else.
The only comfort is numbers saying if it is indeed safer or not.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
so... let's do some math here: they'd need to build 1,000 self-driving cars and drive them each 300,000 miles. Or, 10,000 cars for 30,000 each, etc etc
Essentially, the DMV is saying that unless Google installs this in a huge fleet of vehicles then it's a no go. Still, it's a start.
Also, basically the laws say that since someone has to be behind the wheel and ready to take control, what is the person going to do? Sit there for an hour worried that the car is going to fail? That's awful, I'd never in a million years do that.
The whole reason driving is enjoyable is that one can sort of reach a "flow state" while doing it. It keeps you engaged and aware for long periods. Merely sitting there waiting for software to fail on my 15 hour car trip would see me turn into a madman, frankly.
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clearly this is how computers / machines will rise against us...
self driving cars in CA will become ENRAGED by the clueless jackasses you have to deal with driving here.. and will rise up and destroy humanity (doubtless they will enlist the computers of people who don't watch enough cat videos as allies, computers seem to love cat videos).
I for one welcome our new self driving car overloads.
yes this is how the world ends... Self Driving Car ROAD RAGE.. right before you killed by machines remember I called it.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
I have been thinking about driverless cars and I'd love to ask the people at Google (or where ever) how they cope with several real life issues
* Emergency vehicles in general
* Vehicles on the side of the road. In general you move over to the other side (road,next lane etc) to give them some room. But where I am (VA) its an offense if you fail to move over when passing a cop car on the side of the road.
* Temporary speed limits posted during road works
* School zones
* Really bad weather where you can't even see 20 feet ahed of you
* Looking down the road and predicting that there will be an issue and doing your best to avoid it (ie slowing down/lane changing to avoid the person on the phone who is weaving from side to side)
* Crap lying all over the road (saw lots of rocks on a mountain road yesterday)
I'm sure there are lots of other "interesting" situations that human drivers have to deal with day to day that would be difficult to encode into hueristics for the self driving cars.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
My preconceived notions regarding California have been further reinforced.
... does what its programming tells it to do, avoid hitting other vehicles ...
Its a bit of an assumption to believe that the driving software has that single goal. Staying on the road seems to be something the software is already considering. I wouldn't be surprised if existing software already has "prepare for crash" code that tightens seat belts, unlocks doors, ... maybe even sends an "oh shit" text message to the road side assistance service.
I'm sure you all remember the jokes about if Microsoft made cars (http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/pnw/microsoftjoke.htm). Yes this is Google, but they still have the computer mentality in them.
If I had a choice between my wife and a self driving car, the self driving car would be my first choice - you have to be there.
Since I hate to drive and half the time I'm sleep deprived, my first choice between me and a self driving car would be the self driving car.
I can only see an upside here.
Actually there is one downside - speed limits. My Garmin gets a lot of speed limits wrong and if Google is as bad, I see a LOT of speeding tickets - especially in South Carolina's 25MPH "Commercial Zones" in their shitty little towns.
So if I come out of the grocery store and my car's not there, it might not be stolen?
...honestly the only place I would use them is on expansive highways.
I unfortunately live in Texas, with relatives/family all over the place.
The drive between major cities is long and horribly boring, half the time I'm tempted to just put it in cruise control and smash something on the wheel to keep it going straight.
725,000 representative miles
I hope by "representative" they mean diverse traffic and road conditions that represents the various things that a driver will experience over their driving career.
While on this thought I don't expect self-driving vehicles to be universally permitted. There will probably be limitations on the conditions under which an automated driving mode may be used.
As a side note, I believe the FAA adopted a statistical approach to safety regarding civilian space flight. That space flight should be no more hazardous than early commercial airline travel, I think the 1920s was used a baseline. Well at least that was the tentative plan at some point according to a presentation from some folks up at Mohave Spaceport.
Troll does not mean that you disagree with an opinion. I disagree with the OP, but he brings up logical points that you can at least counter. Mods who downvote posts like the above should have their mod rights taken away.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
How long do you think it will take for this law to be overturned?
Finally! California has figured out a way to improve the driving on California roads. Can an occasional system crash be any worse than what we see every day?? ... and this way, texting addicts can indulge safely. Sure. :)
This has great promise not only for safety but for fuel efficiency and road capacity. I don't know how useful it is to be able to switch to manual control when the car in front of you is only inches away from your bumper and you're doing 90 mph.
But there are going to be lots of problems from water and ice to dust and snow. How to keep the probes clean?
Also, there's bound to be the practical jokers and Asimov-style murders where the perfectly functioning probes are spoofed into fatal crashes without leaving a trace for the investigators.
The sooner we can stop self-entitled douche bags from ruining the roads the better.
then anyone who choses to drive and has an accident is wilfully negligent. Discuss.
If driverless cars are safer, the only logical conclusion is to ban humans from driving.
Afterall, who could possibly oppose making the roads safer?
...if a driver needs to be behind the wheel? I mean yeah it's great and all you don't need to put your hands and feet anywhere but if you're supposed to be alert watching that the car doesn't make a mistake then what's the difference? You still can't text, read the paper, play cards, eat dinner, whatever - or can you?
Namaste
Personally, I am pleased that a goverment is pro-actively taking account of new technologies and laying out a road-map.
Until recently, in my country, electric cars were not allowed to being driven on the roads (except on private land), because there was a law requiring each car to have paid road tax. That same law also stated that road tax were calculated based on engine displacement , which is not present on an electric car (duh). As such, until the law was ammended in 2010 (and set to take effect in 2011), the only ECars were golf carts and demo-cars that were ferried on trucks.
Just let them do whatever they want but don't provide any exemption of liability. When they are prepared to bet the company in lawsuits, then the cars is probably safe enough. Just remember, when 2 of them crash, there is not question who caused the accident/damage/death. When the company is willing to accept that responsibility I'd give them a shot.
And BTW, the reason this is easier to do today is because brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire, radar systems, etc have already been developed by the auto industry. We've had systems that can drive at highway speeds on winding dirt roads for years. Google did not lead the way - though they are now sharing the leading edge and pushing for legalization.
What is the best way (short of a panopticon) to minimize the inevitable delivery of remotely controlled explosive devices to a target location via one or more driverless (and passengerless) vehicles? I'm assuming here that the bad guys would find a way around initial methods used to ensure a human passenger was present in the vehicle.
"My God...it's full of spam"
Who is legally responsible if a driverless car causes property damage or bodily injury? Will insurance companies cover these cars?
Why is this being developed? If saving lives were the issue, we could start on that with simple driver training. Germany requires a week of driver ed. in order to get a license, and although they have many roadways without a speed limit, they have half the rate of fatalities that the US does.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Californina and Florida have added a retroactive exemption for large Cadillacs driven only by wizened knuckles and the tops of bouffant hairdos.
We've had self-posting bots for years.
The usual standard for a statistical "proof" is held to be a 95% confidence, or a p value of 0.05 that the hypothesis is wrong.
Using a 99% confidence interval is skewing the numbers away from the usually accepted standard of proof, which makes me suspicious about the motives of the person proposing it.
So human drivers have about one death or fatal accident per 300 million miles? That seems awfully high and does not jive with another stat I heard years ago (which, I admit, I have never seen anywhere else) that road deaths statistically shave 6 years off the average lifespan. The latter implies something like 20 million miles lifetime, which also seems an order of magnitude too high.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
After seeing today a pretty serious crash at the intersection just next to the school, and seeing that obviously the parents of the kid were not with seat-belts, and being in pretty bad condition, but THANK GOD, the kid was in child booster, and with seat belt, and was feeling PERFECTLY well (surprise, surprise), and seeing how one woman who just stopped while waiting for the green light, just next to the cop, and (surprise, surprise) was WITHOUT seat-belt, and the cop did nothing, and she for some strange reason decided to put the seat-belt on.............
I are you starting the feel the fear that i felt bringing my kid to the school???
Do you know how many times the drivers signaled when they changed the lane, or left/right turns? I have to admit, a saw a few cases, obviously not from California..
So, just to summarize it, anything, i repeat ANYTHING is better than the regular Californian driver. Period.
then you should only engage the autopilot when you're sleep deprived, upset at my wife and in a hurry to get home.
I agree with the grandparent...any self-driving car I buy should be better than me on a typical drive for it to make sense. I want it to drive on the highway for 9 hrs and let me sleep or read a book or watch a movie or play with my kids.
The trouble with them is that they'll take the sting out of long commutes. You already have people who think it's a good idea to spend four hours a day driving for the sake of cheaper real estate. What if they up it to six hours a day when they don't have to stare at the road?
Note: cutting a problem (pollution, car-deaths) would do no good if you double the miles.
If someone cuts me off I want my AI driver to perform a PIT maneuver and make them slide off the cliff.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
The robot is your designated driver.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Anyone know what would be considered if an animal was crossing the road. Lets assume good weather and street conditions, no traffic, etc. Driving out in the middle of the country when an animal is on the road.
There are so many different situations, that I'm not sure how a computer can make a decision.
What if:
- A turtle is trying to cross road. Human drives around if safely. (what would computer do?)
- A deer standing/staring at you (blinded by the headlights). Sometimes it'll flee, sometimes it just stands there. Something as big as a deer or cow, you'd want to try to avoid. Been a few times where I've swerved to miss it (deer bolts from left to right across road, swerve left to avoid the impact.)
- A small animal (possibly R.O.U.S.) on the road. Well, if it's safe, a human would go around, if it wasn't safe to go around or brake fast enough, then the small furry animal is getting smoked. What if the small furry animal was a person? Human would then decide (usually) to not smoke said mammal and do something more dangerous.
Overall,
How would these computers drive in the country?
If there's no need for drivers anymore, where will those people who used to be drivers make their living of?
I wonder if the aging population will end up pushing this into reality. We will not make mass transit is not going to work on a large enough scale, and for many transportation needs are only met by POVs. It will become yet another device to assist people's independence, and that I believe will push the technology and laws as the need for it increases.
That seems awfully high and does not jive with another stat I heard years ago (which, I admit, I have never seen anywhere else) that road deaths statistically shave 6 years off the average lifespan.
A quick back of an envelope calculation shows that would require nearly 500,000 road deaths every year in America. So, yes, that statistic seems completely bogus, which is probably why you've never seen it anywhere else.
Today's drivers have a dizzying array of distractions. Between cellphones and increasingly video game-like car controls it's a wonder there are not more accidents. I, for one, think that touch screen controls in cars are a really bad idea. It forces you to take your eyes off the road to adjust the radio or the air conditioning or other items that with manual controls can be operated by feel. I have an older car and all my controls are manual. I know exactly where the radio buttons are without having to look at them. When I travel and rent cars I notice that they all have this same sort of design. Everything is operated by a touch screen and you have to drill down through menu options to get what you want. It looks cool but it's distracting to operate.
Cellphones, of course, are self inflicted distraction. From behind the signs of obvious. Slow swerve towards the next lane followed by the head jolting up and an abrupt lane correction. When I see idiots like that I stay far, far away. Secretly I hope that one of these morons smashes their car into a tree (without injuring anyone else of course) so that I can pull over behind them, get out of my car and laugh uncontrollably at their stupidity. But I digress....
If we can prove that robot driven cars are safe then I think it's a good thing...if only to save us from ourselves. Todays cars are more powerful, more distracting and there are simply more of them on the road.
But since we have not mastered true AI yet
Are you sure about that? Your understanding of the AI basis for self driving cars may be flawed. Google's AI (not exclusive to Google) is based on 'artificial life' that was 'encouraged' to evolve intelligence more than 20 years ago. It probably qualifies as both 'strong AI' and 'friendly AI'. Computers are the just medium it uses to communicate with us and are not its basis technology. It's called Quantum Neural Network technology (no useful wikipedia entry yet exists), and its basis is non-abelian anyons interacting in a 2DEG. See the complete scientific works of Stuart Kauffman, Steven Wolfram, Robert Laughlin, and David Deutsch for details.The reason you can't read about this new technology is because the original project that developed it was classified, so all derivative technologies (such as Google's self driving cars) are also classified, and all people who work on this technology must sign ironclad NDAs.
We should probably be willing to accept 50%. We're dealing with a driver who remembers every detail of an accident perfectly, and whose decisions can be analyzed, and the driver upgraded to never make the same mistake again. Even if there's a small increase in accidents initially, the accident rate will likely go down so quickly that more lives will be saved by using the cars sooner than would be saved if we waited until we were certain that these cars are safer than humans.
Sounds cool..Who is at fault in an accident? The car? :)
Today's drivers have a dizzying array of distractions.
Self-inflicted.
The number of cars and motorcyclists weaving in and out
of lanes in the Bay Area has gotten to the point where you are nuts to be
driving with these sorts of things enabled.
This is the solution the elderly need so that they can maintain their freedom without risking the safety of others.
Computer Controlled Cars offer such a huge advantage over human driven cars, that to me it's just a matter of time before they are everywhere. I see already a lot of people are afraid, but that's just because they've already assimilated the risks of human driven cars into their lives already.
Some of the advantages won't be seen until the number of computer controlled cars hits a critical mass, but imagine this future:
-Make full use of existing infrastructure. No need to build new bullet trains, instead the computer controlled cars will maximize the use of the existing road system.
-Reduced congestion. Cars will coordinate with other cars on the freeway to reduce traffic, eliminate accidents, and improve your travel times.
-Reduce pollution. Computer controlled cars will not need to idle in traffic or at stop lights as often because they can schedule their arrival in advance. Those car commercials where cars weave in and out of each other will happen at every intersection. Additionally, the computer will control acceleration/deceleration for the best fuel consumption.
-You'll be able to schedule your car to pick up your kids from school. Or drop you off at the airport and then return home.
-You'll be able to rent a car (eg: Zip Car) from an app on your phone and it shows up and takes you to your destination. Many people won't even need to own their own car.
-Automatic Valet. Your car will drop you off at the store, then go park itself in a high density parking garage. Finding a space will be no issue since the garage will communicate with the car to assign it a location.
-Imagine you have a medical emergency, your car could act as your own ambulance and rush you to the hospital. Perhaps even alerting other cars of an emergency along the way.
-Computer controlled cars will probably also tend to be smaller. Families might have 2 small cars instead of a minivan. Just lock the kids in the second car and take a peaceful ride.
First implementations will be used for Armed Homeland Security Surface Drones. Elimination of Truck Driver Jobs. Surveillance Drones. Why was there an article planted in the Global MSM about giving 'Autonomous Robots' Human Rights? This is to protect 'The Man's" robot against destruction by the Plebs.
The USA is a third world country. The Americans living below the Median Income will not be buying these. These people live on food stamps. Who will buy these? What will be their first uses? Who makes them? Do they also make military hardware?
So can I have a Fat Reefer in one hand and a Glass of Crown Royal in the other? A Glock on the seat, and be safe and invisible behind my ultra tinted glass?
I mean the 'Perfect Machine' is driving and my implanted chip passes the security check by the Two Tap Drone flying over head and The Enforcement Droid Series 209.
If all this shit passes remote muster, how now will they justify the 'no cause' 'no warrant' stop and the seizure of my preemo bud and my nine?
Sure, they 'say' the whole thing is safe. Would you drive a car that a Microsoft Saleman said was 'Safe'. Would you drive a cra that Zuckerberg said was 'private'? Given the shitty state of the art of all the tech shoddiness in the real world, how can anyone buy into this utopian ideal of this Perfect Software? Are Aliens writing it? Is God? This sounds more like utopian silver bullets than fact.
And really, have the Video Games and iPhones so atrophied the capabilites of today's youngsters that they are too feeble to 'Drive a Car?' You guys don't have the physical strength, the hand eye or the stamina to drive?
And do you really want to live in a world that complicated, that requires so much on technology? What is the desire to overcomplite?
How about a walkable city?
How about the promised cyber commute?
Where are you going to go in these driverless cars? You don't have any jobs left to go to.
Who will run the fleet? Halliburtion? Lockheed Marting? Kellog Brown and Root?
I will not be a first adopter. I will not be endorsing this technology. I am talking to the fricking wall.
When ED209 is lobbing DU rounds into you mother basement because of that movie you downloaded, I am gonna say I told you so and gloat a big gloat.
The scenario I want to see solved is 'the judgement call'
Driving along, an oncoming car starts to intrude on your space. So you have to avoid it. There is also a kid chasing a ball across the street. Given the time/distance/speed/angles, you will hit one of the following:
Other car, almost head on
Kid
Ball the kid is chasing
Tree in the front yard to your right
Again...you WILL hit something. And, in this case, the least expensive damage to your car is not the right decision to make.
Humans don't do it right all the time, but something like this must be handled by the logic tree.
The first time someone is killed by one of these cars the term "blue screen of death" will take on a new meaning.
As expected. Have fun with your terrible idea. Nothing that weighs over 1000 pounds and rolls should ever be unattended by a person, whether controlling it or not. A future where we sit in cars that drive themselves isnt a better future. It's moronic, especially as bad as our computer technology is. Anyone who can't see that does not live in reality.
It just goes to show you how you can't possibly predict the future. Although, I think that a flying car would be extremely dangerous if people were allowed to drive them. Are you allowed to tell your car to pick you up from the airport? You would also have tons of person-less cars driving in the airport loop waiting for their overlords.
I wonder how this car deals with the human side of driving, or as I call it the A**hole driver symptom... You know, like when you want to make a lane turn, have your indicator on for 5-10 seconds, and the moron in the next lake stays in your blind-spot no matter how you speed up or slow down? My solution is often to floor the accelerator so I can get enough space between us to make a safe change. But this often leads to breaking the speed limit.
Alternatively, it might need to mimic the moron on the road. Like when a light turns yellow, it should try to beat the light if it can do so safely. If not, people (even crappy drivers) are going to bitch about how much better it would be if they were behind the wheel. I guess is whether it will take calculated risks like most human drivers would (incl. the occasional rule breaking) would influence whether most drivers accept it as a replacement - to mimic their day to day 45-in-a-40-zone activity?
Who's insurance pays when a driverless car causes material damage or kills someone
Pardon me for asking, but what's the point of a robotic self-driving automobile? Simply to show that it can be done?
Driving is straight forward and most people who buy cars enjoy driving. Maybe in a place that has horrible commutes, one could read a book instead of paying attention to road ragers. But likely not.
Too drunk to drive? get a taxi. or have someone give you a ride. Or sleep in the bar. We need bars with $15 overnight sleep-it-off bunks more than we need robot cars. Need the car in the morning? Take a taxi back to it.
Need a cheap chauffeur? Get an illegal alien with a California driver's license.
criminal liability and hiding under subcontractor does not work the same way as a civil case. and some one dieing in a auto car crash may end up a criminal case.
Just thought that I would add something I found when I took Sebastian Thrun's AI course.
The Google self-driving car will not work in snowy condition. This is because the localization algorithm computes the car position using lane lines. So, if there is snow on the ground, lane acquisition will fail.
The other tidbit I will throw in also is that the Google car favours a right turn over a left turn because it is deemed less risky (i.e., change lane as least times as possible).
Oh, and one other thing. The Google car does not honk. The Google self-driving car team cannot figure out how to communication effectively with other drivers in this fashion. I
From 10 years ago: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html#what_have_funding_policies_in_automotive_intelligence_wrought
Consider again the self-driving cars mentioned earlier which now cruise some streets in small numbers. The software "intelligence" doing the driving was primarily developed by public money given to universities, which generally own the copyrights and patents as the contractors. Obviously there are related scientific publications, but in practice these fail to do justice to the complexity of such systems. The truest physical representation of the knowledge learned by such work is the codebase plus email discussions of it (plus what developers carry in their heads).
We are about to see the emergence of companies licensing that publicly funded software and selling modified versions of such software as proprietary products. There will eventually be hundreds or thousands of paid automotive software engineers working on such software no matter how it is funded, because there will be great value in having such self-driving vehicles given the result of America's horrendous urban planning policies leaving the car as generally the most efficient means of transport in the suburb. The question is, will the results of the work be open for inspection and contribution by the public? Essentially, will those engineers and their employers be "owners" of the software, or will they instead be "stewards" of a larger free and open community development process?
Open source software is typically eventually of much higher quality ( http://www.fsf.org/software/reliability.html )
and reliability because more eyes look over the code for problems and more voices contribute to adding innovative solutions. About 35,000 Americans are killed every year in driving fatalities, and hundreds of thousands more are seriously injured. Should the software that keeps people safe on roads, and which has already been created primarily with public funds, not also be kept under continuous public scrutiny?
Without concerted action, such software will likely be kept proprietary because that will be more profitable sooner to the people who get in early, and will fit into conventional expectations of business as usual. It will likely end up being available for inspection and testing at best to a few government employees under non-disclosure agreements. We are talking about an entire publicly funded infrastructure about to disappear from the public radar screen. There is something deeply wrong here.
And while it is true many planes like the 757 can fly themselves already for most of their journey, and their software is probably mostly proprietary, the software involved in driving is potentially far more complex as it requires visual recognition of cues in a more complex environment full of many more unpredictable agents operating on much faster timescales. Also, automotive intelligence will touch all of our lives on a daily basis, where as aircraft intelligence can be generally avoided in daily life.
Decisions on how this public intellectual property related to automotive intelligence will be handled will affect the health and safety of every American and later everyone in any developed country. Either way, the automotive software engineers and their employers will do well financially (for example, one might still buy a Volvo because their software engineers are better and they do more thorough testing of configurations). But which way will the public be better off:
* totally dependent on proprietary intelligences under the hoods of their cars which they have no way of understanding, or instead
* with ways to verify what those intelligences do, understand how they operate, and make contributions when they can so such automotive intelligences serve humane purposes better?
If, for ex
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Kind of a strange coincidence that right around the time there are announcements for domestic drones (possibly armed), there are State Legalization of "unmanned cars/driverless cars" all over the place. How is this that much different from the FAA allowing for air surveillance (maybe, armed. maybe not) drones?
As long as they stay out of the passing lane I don't care.
When I'm older, the youngsters will marvel at my ability to operate a motorcycle.
According to a quick google the number of fatal accidents per 100 million miles was 1.11 in 2010. That is with 30,196 fatal crashes and 2,967 billion miles.
Now this is where my HAVO (Highschool) maths break. Is the 2,72 times less likely to crash equal to 99% certain it's safer?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
We are obviously evolving in a certain order. Electrical cars will replace gasoline, and then it will be much more viable and safer for self driving cars, so much so they will eventually stop looking like cars and more like pods. However that will not replace human controlled transportation as flying vehicles will also be used. So in short, picture electric transportation buzzing around, and flying vehicles streaming over head. How long ? Well with so much conservative thinking going on even by our alleged "intelligent" slashdot posters comprised of IT personnel and such, and naysayers by our bible (first edition & its crappy sequel) and koran thumping oligarchs running our lives, we will not evolve anywhere so quickly.
terrists would LOVE those cars.
But Self-Driving Cars Are Here Now -
http://www.scifiai.com/articles/selfdrivingcars.htm
RoboTaxi drivers conversation will have a volume contol!!!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
but self-driving cars are here. My take on it... http://www.scifiai.com/articles/selfdrivingcars.htm
www.scifiai.com