The Times Online – February 19, 2007:
Cars are not the most dangerous things on the road; drivers are, a group of scientists says.
They believe that there are so many idiots behind the wheel that we would all be safer if cars were driven by robots.
Artificial intelligence, they claim, is safer than no intelligence at all — a trait which the average motorist is apt to detect in many other road users. Technology will have advanced so much in the next 25 years that by 2030 cars controlled by artificial intelligence will be a desirable reality and a great improvement on those guided by humans, Sebastian Thrun, of Stanford University in California, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
“I’m Ted ‘Tubular’ Stevens, and I for one welcome our automobile driving robot overlords.”
I have the strong impression that the Senator would be a Windows Vista user.
1. No, he’d be confused by a typewriter. I’d bet fifty bucks that they guy couldn’t even make his own toast.
I for one am a big advocate of autodrive systems, as everybody else’s driving sucks big-time ass.
Problem is, driving is one of the most important things a person does in their lifetime.
#4. Yes that is a problem. The problem with that problem is that the elderly, teenagers, and 30% of the other population can’t drive worth a shit.
Driving is a necessary inconvenience. I can’t wait for cars to drive themselves. I doubt the general public will go for it, though. They enjoy the (false) sense of freedom it gives them.
Stanford won the DARPA race (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/program.html). This was a autonomous vehicle race in the desert. The next one will be in an urban setting. Should be pretty interesting.
#2
Bet he could shoot a gun and skin a mule though. Leet backwood skillz for backwood thinkin’.
Kewl. i wud h4ck0x my ro6ot to flip pepls off n say “bite my shiney met4l a$$”.
One of the tougher questions will be how to introduce such a requirement. There are still many cars on the road today that are 20-30 years old. Are you going to require auto-drive in those cars? Personally, I’d love to have auto-drive whether or not it is required. Living in LA, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.
+5 Dumb Ass points for continuing on the tubes thing. Just because Ted Stevens gets more pork his state than anyone else is no reason to get pissy.
11. “+5 Dumb Ass points for continuing on the tubes thing.”
You’re just jealous that you can’t have my tube!
I think having a robot drive your car would be great for the for the under 100 IQ point set or those that just can’t be bothered to actually learn the rules of the road and behave like an adult. It would also make bar hopping a lot safer. Hell, you could take a trip and get hammered the whole way.
Robot driving is a key technology that needs to be supported and developed and eventually required. Mass transit (fixed point A to fixed point B with lots of people in car) will never be a panacea do the the “last mile” problem (how do you easily get from station/airport to home). Automated individual transport would maximize road use, eliminate traffic problems due to driver error/accidents, maximize fuel efficiency.
Yes, there will be kinks to work out, but it really is a no-brainer that it will happen. My guess is that it will probably happen first in China or India where the government can more easily mandate things like that, and the culture has less of a automobile fixation as the US.
Assuming that retro-fitting today’s (or anything similar) cars with auto-drive capability were an immediate prospect when auto-drive cars appear, any bets on how many years out that is? 10, 25, 50?
14. “Mass transit (fixed point A to fixed point B with lots of people in car”
My problem with mass transit is that it is not from point A to point B. It’s point A to point Z with numerous stops in between.
For example, I can drive to Chicago from my city in about 4.5 hours. However, it takes over 8 hours by train, because it has to stop at every frickin podunk town between here and there.
“Thank-you for taking Johnny-Cab” (aka total recall)
Anything – ANYTHING – to avoid actually requiring people to learn to drive a car instead of operate it, like a friggin’ appliance…
I warn you – don’t get me started about driving…