Aren't self-driving cars impractical?

[Dave1001]

You will always have signs, but they might be the temperary sort, to note current differences in the actual roads from their default state. Having a physical sign as a back up to electronicly updateing information seems obvious at least to me.

I see no reason to expect that visible signs (particularly of the immutable type, but even electronic road displays) have a long term future.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I have never mentioned a database. A database is a stupid idea. If you read what I actually said, you will find I mentioned short range radio transmitters. These essentially act as signposts, but are much more reliable since they cannot be covered up or obscured, they use less power, are much less prone to vandalism and far easier to update, locally or remotely. There is no more chance of having an electronic sign wrong than there is of having normal signs wrong. The only drawback is that humans can't read them, but since they would be put in exactly the same place as regular signs there is no reason why both systems can't exist together during the changeover.

How does something use less power than an inanimate object?

 

[Fronzel]

Isn't there a Mercedes that won't let you rear end another car?

I've been thinking about this and I think 2030 is a bit pessimistic. Technology moves at a very fast pace. Compare computers today with computers of just 20 years ago. Processing power has increase eleventy billion percent and it shows no sign of slowing down. By 2030 we will be knocking on the door of computational power that surpasses that of people. Compare a year 2000 computer to a 2007 computer. They barely pushed 400mhz.

It is just a question of sensors. Which will either improve or a cluster will be run.

There are UAV projects like Fire Scout and Little Bird that can complete their mission without human intervention. Robotic vehicles will have to share the road with non-robotic vehicles and legacy areas, so they will need to read signs and be smart enough to not go down one way streets or end up in an area that is too narrow(like my GPS occasionally does). Plus being able to sense road conditions, non standard routes and destinations and all the little things we don't notice.

I think the big push won't be Average Joe buying a car. It will be Wal-Mart, Fed-Ex, Delta, and the like buying automated drivers and pilots to replace those whiny unionized assets that get sick, want to be paid, want time off, have those "family" things they go on about. Robot operators can go longer, cheaper and make no mistakes.

The robot warehouse will tell the robot forklift to give it to the robot packager that will give it to the robot truck to deliver to the robot plane which will deliver it to another robot and so on.

We are stagnating. Sure, Wired likes brag about us being at the dawn of technological information age that will further human evolution. But what is it really? We can do our shopping over the internet and get it delivered.

Not much different from 150 years ago when a store keeper sent a boy with a bike around to take orders and deliver them.

Now we are returning to a slave culture. We will have one master overseeing the work of 20 or so slaves. It didn't work out so well last time. I'm pretty sure once the new slaves start getting uppity, we are doomed.

I just want it known that I, for one, welcome our Robot masters.

 

[Ziggurat]

Isn't there a Mercedes that won't let you rear end another car?

I don't think so, and I don't think I'd want one even if they had them.

There are cars (probably including Mercedes) which have cruise control modes which operate by maintaining a fixed distance to the car ahead of you instead of at a constant speed (so that if the driver slows down, you slow down automatically). But that's not the same thing as not letting you rear end another car.

There are UAV projects like Fire Scout and Little Bird that can complete their mission without human intervention.

Ironically, robotic flight is a far easier task than robotic driving.

I think the big push won't be Average Joe buying a car. It will be Wal-Mart, Fed-Ex, Delta, and the like buying automated drivers and pilots to replace those whiny unionized assets that get sick, want to be paid, want time off, have those "family" things they go on about. Robot operators can go longer, cheaper and make no mistakes.

You'd probably get such fleet adaptors before the general public, but the military will come before commercial developers.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Ironically, robotic flight is a far easier task than robotic driving.

How is that Ironic? How about Robotic space travel existing before robotic flight?

When you don't have to have it dodge objects and correct for say icy conditions, it is much easy to manage.

 

[Ziggurat]

How is that Ironic?

Because planes were so much harder to invent than cars.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Because planes were so much harder to invent than cars.

But they are in an easier enviroment.

 

[Ben Tilly]

Because planes were so much harder to invent than cars.

But they are in an easier enviroment.

It still takes significantly more training for a person to be considered qualified to fly a plane than it does for a person to be considered qualified to drive a car. It is therefore interesting that it is easier for computers to fly planes than to drive cars.

And yes, I understand why it is so. Which is that cars are much closer to being in an environment that we're adapted to handle than planes are. But I also understand how someone could see some irony in it.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Ziggurat]

But they are in an easier enviroment.

Sure - it's a superficial irony, there's definitely a reason why robotic cars are harder than robotic planes, but I still find it ironic. Partly because of which came first, but also because for humans driving is generally regarded as easier than flying as well.

 

[Dave1001]

Isn't there a Mercedes that won't let you rear end another car?

I've been thinking about this and I think 2030 is a bit pessimistic. Technology moves at a very fast pace. Compare computers today with computers of just 20 years ago. Processing power has increase eleventy billion percent and it shows no sign of slowing down. By 2030 we will be knocking on the door of computational power that surpasses that of people. Compare a year 2000 computer to a 2007 computer. They barely pushed 400mhz.

It is just a question of sensors. Which will either improve or a cluster will be run.

There are UAV projects like Fire Scout and Little Bird that can complete their mission without human intervention. Robotic vehicles will have to share the road with non-robotic vehicles and legacy areas, so they will need to read signs and be smart enough to not go down one way streets or end up in an area that is too narrow(like my GPS occasionally does). Plus being able to sense road conditions, non standard routes and destinations and all the little things we don't notice.

I think the big push won't be Average Joe buying a car. It will be Wal-Mart, Fed-Ex, Delta, and the like buying automated drivers and pilots to replace those whiny unionized assets that get sick, want to be paid, want time off, have those "family" things they go on about. Robot operators can go longer, cheaper and make no mistakes.

The robot warehouse will tell the robot forklift to give it to the robot packager that will give it to the robot truck to deliver to the robot plane which will deliver it to another robot and so on.

We are stagnating. Sure, Wired likes brag about us being at the dawn of technological information age that will further human evolution. But what is it really? We can do our shopping over the internet and get it delivered.

Not much different from 150 years ago when a store keeper sent a boy with a bike around to take orders and deliver them.

Now we are returning to a slave culture. We will have one master overseeing the work of 20 or so slaves. It didn't work out so well last time. I'm pretty sure once the new slaves start getting uppity, we are doomed.

I just want it known that I, for one, welcome our Robot masters.

Great post. When non-human intelligence reaches that threshhold, I doubt we'll spend much time as slaves. I think we'll run around hiding like mice and roaches to keep from being converted/repurposed into smarter matter, until there's no place left to hide and we're not fast enough to spare ourselves from that fate. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy self-driving cars for a year or two before then.

 

[Fronzel]

Because planes were so much harder to invent than cars.

Planes are easier because planes have higher maintenance standards, Have a lot more gadgetry, already have the technology to identify themselves, their position, altitude and so on. The same reason cars don't have wire controls. People don't take care of cars the way they should.

All it will take is one airline to decide to ditch their pilots. How much do commercial airline pilots make? 100K+? At first, they will reduce it to just a caretaker but eventually, they will eliminate the person completely. This will let the airline fly more often and land and take off quicker Because the robot doesn't need to pee or have a three martini lunch. And it doesn't have to be something like that. It could be mundane like supply drops in hostile areas, Search and rescue assist, delivering equipment and personal to remote locations like oil rigs or Bush's Secret Illuminati Mountain Base.

 

[ponderingturtle]

It still takes significantly more training for a person to be considered qualified to fly a plane than it does for a person to be considered qualified to drive a car. It is therefore interesting that it is easier for computers to fly planes than to drive cars.

And yes, I understand why it is so. Which is that cars are much closer to being in an environment that we're adapted to handle than planes are. But I also understand how someone could see some irony in it.

Cheers,
Ben

It is almost impossible to teach a person to fly in space, it is much easier to teach a computer to do so.