Robot vehicles everywhere - ten years

[LeeRevell]

With ten years in military electronics and 24 years in IT, I have a healthy distrust of computers.  They fail.  Sometimes with catastrophic results.  Newer cars are bad enough, putting computers in charge of throttle, brakes and other critical things.  No way would I trust my life to a computer-driven car.  Yeah, I am old fashioned, and of an age to know better.  Direct experience trumps sales blurbs any day.
Of course, we all make our own choices.

 

[JT646]

Looks like even Christmas 'package delivery' is also getting in on this:



Wow!

 

[johnny b]

Reminds me of a conversation i had with pilot a few years back....he was flying into Chicago when his Boeing 757 was hit by lightning....all the fancy computer displays went dark...not an analog gauge anywhere. Luckily, this plane was not a 'fly-by-wire', so he still had control of the craft via analog hydraulics....just had to wait it out in the dark while the electronics rebooted.

Think of how quick something bad could happen on a road with traffic.....waiting for the reboot!  

 

[flying kurbmaster]

when we started thinking our horses might get replaced by the automobile, the fire risk was too great, what happens when the motor breaks, or a wheel goes flat? The roads are not made for those things, there is no range, they are only good for around town, where will you get fuel to power them, who can afford them,,,, etc etc.... I'm sticking to my horse I can feed him anywhere along the road, automobiles that is pure insanity, now they are talking like there will be fuel stations all over the country someday, not in my lifetime, lunatics......dreamers..... nutballs........

 

[GotSmart]

This reminds me of a not so old joke~~~

[font=Georgia, Garamond, Palatino, 'Times New Roman', times, serif]At a recent computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."[/font]

[font=Georgia, Garamond, Palatino, 'Times New Roman', times, serif]In response to Bill's comments, GM issued a press release stating: "If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:[/font]​

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
   
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
   
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
   
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
   
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but would run on only five percent of the roads.
   
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.
   
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
   
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
   
9. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
   
10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

 

[NeedAnEscape]

This reminds me of a not so old joke~~~

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "General Protection Fault" warning light.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

Those two are true about some new cars.

 

[NeedAnEscape]

As far as self driving cars go, I just have to wonder how they will perform after any changes are made to the vehicle and how that will effect liability if there's a crash. If the manufacture is normally responsible for crashes, how much tolerance for non-stock parts they will have. Would something like changing the tires for better offroad traction, even if they are the same size as the stock tires be too much? Speaking of offroading, how will the self driving cars handle that if they don't have manual controls? What happens if the sensors gets covered with dust or mud?

 

[GotSmart]

As far as self driving cars go, I just have to wonder how they will perform after any changes are made to the vehicle and how that will effect liability if there's a crash. If the manufacture is normally responsible for crashes, how much tolerance for non-stock parts they will have. Would something like changing the tires for better offroad traction, even if they are the same size as the stock tires be too much? Speaking of offroading, how will the self driving cars handle that if they don't have manual controls? What happens if the sensors gets covered with dust or mud?

There was a problem with the computer accelerators on some Jeeps when they went through a car wash. The fine mist of water confused the sensors. 

Here is a site that documents the Jeep sensor problem only.

http://www.carcomplaints.com/Jeep/Grand_Cherokee/2001/engine/vehicle_speed_control.shtml

 

[Phantom Blooper]

Come a long way from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in 1968.



Flying Car

 

[MarsOrScars]

On a serious note though. I could understand the reasons why people would want completely automated vehicles. It'd add more convenience to life and would allow those no longer able to drive (blind, elderly, otherwise disabled) the same freedom and mobility all of us here enjoy.

The problem is, the technology is going to have massive problems integrating with manually controlled traffic and its unpredictability. Machine's don't have gut instincts or experience to otherwise guide them safely along a route. Unless of course roads were re-invented with special designations for automated-only lanes.

Just my .02

 

[Reducto]

One of my concerns is with obstacle detection. It's very simple for a human to tell the difference between a toddler running out onto a street and a shopping bag blowing in the wind but will a computer know which one to ignore and drive through and which one to swerve away from even if it means hitting another car? We'll probably get there some day but it seems a ways off.

 

[Patrick46]

As far as self driving cars go, I just have to wonder how they will perform after any changes are made to the vehicle and how that will effect liability if there's a crash.

yeah...that's what I was wondering.

...just wait 'till the first casualty

 

[flying kurbmaster]

I would go one further not only a robot people mover but we would all have our own live in robot mobile pods that would move as needed, given to each person at birth, a family would dock together in the evening, or a couple wherever they happen to be neighbourhood as we know it would no longer exist, vandwelling is the forerunner of this style of living, It makes sense to me. think of all the farmland we would free up,

 

[debit.servus]

you are right there will be an element in society that will not embrace it, fight it. only over the next bit of changes these people will be in much larger numbers. They will be outsiders no longer able to function within society or the main stream, this is also already happening if you are not hooked on line now a days, have a credit card or a cell, or a recognized form of ID  you are not able to access things available to other citizens. Heck there is a homeless guy in Vancouver who won the lottery and he can't even claim his winnings because he has no picture ID, can't get his birth certificate because he has no address and no ID to get his ID. Once you are separated I think it will harder and harder to re-enter. Reminds of the custom officer who once told me we don't really want you here anyway, have a nice stay.

It's much like The Digital Divide, giving people something to do. First create a Digital Divide, push things online (even where there is no net gain). Then work to bridge it.

Mandatory ID for claiming prizes is a crime.

Remember, this is what the elite are pushing. They want a cashless society using wrist-embedded RFID chips. These are just the steps to get them what they want. For their Cabal World Order.

...  Google was talking "all or nothing".  We'll see.

Much like MERCEDES recent slogan, "The Best or Nothing". All or Nothing is a society seperation method, be aware.

I would go one further not only a robot people mover but we would all have our own live in robot mobile pods that would move as needed, given to each person at birth, a family would dock together in the evening, or a couple wherever they happen to be neighbourhood as we know it would no longer exist, vandwelling is the forerunner of this style of living, It makes sense to me. think of all the farmland we would free up,

The autonomous cars is one of the Global Elites control agendas. They do not want us exploring the countryside, instead packed in urbanite prison cities. The work and live in same building idea is already happening to workers at FOXCONN, they are paid slave-wages and can only afford to live in the bunks provided by FOXCONN. I wish I didn't have to empower these slavemasters to have an iPod. 3D printing is about to go consumer-level and it will empower us to manufacture all those plastic bits and much, much, much more.

I do NOT trust autonomous cars.

Look at the other land-based mode of transportation, railroad. Trains today operate in a closed rail network with all train orders controlled from a central location, if trains can't be fully autonomous (no conductor and engineer in the head end), automobiles can't. Commercial aviation has the highest-tech systems, and is only semi-autonomous.

Zero Fatalities is not possible in a enviroment where all variables can not be controlled. Same with 100% autonomy.

 

[flying kurbmaster]

Hey Debit you should read Margeret Atwood's trilogy, she has an interesting all be it black perspective on when those work compound go wrong. Oryx and Crake The year of the flood and MaddAdam are the three books, it it is worth a read it is futuristic but very believable.

 

[johnny b]

Latest report from google...excerpts:

"San Francisco, Jan 13 (EFE).- Google's self-driving vehicles could have had at least 13 accidents between September 2014 and November 2015 in California if the drivers sitting inside for safety reasons had not intervened, the company said Tuesday.

The California-based company added on 272 occasions the software of the cars detected a fault in the system that could have had safety repercussions if the test drivers had not immediately taken control of the vehicles."

So, is that the equivalent of 272 'Ctl-Alt-Del' in 13 months??? That's 20.9 human interventions per month!!! JUST IN CALIFORNIA!!!!
I wouldn't accept that level of performance on a toaster!!
The inmates have definitely taken over the asylum.   :huh: :huh:

http://www.laprensasa.com/309_ameri...s-had-272-failures-and-13-near-accidents.html