There are some interesting implications to this technology for consumers. In a way, we're already quite removed from direct operation of a car. I happen to ride motorcycles, and also own a manual pick-up truck, an old (1963) British sports car, and an automatic modern sedan. There is a striking difference between required awareness and "user-friendliness" of the sedan. While it's significantly faster than the sports car, it is also much safer and easier to drive. We have things like ABS, stability control, and now with an automatic in cruise control, the car will not stop until I expressly tell it to (arguably, this is more dangerous than a computer-controlled car that IS aware of its surroundings). The sports car is much closer to a modern motorcycle, where with all the technology, we still have to be 100% aware and skillful.
Point is though, I don't think these robot cars will be marketed as fully automated vehicles. It's simply too much of a legal nightmare in the short term. Rather, these will be packaged as driver aids (remember the Lexus that can now park itself?). They won't require drastic changes to the laws. And most importantly, they won't require a lot on the part of the general public to accept them. Think about it, it's one thing to convince a pilot or a train operator that this automatic system will do the right thing for them, it's quite another to convince a prospective car buyer as well as millions of other drivers they share the road with that the system will not harm them, especially when you're not the one making the decision to buy such a car, but are merely driving along next to one. But undoubtedly we'll get to a point, where enough people will be comfortable with their robot cars and the presence of the steering wheel will be little more than a formality much of the time. This gets us to an interesting dilemma. At what point do we actually no longer want the human to be able to take control? What if the person is sleeping or impaired or can't see too well? Or what if they're just not a very good driver? There is a fighter plane control system that was developed within the last decade that allows the plane to fly extremely fast and low, following the grade of the terrain (to avoid radar detection). Like many kinds of automated control systems, it was designed to relinquish control the moment the pilot made any kind of input. During testing, there were a number of casualties, where the system was put under significant stress on approach to a very steep hill or even a mountain and the test pilots thought they were in trouble, when they thought the plane was not going to ascend and pulled on the stick. Problem was that at that point they were beyond their capability as a pilot (and these were very experienced people) and promptly crashed into the side of the mountain, when had they stayed off the controls, the plane would have been fine. Alexey 2001 Honda CBR600F4i (CCS) 2002 Suzuki Bandit 1200S 1992 Kawasaki EX500 http://azinger.blogspot.com http://bsheet.sourceforge.net http://wcollage.sourceforge.net ________________________________ From: Phil <[email protected]> To: The Java Posse <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, October 11, 2010 5:53:42 AM Subject: [The Java Posse] Re: Google revealed its robot-car Computers make mistakes too... thinking about it logically, it is *all* our fault whether the driver is a human or a robot. A rocket in the 60's crashed because somebody put a '-' instead of a '+' in their software... an Airbus crash at an air show was because the engines didn't spool up quickly enough - this wasn't a direct computer fault, it was human error, but even in the most automated cockpit the human element is still present. Putting a robot in charge of a car is akin to fitting a speed limiter - you are limiting the ability of the occupants to react to external events. Robotic cars could only really work in a 100%-robotic environment. On Oct 11, 6:21 am, jitesh dundas <[email protected]> wrote: > GOOGLE PLANS TO KILL 600,000 WITH ROBOTIC CAR FLEET. :) Jonathan > > ----- > Hmmmm, I beg to differ on this point. Actually humans are the ones > responsible for the numbers. Robots may end up actually saving human s > some day. > > Heard of 'Drunk & Drive' cases and the number of cases involved. Have > a robot and atleadt it will stop your car when you are too drunk to > even blink. > > If Auto-pilots and space missions can use robots, what is the problem > with car robots. > > Hooray for Google! Keep it up and keep improving. > > Cheers, > Jitesh Dundas > > On 10/11/10, Jonathan Fuerth <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > "Every year, 1.2 million people are killed in road accidents around the > > world, according to the World Health Organisation, and Google believes its > > car could halve that number." > > > I can see the headline now: > > > GOOGLE PLANS TO KILL 600,000 WITH ROBOTIC CAR FLEET. > > > :) > > > Jonathan > > On Oct 10, 2010 7:13 PM, "Fabrizio Giudici" <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "The Java Posse" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]. > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
