I can actually see a path to a future where cars are almost entirely automated, and traffic jams are a thing of the past:
Cars will soon have a feature where you can lock on to the car in front of you and let it drive, simply by following it around. They already brake for you when you're about to crash into the guy in front of you, have night vision projected HUD style onto the windshield, and some have adaptive cruise control, adjusting speed to match the car in front of you as long as the delta isn't too large. It doesn't _follow_ yet (that would involve steering), but that's not such a far leap. The majority of serious traffic jams are simply ghosts: The cause of the jam has long since vanished, but once a road with a certain rate of traffic gets a jam (due to, let's say, a (near) accident, or an earlier event where the rate of traffic was too high to sustain), it won't clear up until the rate of traffic drops FAR lower than what it can normally handle. The mere stoppage is itself a backwards-moving wave-front of a now seemingly cause-less jam, which can stick around for hours. In a perfect world, everyone would start driving at a steady speed at exactly the same time and such a ghost jam would vanish in an instant. Now imagine a world where there are enough cars-with-follow-ability that its worth dedicating a special carpool-like lane to them. It's even good for the environment, and for safety. This lane is immune to ghost jams. That + their exclusivity means that it'll virtually never jam. Everyone would want a car with the follow feature to enjoy that privilege. As the follow feature becomes ingrained in society, car companies will take it to the next level. Voila: There's your social acceptance and slow evolutionary path to robot cars. On Oct 11, 6:19 pm, Fabrizio Giudici <[email protected]> wrote: > On 10/11/10 17:15 , Alexey Zinger wrote: > > > > > > > > > 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. > > Very good points. The last one points me to the thought that Google is > probably thinking of military applications too, in addition of augmented > safety civilian cars. The DoD & related agencies (which some engineers > of the Google car seem to come from) have been issuing contests for > unmanned ground vehicles for years. > > -- > Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager > Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere." > java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici -www.tidalwave.it/people > [email protected] -- 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.
