mad_machine wrote: Also, humans are very unpredictable when walking.. let alone driving. I do not see automated cars in city limits, unless on roads where humans cannot accidently venture on foot. (elevated or subterranean)
I can see a field day for personal injury lawyers. "Hit by a driverless car. We will help you win money!"
Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....
I am just imagining a car by Microsoft. It shuts down in the middle of the interstate to update itself. You will get to enjoy the bluescreen of death.
Then there will Apple iCar which will be white and silver or black and silver. It will be rectangular with rounded edges and have a ridiculous user agreement. Changes to it can only be made by approved vendors. You will only be able to play songs using a software that is terrible.
Then there will be a Blackberry car... Ok I can't even make a joke about that one...
WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....
You don't fly much, do you.
And the cost to update the highway system would be tragically high, so your yearly tax costs would be more than the car itself.
alfadriver wrote: It's funny that "more roads" are cheaper than "rail". How the math works in that is beyond me- in terms of passenger density. None the less- billions for cars that make their own rail like set ups, but less dense, or billions for high density rail? We get to choose.
Because those roads will get used by good freedom loving 'Muricans as they please instead of a train that will probably be operated by some lazy Quasi-Communist Union worker.
alfadriver wrote:WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....You don't fly much, do you.
Nor have a surgery, get pills at a pharmacy, live or drive within a few miles of a nuclear plant, make a panic stop using the ABS, etc.
WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....
I've trusted my life to the fly-by-wire software in commercial aircraft numerous times, you probably have too. Arguably also the ECUs on any EFI'd car, losing power at the wrong time could be deadly after all. The ABS computer could also theoretically fail in a way that would disable the brakes or cause the car to veer to one side for no reason (an ETC/active yaw system failure could also theoretically cause uncontrolled brake steering), although I don't think this has ever happened in history.
The problem with fractional ownership of cars is that it means your car is no longer a personal secure storage space that follows you around. A lot of people overlook that, it's a big deal.
alfadriver wrote:WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....You don't fly much, do you.
Twice in my life, and that was before I could drive.....you're also forgetting that the autopilot in airliners currently is only as good as the pilots inputting data into it...unless you wish to forget that douchebag German who just changed a setting on it to automatically crash into a mountain.
93EXCivic wrote: Then there will be a Blackberry car... Ok I can't even make a joke about that one...
We already have these, they're the plain-jane fleet vans/pickups with the features of an '80s car 
rcutclif wrote:alfadriver wrote:Nor have a surgery, get pills at a pharmacy, live or drive within a few miles of a nuclear plant, make a panic stop using the ABS, etc.WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....You don't fly much, do you.
Yeah but the number of those things is small compared to the number of cars that would be needed. And they have a strict maintenance schedule. Think how well most people maintain their car...
Also I don't know about you but my computers are about as reliable as an old Alfa. Actually that is unkind to old Alfas. Of coarse that might be because I am convinced a hammer fixes computers... As far as I can tell a reliable computer is as big a work of fiction as a unicorn.
Public transit wouldn't work for me. I would have to catch the one bus back to the depot. Then catch a coach bus from Appleton to Green Bay. Then catch some other bus that I'm not sure exists to the outskirts of the city. Or I could bike the 26 miles. 
Either way, I think in the future the computer/electronics world will be changing. For those who like electric engineering, here's a technical but good article about how the decay of Moore's Law will usher in greater innovation.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/design/the-death-of-moores-law-will-spur-innovation
If you don't think 'we' (the royal 'We') have the computing power *now8 to have cars drive us, I disagree with you. Does every auto manufacture have the capabilities? Not even close.
Lots of good things in this thread that will all be challenges for driverless cars. But I will point out that they are still challenges for human drivers in almost all cases too, so really we have to figure out which option (or something else entirely) solves the problem better.
For example, pedestrians are unpredictable. This is true for both human and computer drivers. It has been a significant problem for human drivers for a long time (see any car ever that has had a beautiful bumper ruined by DOT standards). The question is not can computers 100% predict pedestrians, because, they cannot. But the real question is, can computer drivers handle unpredictable pedestrians better than the average (or the exceeding above average) human driver, and I bet the answer either already is yes, or it will be shortly.
Remember how we all complain about how bad human drivers are these days? Setting a pretty low bar for a computer to be better than.
In reply to rcutclif & GameboyRMH:
And those are all examples that would be apples to oranges compared to this.
Go ahead, have your precious self driving cars. I'll take up hacking as a pastime and revel in the chaos of nationwide gridlock. 
WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....
I was under the impression there were airliners with autopilot that can land the aircraft. Hell I think they could probably do the flight.
WOW Really Paul? wrote: In reply to rcutclif & GameboyRMH: I'll take up hacking as a pastime and revel in the chaos of nationwide gridlock.
You should already be able to do this if you just screw with all the traffic lights that are networked (or just simply turn them all off). You can stop highways too by messing with the metering ramps.
RossD wrote:WOW Really Paul? wrote: Does anyone know of any software that you would trust your life upon? I do not know of such a thing....I was under the impression there were airliners with autopilot that can land the aircraft. Hell I think they could probably do the flight.
Plenty of aircraft that you can't even fly without the computer 'filling in the input gaps' for you. Meaning if there wasn't a computer to translate your push on the joystick to an incredibly complicated physical movement on many different control surfaces simultaneously, you (or any human) could never fly the craft. Possibly the earliest example would be the stealth fighter - in what, the 1960s?
Automated car maintenance? Don't worry...... the hipsters at your local Apple store will be able to fix your iCar.....as long as they don't get their hands dirty......or have to rush to the hospital with a callous, or blister. 
jimbbski wrote: A couple of posters have mentioned bike lanes, or the increase of biking for getting to work. That may work in some cities with wide open spaces but here in Chicago the only way they install bike lanes is to take away lanes from cars. This only add to congestion and slow traffic. Which may be what then want. Make it so bad that you do use Public Transit or bikes. Now I have a bike but have never considered using it to commute to work and at this point in my life I don't have to work. But even if I would I don't think I could of would consider doing that during the months or Dec-March. It snows in Chicago and they don't plow all that well and where do you think they put that snow, in the bike paths!
I would bike to work, I am in good enough physical shape to easily handle the 10 mile trip with barely breaking a sweat.. it's the fact that I would sharing a road with people doing 20+ mph over the speed limit of 50mph that makes me not to even want to try it. I do not want to be that statistic
RossD wrote: Public transit wouldn't work for me. I would have to catch the one bus back to the depot. Then catch a coach bus from Appleton to Green Bay. Then catch some other bus that I'm not sure exists to the outskirts of the city. Or I could bike the 26 miles.
I think you are missing some of it. There are plenty of people out there (including me) that would benefit from a well done public transport system. One that I can plan my day over.
If enough people use that, then what non-public system we have, you can then use. Probably at an astronomical cost, but you could use it.
Why is it that people think that public transportation is an all or nothing thing? It's not for everyone, it's for enough people. If YOU pay for it, and your commute gets better, then you profit for it.
Also, why do people think that software for safety critical items are exactly the same as your crappy home computer one? Systems that use safety critical software have very, very rare failures, especially due to the software.
rcutclif wrote:WOW Really Paul? wrote: In reply to rcutclif & GameboyRMH: I'll take up hacking as a pastime and revel in the chaos of nationwide gridlock.You should already be able to do this if you just screw with all the traffic lights that are networked (or just simply turn them all off). You can stop highways too by messing with the metering ramps.
Oh, you could....just imagine if it were done ONLY to the pompous few people who had self driving cars though. It'd probably be a hate crime somehow, but the satisfaction of seeing all of them sitting there stranded watching humans actually doing something for a change would be worth it. There is already too much laziness in the world, do we really need to embrace laziness?
As far as the computer aided flight: You are correct. Some planes require a computer to stabilize them as a pilot couldn't. They're not airliners however, they're usually military stuff designed to be either unstable or in the f-117a's case, "We have this shape that scatters radar, but it won't fly....can we make it fly?" An unstable airliner being controlled by a computer would be a very bad idea from a liability standpoint.
In reply to alfadriver:
I think my post came off a bit dismissive, I'd love a nice and easy public transit. At the moment, it wouldn't work for me. If I lived in the town I work in, it could be different.
I was disappointed when we didn't get any light rail transit that was being proposed a while ago that would have connected, IIRC, the Fox Valley with either Madison or Milwaukee.
Joe Gearin wrote: Automated car maintenance? Don't worry...... the hipsters at your local Apple store will be able to fix your iCar.....as long as they don't get their hands dirty......or have to rush to the hospital with a callous, or blister.
In reply to RossD:
I realized that- but the improvement to other commuters also means an improvement to you.
Right now, I'm seeing the result of the massively improved economy here in SE MI. If 1/2 could use the train, and 1/5 of those did, the lowering of cars on I94 would be noticeable. Win-win.
I'd pay for that.
BTW, this whole discussion comes up again and again, the result being a lot of, well, lets just call it back and forth bantering.
But IF YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED- there are job openings. Ford.com, GM.com, and I think FCA.com for the domestics. I'm sure Toyota has jobs at their tech center south of Ann Arbor.
Come help. Be part of the process.
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