You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27587558 ]Here[/url]
Cool. What if there's more than two of you?
They'll make bigger cars.
I can't help thinking of total recall (the original)
I think that this is an interesting read around this kind of thing, the first thought experiment is about whether your autonomous car should kill you to save 2 other people:
[url= http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/mathematics-murder-should-robot-sacrifice-your-life-save-two ]http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/mathematics-murder-should-robot-sacrifice-your-life-save-two[/url]
It would be interesting to see how the collision avoidance copes with filtering motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians messing about. No more zebra crossings ? 😀
I'm thinking it'll be more like Minority Report rather than exploding Jonny Cabs. I love it, I think it's excellent, the days when I can get in a car, push a button then sit back and watch the news on the way to work is coming. No speeding, no morons driving on the road, there'll be no need for traffic lights as the computers will seemlessly integrate the traffic so all journeys will be faster.
Trust your life to it. No thanks, and given the irritating "Aw Shucks" messages you get when Chrome crashes, it'd probably maim you then then give you a cutesy message saying "My Bad, your leg appears to be missing".
I'm was up at 4 this morning and feeling grumpy, I hanker after the blue screen of death with thousands of indecipherable characters.
Would they brake for badgers ?
Who would the traffic droid have to shout at
I see chaos. You get a traffic jam and everything grinds to a halt, "computer says no" and no controls to take over. Non automatic traffic will have a field day (motorbikes, cycles, cars) by just squeezing into gaps (eg filtering as above) at which point the automatic cars will give way / avoid collision.
On an interesting side note a friend was at a demo Volvo where doing of their automatic braking system for pedestrian avoidance, the car ran over the model pedestrian and smashed in to a wall 🙁
I think it is great, and really the only way the main stream use of personal transport will become future proof.
There will always be problems during the transition though. That's not a reason not to do it, we just need to be mindful of them and work out how best to handle them.
In the traffic example above, no doubt it'll happen to some extent but traffic jams like that aren't the norm for driving, are they? Unless maybe you're in London 🙂
[s]Who[/s] What would the traffic droid have to shout at?
[b]"Unexpected Item in the Parking Area"[/b]
Wont it be like most tech/computer things in our life.
Stopping all the time for an update, needing to be turned on/off to get it to work properly, filling your journey with junk while your sat there powerless to avoid the marketing. Will it log your every journey, take you to the current sponsors coffee shop.
Personally I cant deal with loosing control, so Id not willingly use one. If I did Id spend my time seeing how it copes with difficult situations just to prove its no good.
love it, I think it's excellent, the days when I can get in a car, push a button then sit back and watch the news on the way to work is coming. No speeding, no morons driving on the road, there'll be no need for traffic lights as the computers will seemlessly integrate the traffic so all journeys will be faster.
+1 The sooner most drivers/idiots are removed from behind the wheel the better.
[i]I think it is great, and really the only way the main stream use of personal transport will become future proof.[/i]
It's coming* Future is in a Wally World where fat people suck on protean shakes and watch life pass them by.
*coming to California only
Wont it be like most tech/computer things in our life.Stopping all the time for an update, needing to be turned on/off to get it to work properly
Hah. You have no idea how well engineered some stuff is, because you never see it go wrong.
And you may complain about your computer, but you also have no concept of the scale of human achievement contained within. The fact that it works 99% of the time is truly incredible.
Staggering feats of human ingenuity from minerals in the ground to cheap laptops and STW, and all you can do is ****ing moan.
Of course they'll be problems to start with and it will take time to get working properly but even now I'd reckon on it being more reliable and safer than the first motor cars. Maybe we can employ people with red flags to walk in front of them until we are happy they are safe.
[i]Staggering feats of human ingenuity from minerals in the ground to cheap laptops and STW, and all you can do is **** moan.[/i]
Please now report to your nearest NHS facility so that you may enjoy a knicker un-twisting procedure.
The big problem with all autonomous vehicles is that they are designed to stop when someone steps out in front of it.
Yes you say, that's the point.
When all the children/young adults learn to recognise them what do you think they are going to do?
It will take you hours to get even a mile down the road because of all the fun the kids are going to have watching the car stop/start 🙂
Love this upvoted comment on the bbc article, do people just get irritated and run childeren over when they play chicken with cars then?
I'm somewhat reminded of the NASA space pen myth and peoples' desire to sneer and try to belittle clever design
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
As for molgrips, his knickers are permanently twisted. He was born with it so you shouldn't really point it out 😉
I think the self driving car might assist those who may otherwise be unable to [i]enjoy[/i] personal transport in the form of a car. However, if you think I'm going to climb into a tin box which is supposedly capable of piloting me along a motorway at 70mph or more, without any input from me. Think again !
People are already voting for self-driving cars - just look at existing behaviour:
1. Overtaking without looking
2. Texting/calling when driving
3. Eating breakfast
4. Reading newspaper
5. makeup/shaving
So the minute something comes along which allows us to do these things legitimately, affordably and which other people are doing and we'll be away...
Every new technology which is truely groundbreaking has its Luddites but they get over themselves eventually.
it's not like humans are some kind of paragon when it comes to driving cars is it?
You must love flying!
@ solo. what like a train or an aeroplane?
I'd go for self driving as an option, but I think I'd like manual controls too.
[i]@ solo. what like a train or an aeroplane?[/i]
What ? like they have people stationed at the front, who look out of the big window. Despite the fact that trains run on rails and that planes are capable of flying themselves and have been for some time...
Oh, and did you know that I've spent 20 yrs in car design, so please spare me the geek fest.
😉
Hands up all those who have doubts that the computer industry can make something which doesn't crash.
[i]Hands up[/i]
[img] 
[/img]
When was the last time you picked up a phone and didn't hear a dial tone? The computer industry made that phone exchange.
When was the last time the computer in your car 'crashed' (as opposed to had a mechanical failure)?
Put it another way - when was the last time you heard of a human crashing a car?
[gets ready for work, walks to car and selects 'to the office' on google maps on phone]
click, click, why isn't my car door opening
"I'm sorry but the traffic is so heavy your journey will be quicker walking to the bus stop at 3mph where you will wait 9 minutes for the 135 numbered bus to take you to within 0.3km of your office. Thank you"
I wanna drive !
"journey request illogical"
[i]When was the last time the computer in your car 'crashed' (as opposed to had a mechanical failure)?[/i]
That's not the only issue though, is it. Anticipation. Computers will not "[i]read the road[/i]" as well as a trained and experienced Human will, etc, etc.
Computers will not "read the road" as well as a trained and experienced Human will, etc, etc.
No? On what inside knowledge is that based?
[i]Put it another way - when was the last time you heard of a human crashing a car?[/i]
Or a bike, for that matter. Indeed, we're just a bunch of accident prone monkeys.
BRING ME MY SUIT OF COTTON WOOL !
Can we just have trams for urban transport, instead ?
[i]No? On what inside knowledge is that based?[/i]
Given your [i]form[/i] on driving related threads [cough] [i]over taking[/i] [/cough]. Might you reconsider your input here ?
😉
. I think it is great, and really the only way the main stream use of personal transport will become future proof.
Saddest post on a bike forum ever
It's coming* Future is in a Wally World where fat people suck on protean shakes and watch life pass them by.
Maybe the car should be fitted with scales in the seats, if you get in and you're over a certain weight and a computer voice says "get out and walk you fat b-stard" 🙂
Computers will not "read the road" as well as a trained and experienced Human will
lol next these "computers" will be playing chess! 🙄
"journey request illogical"
Would be great if the car refuse to make short trips - walk you lazy g!t.
Should be no manual option as those that think they're better than the machine will be wrong. One day these things should be able communitcate with each other and even link together into a train to dramatically improve traffic flow - like birds flocking maybe?
[i]lol next these "computers" will be playing chess![/i]
When missing the point is made an olympic discipline. You'll be our best chance for gold.
I put an address into sat nav yesterday and it directed me 5 roads away. So if this thing hasn't got a steering wheel, how the hell are we gonna get to were we want to go!
I presume it runs off a inputted destination.
When missing the point is made an olympic discipline. You'll be our best chance for gold.
We're giving you a chance to make your point better 🙂
[i]I presume it runs off a inputted destination.[/i]
Yes, the name of the place is:
[i]Pay-google-loads-of-money-to-drive-your-car-for-you[/i] town.
You do understand this isn't google getting all philanthropic with us, now ?
I put an address into sat nav yesterday and it directed me 5 roads away. So if this thing hasn't got a steering wheel, how the hell are we gonna get to were we want to go!
My sat nav took me to the wrong village once - fortunately, the car has a steering wheel and I can ask for directions.
On another occasion, the sat nav tried to take me over about 10 miles of forestry track, that being "quicker" than the tarmac covered road I was on. On another, it tried to take me over a bridge which had been knocked down and relocated 1/4 mile away.
On the plus side. without having to concentrate on driving you'll be free to enjoy all those destination-related adverts, possibly to the extent that you'll be able to enjoy the destination the car decided to take you to rather than the one you wanted to go to.
The fact that it works 99% of the time is truly incredible.
Applied to cars, that means some form of failure 1 mile in every 100. Possibly very impressive to you, not something I'd want to count on.
Applied to cars
I was talking about laptops. It's perfectly possible to design a laptop that'd never crash, but the cost would put people off somewhat. And given it's not that onerous to simply restart your laptop, people are mostly happy with that (no idea if that's the real statistic of course, that was just for the sake of argument).
Cars would obviously have to be designed differently to laptops. Aeroplanes are designed with maximum safety, and they don't crash very often. And they are up in the air so they can't even stop when something goes wrong.
Aeroplanes are designed with maximum safety,
Like controls to allow manual overide?
And given it's not that onerous to simply restart your laptop,
No it's not, but restarting the computer controlling a car at 70 mph on a busy motorway is not something I'd be all that keen on.
Are actually staring to build them?
Where are they going to sell these?
They are completely illegal in 99% of countries!
No it's not, but restarting the computer controlling a car at 70 mph on a busy motorway is not something I'd be all that keen on.
FFS
Read the following very carefully and slowly:
A COMPUTER THAT CONTROLS YOUR CAR WOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS YOUR LAPTOP.
It would not need restarting.
Do you honestly think someone would design something so safety critical that runs off a laptop, without safety features and without extensive testing?
When missing the point is made an olympic discipline. You'll be our best chance for gold.
By that time we will be able to make computers miss the point/destination much better than a human!
[i]Do you honestly think someone would design something so safety critical that runs off a laptop, without safety features[/i]
This is a cyclingerists forum... Where, at times, the stupidity contained in some of the posts here, does give one pause for more thought.
😐
However, all that being as it may. Hell, lets install two laptops into our very own STW, self drive car.
I'll be greedy here, as well as an extra laptop, possibly a Tecknia laptop from tesco. Please can we have enough room in the trunk to transport our Orange 5 with us. I can then clean and lube it as I travel to my cycling destination.
🙂
"I'd want manual controls as well"
STW Horseless carriage...
[img] 
[/img]
[i]By that time we will be able to make computers miss the point/destination much better than a human![/i]
Well, you at least. Assuming you're "[i]Human[/i]".
Where, at times, the stupidity contained in some of the posts here, does give one pause for more thought.
Come on then, explain where I'm being stupid.
EDIT ok I'll have a go, with a bit of charity
You are saying that even well designed systems fail occasionally. Yes, that's true, but so do humans. And the point is that properly designed computers can be a lot more reliable than humans. That's why they use them in aeroplanes.
However, in response to the cars that started this thread - it seems silly not to have manual controls at all, if they are to be used in general real-world driving.
Didn't the Costa Concordia crash because the driver took it off auto to show a woman how big his dick was ? The sooner they take the steering wheels out of the cars the better.
[i]Come on then, explain where I'm being stupid.[/i]
That comment wasn't directed at anyone here, specifically. Apologies if you thought I meant you.
I think it's great. I'll empower people who can't otherwise get around as easily - blind, disabled, old etc.
As an aside, you could drive to work, jump out, and the car goes and parks itself. When you're ready to go home, just tell your car and it'll come and get you.
Go out for a few beers, and your car can come pick you up (minus the nagging about how late you are).
The list of benefits is endless 🙂
[i]I think it's great. I'll empower people who can't otherwise get around as easily - blind, disabled, old etc.[/i]
Yes, I made this point earlier.
[i]Go out for a few beers, and your car can come pick you up[/i]
Where I'm from, we call those taxis.
This is like listening to victorians saying the car will never replace horse and carriages.
edit: Taxis will be the first to go auto.
[i]This is like listening to victorians saying the car will never replace horses.[/i]
What they actually said was that we'd be drowning in 9 feet of horse shit and piss, in the near future as the number of horses increased in line with the number of people able to afford them and require a horse for transportation.
Where I'm from, we call those taxis.
Taxi minus the idiot driver. Win win.
[i]edit: Taxis will be the first to go auto.[/i]
Have you told Tom the taxi driver yet ? wonder what he'll say.
[i]Taxi minus the idiot driver. Win win.[/i]
Are you sure the idiot is in the taxi ?
Ok, I take it back. Perhaps we have just found STW's first living brain donor.
Still be made by the lowest bidder, whatever you say.
wonder what he'll say
Why not ask Tom the filing clerk?
Ok, I take it back. Perhaps we have just found STW's first living brain donor.
Awww... why so grumpy? are you going through a menstrual cycle?
[i]Awww... why so grumpy? are you going through a menstrual cycle?[/i]
Not grumpy, midly amused at the naivety in some comments. I note no one has commented on what google's motivation is for doing this...
[i]Still be made by the lowest bidder, whatever you say.[/i]
Too true. Maybe it'll be one laptop to run all the cars on your street 😯
What do you think Google's motivation is then?
jambalaya - Member
...On an interesting side note a friend was at a demo Volvo where doing of their automatic braking system for pedestrian avoidance, the car ran over the model pedestrian and smashed in to a wall
Yeah, but the model pedestrian was thinking of getting a bike, so it's ok.
Automatic cars - roll on the day as far as I'm concerned.
I did, its so they have a captive audience for marketing, or taking you to their sponsors outlets 🙂
Just a modern version of thoes holiday tours that all end up in the blokes cousins reasuturant or shop.
Come on then, explain where I'm being stupid.
A COMPUTER THAT CONTROLS YOUR CAR WOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS YOUR LAPTOP.It would not need restarting.
[i]Why not ask Tom the filing clerk?[/i]
Actually, the question is. What are we saying, when we're throwing people onto the dole with such glee. I mean, I'm no fan of taxi drivers, but how's it all going to [i]work[/i] if we're all out of a job cos computers do it all for us.
[img] 
[/img]
😐
Edit:
Ok, work time now.
I note no one has commented on what google's motivation is for doing this...
Less time driving, more time on your phone/laptop/device(s) being bombarded with Google's advertising. At the end of the day Google is an advertising company - it creates devices so it can target you with dedicated advertising.
You'll get in your (driverless) car... car asks "where do you want to go" (search engine), owner: "To a italian restaurant" (search query), car offers several in the area (search results) - like 'Pay per click' Google will be paid for offering adverts etc.
Google will also be tracking your driving, where you're going etc, and tailor the car to the user providing suggestions on where to go, what to do.
Regardless of their motivation though, what Google are doing is inspiring.
[i]Regardless of their motivation though, what Google are doing is inspiring.[/i] People to part with their hard earned.
FTFY
Btw, you realize google is listed ? you know, like google has to give an ROI for the share holders, right ?....
Come on then, explain where I'm being stupid.
A COMPUTER THAT CONTROLS YOUR CAR WOULD NOT BE THE SAME AS YOUR LAPTOP.
It would not need restarting.
Why's that stupid? Explain please.
Less time driving, more time on your phone/laptop/device(s) being bombarded with Google's advertising.
Hmm, not sure. The advertising thing pays for otherwise free services, like the search engines and mail etc. This would have a very different business model, because you would (presumably) pay for the cars.
If you didn't, now THAT would be a revolution in travel!
what Google are doing is inspiring. People to part with their hard earned
Yeah as a business, how dare they!
Oh, and did you know that I've spent 20 yrs in car design, so please spare me the geek fest.
Are you single handed responsible for the industry's' lack of vision and progress or did you have help? 🙂
Is Google's plan that we buy these things or hire them (like Boris Bikes)?
Jesus christ and I thought the comments on the BBC article were bad!
This can only be a good thing. Particularly for old / infirm / blind(!) folk, who can't drive - it could well end up cheaper than taxi-ing everywhere. In urban areas it'll speed up commuting times as the cars will be able to communicate with one another, and potentially reduce congestion / ownership hassles (why have one car each when you can just share one?)
Anyone saying "what are google getting out of this" - well there's the obvious PR exposure NOW, but they'll also be getting paid. THAT ISN'T NECESSARILY BY BOMBARDING YOU WITH ADS - it could just as well be a built-in cost with the car (much like, generally, you buy an OS with your new computer).