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Tag Archive for self-driving car

Not For Us

May 14, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Not For Us

http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2015/05/meta-analysis-finds-self-braking-cars-reduce-collisions-by-38-percent/

I’m intimately familiar with programmed responses and how changing the technology that trained them can f*ck you up.  When I started driving, the standard practice was never to slam on your brakes when you got into trouble.  You pumped your brakes.  It kept them from locking up, it made your taillights flash to warn the car behind you.  It helped keep you from locking up all over so that you could continue to react as you slid, in the unstoppable grip of physics, down the roadway to your certain doom.

Then the technology got better.  Cars have computers that take care of the brake management for you (usually) so pumping the brake in most modern cars has become counter intuitive.  It f*ucks up the computer, throws it’s braking off sync.  So now, after decades of pumping the brake, I now have to do the opposite.  I have to stomp ont he brake and hope the computer is smarter than I am (let me point out, I work with computers, so I am intimately familiar with “smart” machines and the misconceptions that go with them).

What they describe here in the Ars Technica article is one step further.  They are discussing systems to handle the braking for the the driver, which means no foot-stomping at all.  That’s an even more drastic change than the one we went through from pump to stomp.

 

 

 

I said FLYING cars, not DRIVING cars… Stupid Google…

February 8, 2013 Writing Comments Off on I said FLYING cars, not DRIVING cars… Stupid Google…

I have a problem.  I grew up in sunny California, where nobody walks if they can possibly drive and the roads are so, so very tidy.  So for me, the idea of a self driving car is perfectly reasonable.  Even on our worst traffic day, the roads in CA won’t kill you.  Other people might.    There are always the unhappy accidents where attentiveness and physics sit down together and decide to end your days.  By and large, however these are not the fault of road conditions (okay, there is that bridge over by Sacramento that freezes over, but that’s a bit fluke-y).  So for us, the idea of a car that can help reduce those accidents, that can help drop the number of fatalities due to things like texting, early morning rush hour handjobs, a rock in the windshield, this is going to be a good thing.  Because, for us, there is never ever a question as to whether or not road conditions are safe.

But in many many places in the US (and internationally) it’s a valid question.  Can a self-driving car be safe under more adverse conditions?  Can I hop into my little green Googlecar in the middle of a blizzard and arrive safely (and you know someone will, it’s a robot, if you own a self-driving car, you’re going to be one of those who have an unquestioning faith in technology, the kind of person who will drive into a lake because Apple Maps told you too).  Can I rely on my self-driving car to avoid tornadoes?  Can my self driving car compensate if the road floods?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/01/30/can-you-be-trusted-with-googles-driverless-car/