Oh thank God, this is so great news! Can't wait to have them!

Of course when it's commonplace most everyone will lose the skill of driving or never learn it.

Quite true, much liker coopers and candlestick makers. It's funny really that the smarter we get the stupider we become. I'm not so sure that is really forward movement. It's more like progress is just a rolling average paradigm shift in what is perceived as common knowledge.

why would you need to have the skill to drive?
I am not opposite to it, but it would be an obsolete skill
and to be honest, driving will be so much automated, that you can learn driving within seconds

Quote from: wraith808 on October 14, 2014, 07:14 PM

I'm not ready to put my life in their hands.  Either as the passenger, or another driver on the streets.

But you're already doing that as another driver on the streets, since these vehicles are out there, and have been for years.

I answered that above.  And besides that, a controlled set is different from every driver.

Quote from: kalos on October 16, 2014, 01:46 PM

Quote from: Renegade on October 16, 2014, 12:27 PM

Quote from: kalos on October 16, 2014, 09:03 AM

Oh thank God, this is so great news! Can't wait to have them!

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not... 

ofcourse not! we are in a technology forum and I can't believe people are so much afraid of technological advancements!

Technology is never the answer.  It's a tool, like any other, and we as people that are on a technology forum must have a much greater scrutiny of the uses and abuses of such things, IMO.  That old chestnut about when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail?  That applies to technology, also.

It's very easy to fall into as a developer- using the latest features of development platforms just because it's cool.  But that makes a bad developer, and a client that's not well served.

This technology is not ready for prime-time.  That's the only thing we're saying.  Not that it will never be.  But that it's not currently.  And Google agrees.  And Elon Musk seems to agree.  So what's so wrong with us applying our scrutiny and agreeing?  Because it seems pretty obvious to me that it has a long way to go before its ready- and that it shouldn't be the default state until it is ready, and that the standards should be a lot higher than for a human driver.

+1,000

ofcourse not! we are in a technology forum and I can't believe people are so much afraid of technological advancements!

I'm F**KING TERRIFIED!!!

I get a lot of confidential documents across my desk from industry players and government think tanks.

The technology is advancing too fast. There is no common understanding for what it can do. It is being marketed as convenience, but that's not what's actually happening. Behind the scenes, it's not "convenience".

It's a tool, but... it's not going to be used well...

Again, privacy pops its head up.

ofcourse not! we are in a technology forum and I can't believe people are so much afraid of technological advancements!

Because we're rapidly approaching an extremely dangerous state where nobody knows how this stuff actually works or what to do in an emergency if it is malfunctioning.

Take Apollo 13 for example. Cutting edge technology- the very limit of what the 1970s could deliver in order to put man and machine on the moon and return them to earth safely.

Their survival and recovery was only possible because back then engineers made a point of providing manual overrides for every little feature, and designing a system to be as flexible as it was powerful while at the same time keeping complexity to the minimum needed to do the job.

In the end it was still the sheer luck that an identical craft was attached to a ground simulator that a solution to the power supply problems was found, and a carefully metered quantity of ducttape holding their air filter together so they could breathe.

Working in manufacturing like I do, there is a very highly alarming trend in engineering where you see engineers that have little to no hands-on experience with building and using the systems they design. These engineers will make an amazing design in 3D model on their computer, that when it reaches fabrication is quickly determined to be almost impossible to make and even more difficult to repair if anything goes wrong.

Plus modern people seem to have a phobia of instruments and manual override control panels, resulting in a lot of designs simply eliminating these required features in the interest of making it look appealing and cutting costs. Designs reach production all too frequently now that have no room for error at all, if anything goes wrong it instantly goes horribly wrong and ruins everything.

That's my problem with a lot of new technology. I've worked with technology long enough to automatically not trust any piece of equipment that has not proven itself through regular usage and been inspected as far as practical on the maintenance bench to make sure it is defect-free.

I just thought I'd mention I ride on driverless cars every day.  The MetroMover system in Miami is driven by computer.  It's a bit simpler since it doesn't have to react with steering changes.  There's a guide hooked to the hydraulic steering control.

A ride on this thing might quell some of the enthusiasm for the concept.  It works, but it's not what I'd call a smooth ride.  Every now and then it doesn't want to pull out of the station and a tech has to pop the cover to reboot it.  It's kind of a novelty for the tourists.

That might be an important post Seraphim.

Skipping the word "phobia", maybe subconsciously in shows like Star Trek we told ourselves that when the "Big Tech" fails, (transporter, main computer, etc), we have to hope we have at least one lateral outside-the-box thinker around to desperately rig something together so we don't die in 28 minutes.

Not counting actual budget and era issues, their tech was supposed to be a bunch of times better than ours. But are we getting seduced by how clean computer-generated-everything is becoming? Trek TOS is def becoming dated to my cynical eyes, but some of the newer episodes are still watchable. But are we losing a deep message about technology?

you who moan about driveless technology, you have already used it, if you have flied with an aeroplane
what is the possibility for aeroplane automatic pilot systems to fail?
and how high would be the percentages of aircraft accidents if there weren't automatic pilot systems?

WOW! People have already started standing on two sides for this 'driverless cars'.

Well this reminds me when Apple first announced 'IPad' technology. People will be people and corporates will make money.

Well I am more concern about 'programer-less NANY'. GOD save me, if it happens.

Regards,

Anand

Quote from: kalos on October 17, 2014, 10:59 AM

you who moan about driveless technology, you have already used it, if you have flied with an aeroplane

There's not a lot of cross traffic at 30,000 feet.

Quote from: kalos on October 17, 2014, 10:59 AM

what is the possibility for aeroplane automatic pilot systems to fail?

Well... they do seem to make a point of having a someone sit there ready to take over in case an alarm goes off...and there a second someone there to back the first someone up if they're in the bathroom when the alarm goes off. So I'm guessing that somebody - who's willing to waste the money on paying all these people - thinks it is a possibility.

Quote from: kalos on October 17, 2014, 10:59 AM

and how high would be the percentages of aircraft accidents if there weren't automatic pilot systems?

IIRC autopilot was added primarily as a convenience to mitigate the really boring parts. So outside of preventing the plane from wandering off course...(making them late)...it's not really a safety system.

All of the above.  And it's the pilots *job* to monitor, and be willing to take over.  If it is an ubiquitous technology on the streets... people can't even drive without being distracted.  You want to tell me that if something unforeseen happens they'll be paying enough attention to switch over?  Or even be able to react in time...

UK to allow driverless cars on public roads in January

Yes, some people are trying it, in some places...tentatively ...And that's fine. It's what is colloquialisticly referred to as 'sticking a toe in the water'. Nobody however is jumping to mandate it as option on all 2016 vehicles ... Which seems to be what you're pushing for. The technology is simply not mature enough.

So unless one's objective is to get a bunch of people killed...caution is warranted. Much like the article I posted earlier implied, it would be foolhardy at best to perceive this technology as a magic bullet. Because you're only going to alter which people get killed how ... Not save them all.

As the admin for many managed business networks, I see all sorts of truly bizarre issues crop up in systems that  - "smart" as computers are... - then invariably require me to sort out what really went wrong after some maintenance, management, or security system completely borked the end result that the end user thought they were waiting on. So knowing this, would I be willing to bet my life on a (linear thinking) computers ability to (fail at generating a truly random number and) contend with the chaos that is modern day traffic? Hell no.

The computer can't look into the window of the cars around me and react to the fact that the driver is on the phone, disciplining an unruly child, bopping to the radio a bit too enthusiastically, or just looking totally pissed-off-at-the-world ... But I sure as shit can.

And even if everyone went driverless tomorrow - to completely remove the people factor - there will still be glitches that result in fatalities...and I'm neither willing or interested in gambling on those odds. Because nothing in IT is truly "Standard" ... And if you want proof of that feel free to pick any two routers from two different manufacturers and try to set up a VPN between them. When you're finished tearing all your hair out, think about all the different auto manufacturers, how they will design their systems, and the scant snowball's chance in hell that they will be able to effectively communicate anything useful before the point of impact..

"Your car needs to reboot to install updates" WTF!