Author Topic: Autopilot Cars  (Read 10594 times)

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Offline Marc St Louis

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Autopilot Cars
« on: July 06, 2016, 08:20:49 am »
So, I came across this article yesterday http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-july-5-2016-1.3664782/death-of-tesla-driver-tests-future-of-driverless-car-1.3664803.  It was interesting since my wife and I were talking about this very thing several days prior, neither one of us would trust an autopilot car.  Would anyone here trust their lives in a car like that?
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Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2016, 08:42:06 am »
Not a chance. I don't trust a soul on the road and those same souls design these cars. 27 years of driving with no tickets and no accidents has to count for something, right? I have had four deer slam into my trucks over the years.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Offline Josh B

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2016, 08:46:31 am »
It's worse than just driverless cars.    Daimler Chrysler has been developing driverless big trucks for the past decade.  Now that scares me!  Josh

Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2016, 09:57:42 am »
I'm not done!

Just like GPS, its one more skill we are stealing from our future generations. Cant back a car up without a 10" screen on the dash or auto pilot, cant read a paper map to save their aces, have no idea which way is north and so on. It ticks me often watching all these needed skills get washed away by technology that could just as easily be washed away when the power goes out. Then they are left with ZERO skills.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Offline Adam

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2016, 10:17:19 am »
I think Pearl Drums is right on. I have no problem with, and often enjoy, new technology. The problem is when it's used completely in place of real skills people should have.

Offline JEB

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2016, 10:30:43 am »
Just another case of "dumbing down" America.  My wife and I are avid bicyclists. Can't say exactly how many road miles but a low guess would be 60,000 over the past 40 years. Rode them across this great America in 3 summers (great adventure by the way).  Now you want us to trust some moron sitting in a driverless car watching a video as the car travels down the roadway. Didn't work out so great for the guy in Marc's article.

Offline Urufu_Shinjiro

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2016, 10:48:14 am »
I'm going to go the other way on this, I can't wait for autopilot to be the norm. It's not the drivers that have never had a ticket or an accident in 40 years that I'm worried about, it's all the nuts out there. This accident with the Tesla is getting too much airplay IMO, firstly the investigation is still ongoing, there is no way of knowing what happened yet, this very well could be the driver at fault, Tesla's autopilot is not full control, it's a driver assist, your hands must remain on the wheel or the car begins to slow and find a place to pull over. For this accident to have happened the driver had to have been doing something outside of what you're supposed to be doing with the Tesla autopilot beta. Luckily the car does record all the data so once the investigation is complete we'll have a better idea what happened and I'm willing to bet it was not the autopilots fault, or at least not solely. I believe semi-autonomous is going to prove an issue and it should be fully autonomous or manual, no in between.  The google self driving car has had several small accidents, but in 100% of the cases it was a human hitting the driverless car, which is an argument in favor of more driverless cars not against them, lol. Manual driving will never go away, but for day to day commutes in the city autonomous driving will save hundreds of thousands of lives not to mention the reduction in traffic delays due to idiot drivers, once selfdriving cars reaches a critical mass and they are combined with smart roads to coordinate between the self driving cars the traffic jam will be a thing of the past as will be rampant traffic fatalities.

JacksonCash

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2016, 11:00:09 am »
Eventually, we will be relying on software to make deeply difficult moral questions. Does my car swerve around a guy braking hard in front of me, forcing a car next to me off the road killing them and saving me, or does it kill me? I know these are questions that are being investegate by (some of) the people making the cars, but its a difficult thought to think about- especially in the time when driverless and standard cars are heavily mingled together on the road.

I really like technology- I have all my life, but the older I get, the more I start thinking about the implications of this stuff. I'm with Pearl on the loss of skills- whos the last 12 year old you met who could read an analog clock?

Offline JEB

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2016, 11:07:13 am »
Jackson, who is the last store clerk that can give you change without looking at the register.  Like I wrote, we are "dumbing down" America.


Offline Knoll

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #10 on: July 06, 2016, 11:42:29 am »
In my view, the "dumbing down" and "driverless vehicle" issues aren't 2 sides of same coin.  Worthwhile issues for discussion and personal decision, yes. But one has little/none to do with other.

Chris' examples of skills being lost are compelling. And, to me, go to the question of what should we teach our family members?

Urufu's claims of reduced traffic fatalities/injuries are compelling. And, to me, go to the question of legitimacy of claims.

I could be wrong. After all, am old.   ::)
... alone in distant woods or fields, in unpretending sproutlands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day .... .  I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing & prayer.  Hank Thoreau, 1857

Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #11 on: July 06, 2016, 11:48:52 am »
I made my boys use mirrors when they were learning to drive, they both can back up 50 mph around a turn! Trust me :)

I am an old school thinker and liver and I pass it on to my boys. Yes they are enveloped in technology, and use it, but I am also adamant about real life skills being learned. We need to work on map skills a bit more.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Offline Pappy

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2016, 12:01:40 pm »
I like it, then I could take a nap on the way to ElmHall ;) Pappy
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Offline paoliguy

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2016, 12:05:17 pm »
I don't want an automatic driving car unless they can teach it to read and send texts while driving. That way it will blend in with all of the other mindless drivers I'm surrounded by!

Think I'll just remain the old guy that wants very little to do with the technological age. I can read a map, read road signs, AND pay attention to where I'm going .... worked so far.

Offline DC

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Re: Autopilot Cars
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2016, 12:07:19 pm »
I'm thinking along the lines of a spliced bow. I've been shooting them for a couple of years and still get the willies if I think about it too much. Autopilot cars will have to go through the same proving ground. Most big airplanes are mostly autopilot and fortunately they don't plunge out of the sky too often. When they do the fault is split between the computer systems and the pilots.