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AI and Driverless Cars are coming – it isn't a bad thing

There are times when, as a technologist, I move beyond the horizon you see in the cover picture. Beyond what most people even think about. In part, that is because I am in a role that forces me to think that way. In part because that is an expansion of the way I grew up. I enjoy seeing just what technology can do. But I also know that technology is a guide and an aide for people, not a replacement. It is why I consider robotics carefully. I don’t agree with the goals similar to Issac Asimov’s three laws of robotics (originally published in the Novel I Robt, but republished and reused many times since then. The first law is a robot cannot allow hard to come to a human being.

It is the primary argument against driverless cars. The scenario being a group of motorcyclists wipe out on the other side of a sharp curve. As your driverless car comes around the curve, its function would be to preserve the five people that had a bee on the monitor cycles and are now on the road. Your car would swerve off the road. It is slowing hopefully before hitting something. It is the moral dilemma of one, you, versus many, cyclists on the ground. The car’s AI would choose the many. But the problem with that scenario is that it doesn’t include AI. You see, a computer can work in the space a human would need to hit the brakes, evaluate, brake, and see if there are other options.

It is conceivable that a car, traveling at a rate of speed normally reserved for highways, can come to a stop by simply using some of the concepts often associated with drifting. Brakes on a car, use friction. Applied equally to four tires, or more with a bigger vehicle, the brakes attempt to stop the car in time. But if the car suddenly turns to parallel its momentum remains forward (now away from the bikers), and friction (four tires now being stopped horizontally) might result in both the AI car driver being ok (needing four new tries but who cares at that point) and the motorcyclists being ok. There are patterns we as humans wouldn’t have time to process that the AI of a driverless car could.

It becomes an interesting future state question.

(ps, driverless doesn’t mean nobody in the driver’s seat of the car, just that for most situations the computer is driving the human is watching!)

  • Question of

    Are you scared by the concept of a driver-less car?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    It is ok to be upset by things that are coming, right?

    • Yes
  • Question of

    The value of driverless cars isn’t clear to me?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    I wish people would focus more on clean energy than driverless cars?

    • Yes
    • No

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What do you think?

22 Points

Written by DocAndersen

One fan, One team and a long time dream Go Cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

52 Comments

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  1. My daughter has a friend who is legally blind and she wants a driverless car so that she can be more independent. I totally get that. But somehow the thought of her being in a driverless car and not being able to see that well and my daughter also being in the car with her because they are friends … that just doesn’t sit well with me. IT’ S SCARY!!

  2. Q: ARE YOU SCARED BY THE CONCEPT OF A DRIVER-LESS CAR?
    Yes (6 votes) – 55%
    No (5 votes) – 45%
    Q: IT IS OK TO BE UPSET BY THINGS THAT ARE COMING, RIGHT?
    Yes (7 votes) – 100%
    Q: THE VALUE OF DRIVERLESS CARS ISN’T CLEAR TO ME?
    Yes (5 votes) – 56%
    No (4 votes) – 44%
    Q: I WISH PEOPLE WOULD FOCUS MORE ON CLEAN ENERGY THAN DRIVERLESS CARS?
    Yes (9 votes) – 90%
    No (1 votes) – 10%

  3. I feel that the best use of this technonolgy would be during rush hour when there is bumper to bumper traffic like I had to drive when I lived in Los Angeles. Then the AI would take over and drive instead of me. But on the clear highway like on a typical Sunday I would take control of the car.

    1
    • the value for tomorrow might be Uber/Lyft having humanly supervised and completely AI drive cabs reducing the cost overall.

      The cost of car insurance drives the cost of cab rides way up.

      But buying one of the cars today, they are very expensive.

  4. While all that is true and the fact that there will be lesser accidents with driverless cars, I somehow worry that AI really lacks common sense. The accidents Tesla has had seem to show that.

    1

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