Autonomous Cars Are Their Own Drivers

This is a cool decision. Next step - drunken driving

http://www.theweek.co.uk/67776/googles-autonomous-cars-are-their-own-drivers-says-us

Big Brother says you Vill use public transport .

I simply ask why?

If you don't want to drive, take the bus or a taxi.

I don't understand the logic driving this, if you pardon the pun.

Door to door convenience Clive. One thing I'd like to know is if you have had a few over the eight could you still be nicked for Drunk in charge?

clivehorridge said:

I simply ask why?
If you don't want to drive, take the bus or a taxi.

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Maybe bus services are far more comprehensive and taxis much cheaper where you live. I've just driven 2 hours home from quite a comprehensive lunch. Would have happily let the car do the driving if it could. Bus would have taken 5-6 hours. At a guess a taxi would have been £150, perhaps more.

I travel a lot for work, pretty much only by train because I can work while I travel. This is fine for traveling to London, but much more of an inconvenience when I'm trying to get to an industrial estate in the Midlands. Self-driving car would fix that for me.

My laptop regularly crashes, will a self driving car made by google do the same thing?

If so who is liable for insurance claims, the passenger/owner or the manufacturer

Beat me to it Mark i was about to say no need for insurance because microchips never fail ..... do they ?

A self drive bus should be able to do 200mph safely because technology is far better than humans .... isn't it ?

I run servers, or clustered servers that haven't crashed since they were switched on 15+ years ago. The laptop manufacturer has no idea what software you will run on it, designing very reliable operating systems when you know what will run on it is easy. Designing in hardware resilience is easy, it isn't done on laptops because it adds cost and bulk, but not that you'd notice in a car. It will happen. What we have now is the equivalent to the fella with a red flag walking in front of early cars.

Laptop/Desktop whatever, the IT industry has little interest in producing market ready products which are reliable

Anyone remember the multi billion dollar US warships with computer controlled systems that crashed during war games leaving the ships and their crew totally defenceless?. If the military can't get a system reliable then there's little hope for the car industry. The predator drones have been hacked or suffering system failures on the compute side judging by recent news stories.

What will be the manufacturers advice when it crashes? everyone has to get out and then get back in again?

People who need reliability don't use laptops or desktops. And they test the combinations of software and it's working parameters on the hardware they want to use. Just like war games are tests of how people and machinery react. Test stuff, fix any issues.

Rob Cowell said:

People who need reliability don't use laptops or desktops.

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People who want reliability from a laptop or desktop are just careful what they load and run on them. Prior to the Mac I bought nearly 2 years ago I ran XP for over 10 years and the only issues i had with it were due to my own stupidity of disabling the security software to get a file through the firewall. Zero issues with the Mac so far. As far as IT in vehicles goes I can live without it. JMO

Rob Cowell said:

Maybe bus services are far more comprehensive and taxis much cheaper where you live. I've just driven 2 hours home from quite a comprehensive lunch. Would have happily let the car do the driving if it could. Bus would have taken 5-6 hours. At a guess a taxi would have been £150, perhaps more.

I travel a lot for work, pretty much only by train because I can work while I travel. This is fine for traveling to London, but much more of an inconvenience when I'm trying to get to an industrial estate in the Midlands. Self-driving car would fix that for me.

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I take your points Rob, but using the examples you've given, I wouldn't have thought 2 hour drives after a comprehensive lunch were too common amongst the general populous.

Of course it depends a lot on where you live and the type of work you do. I live mostly in a city, so for commuting I have a choice between regular busses, trams, trolley busses, metro system and affordable taxis, yet I still drive to work. Why, because I love driving. It's only 8km to the office and we have a small economical car, but I drive the 80, again because I love driving it.

I too travel a fair bit for work, but again it depends on the type of travel that is. Trains are useless here, and even driving is slow with the lack of a comprehensive motorway system, although that is improving very slowly. Most of my work travel is flying, which is on average about twice a month. That's when the laptop comes out and I can make good use of the travel time.

The point I was trying to make was the huge investments in R&D for something that may not actually be much advantage to the average Joe. Still, Google are (in this instance) investing in the R&D and it's their risk if it doesn't pay off.

If it does, and it becomes as popular as the old fashioned driving car that we all know and most of us love, then so be it. I'll be long gone before its as everyday as the cars we know, so its no use me pontificating about its necessity, desirability or potential for success.

Personally, its the last thing I'd want to own, but then there's plenty of very successful businesses producing goods that I don't want, so I have to say fair play to Google for hanging on in there with their dream.

You go on to say that you think it will be a major breakthrough and a success and I'm not going to argue with that. They can bury me in my 80 when the time comes, because I'll be glad not to be living my life in the "new age" if that's the way it's going.

Maybe my young daughter and her kids will enjoy it, they can look back at old photos and have a good laugh at how life used to be, in the "good ol' days"...

Projected profit margins are a bit slow this month miss moneypenny please upload 52000 faults to make the buggers spend and we have a cancelled order so kill 10 cars so we can shift the overstock .

I imagine lots of people don't want one of these for themselves. Which I think is fine. It's more than fine. I only worry that the naysayers will try to frighten each other along the lines of, "they'll make us all drive one". And technology is unsafe, I once had digital watch and it stopped working! Most major technical advantages through history elicit the same sentiment. Man walking with a red flag in front of motor cars, etc.

Philosophically, I'm quite amused that people have a technological period in time they cling to and they convince themselves that is the best period, but it's flexible for given elements in their life. I don't want sat nav, I can read a map. Now let me log onto the internet to share that view....

That's not a sleight on anyone, I do it myself. The best sport and the best way way to understand it's progress is Test Match Special on Radio 4, and anyone who says otherwise is a crazy philistine who is out to ruin the best way of life.

Shayne said:

Projected profit margins are a bit slow this month miss moneypenny please upload 52000 faults to make the buggers spend and we have a cancelled order so kill 10 cars so we can shift the overstock .

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If only Google develop this technology I think that would be a legitimate concern. But I think Apple and especially Facebook have the desire and power to run the earth too, and there's a few more years of battle in them yet before we all need to take to our cabins in the mountains.

Rob Cowell said:

I imagine lots of people don't want one of these for themselves. Which I think is fine. It's more than fine. I only worry that the naysayers will try to frighten each other along the lines of, "they'll make us all drive one". And technology is unsafe, I once had digital watch and it stopped working! Most major technical advantages through history elicit the same sentiment. Man walking with a red flag in front of motor cars, etc.

Philosophically, I'm quite amused that people have a technological period in time they cling to and they convince themselves that is the best period, but it's flexible for given elements in their life. I don't want sat nav, I can read a map. Now let me log onto the internet to share that view....

That's not a sleight on anyone, I do it myself. The best sport and the best way way to understand it's progress is Test Match Special on Radio 4, and anyone who says otherwise is a crazy philistine who is out to ruin the best way of life.

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Guilty of all the above Rob, fair cop

I think it's human nature to fear the unknown yet at the same time to explore and open boxes.

I remember similar conversations with my father when alive, born in 1912 he saw a very broad band of everyday life changes, telephone, radio, electricity, television, then colour TV, digitizing photography, computers, mobile phones etc.

He died saying nobody would see so many changes in one lifetime, yet the way things are moving I doubt that very much. As Oding says, "Nothing is as constant as change" it's as certain as death and taxes.

Having designed and released a product that makes a job better and easier for a little bit of cost that is more than covered by the cost saving in time, it continues to amaze me the reasons people have for not using them. Fortunately many thousands of people are using them, and singing their praises, but it goes to show how people think. I often use arguments like 'you didn't know you needed electric windows until you got them'.
It's been an eye opening time.

clivehorridge said:

I remember similar conversations with my father when alive, born in 1912 he saw a very broad band of everyday life changes, telephone, radio, electricity, television, then colour TV, digitizing photography, computers, mobile phones etc.

He died saying nobody would see so many changes in one lifetime, yet the way things are moving I doubt that very much. As Oding says, "Nothing is as constant as change" it's as certain as death and taxes.

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I had a Great Aunt who died in 2007 at the princely age of 108... 3 centuries she lived in; born January 1899.

One of my memories is of the man at the TSB proudly showing off his new computer system (about 1990 I think) and finding that there was a glitch with it... Aunt Rose's date of birth would be 9 years in the future on his system - it only stored the last 2 digits of the year...

Now, think of her live like this in historical land marks:
18 years old - end of the First World War
46 years old - end of the Second World War
64 years old - JFK shot
83 years old - The Falklands
102 years old - 9/11

Never mind the technological changes:
Wright Brothers - 4 years old
Logie Baird and the TV - 27 years old
Man on the moon - 70 years old

I'd not be sure that the technical progression rate is going to slow; what is going to change is the importance of those changes.

Great story Ed, puts it in perspective. Thought for a minute you were going to say she drove a cruiser up until her 105th birthday. [emoji4].

My Grandpa lived to nearly 102. I've often thought of what he had seen and gone through.

First World War- captured, POW
Second World War- Captain Manwaring, would've got blown up if he hadn't picked up and thrown the dropped grenade!
50's involved in the production and development of the hovercraft.
Awarded MBE.

StarCruiser said:

Great story Ed, puts it in perspective. Thought for a minute you were going to say she drove a cruiser up until her 105th birthday. [emoji4].

My Grandpa lived to nearly 102. I've often thought of what he had seen and gone through.

First World War- captured, POW
Second World War- Captain Manwaring, would've got blown up if he hadn't picked up and thrown the dropped grenade!
50's involved in the production and development of the hovercraft.
Awarded MBE.

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I don't think she ever learnt to drive; spent all bar 4 years (I think it was) in Boston, Lincs... she was in a home the last 5 or so years, and would tell the staff there stories not only of their parents, but in some cases their Grandparents... the joy of having been a teacher 1921 until 1965ish... the classic was when she got a new room-mate at the home, and discovered that the (70-something) lady was one of her old Guides...