A.I. and the art of driving

www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2019/07/...s-cars/#4697a5e15900

Do you TRUST the traveling truck that is next to you on the road? IF there is a lack of a head and shoulders in the drivers seat......BEWARE.

I have a hard enough time trusting the human driver next to me. And a trucker once told me, do not drive your car next to their tires. If one blows, it could damage you and your automobile.

FredHayek wrote: I have a hard enough time trusting the human driver next to me. And a trucker once told me, do not drive your car next to their tires. If one blows, it could damage you and your automobile.

I do one better...I will SLOW DOWN, or pass as quickly as I can, so I am NOT next to the dully
truck or 18 wheeler...I attempt to have a "buffer" space around my vehicle.....being "in the pack"
is dangerous and dumb. jmo

Back on topic about self driving cars, I find this technology fascinating but it does tend to invite disagreements with family and friends. I think we will see self driving cars sooner rather than later, but others think the technology will never be able to adjust to irrational humans and weather. One big stumbling block I could see is lawyers. If I hit you accidentally, you are unlikely to sue me since most individuals have limited funds and insurance, but companies like Google and Apple who are writing the software have billions of dollars and are well insured. Think the jury will want to help out the widow or orphans or the company that created a "homicidal robot car of death"?

I love the analogy of the robot car of death! I also am fascinated with the technology behind this, but I find as I get older, I trust less and less the technology upon which we rely upon. Go to the store when the internet is down! and of course as most of you know I am very uneasy about the ability of people to hack into just about anything they want to. I think we probably all see drivers on the road that maybe should not be there - they are distracted by their phone or what ever else, or just poor drivers to begin with, and yes, when functioning properly, a self driving fully loaded semi might be safer than a human driver. There is no fatigue, or other distraction, or just lack of knowledge about the road (of course I am thinking about the recent tragedy just down the hill.) but if that fully loaded semi suffers some type of malfunction and there is no human to notice, is it going to just stop?

I got into an interesting conversation a few months ago with a friend of mine who is probably around 70. fellow gardener, all holistic, sort of retired hippy I think from the stories he has shared from when he was younger - who is quite enchanted with A.I. He told me my problem with it was that I didn't understand it, and don't know how to fix it and therefore I had the "stick in the mud" complex. I could not deny what he said, because while I fully understand the basic principle of the "if then else" statement - I would have no idea how to decode my vehicle and fix it were it to break down along side the road. So he is correct. But I also worry about how long will it be before car thieves figure out how to hack these things and can steal what ever they want? How long before some terrorist figures out that if he wants to create mass chaos here.... drop a bug into the system of a semi headed west on I-70 about 3:30 on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend! Now, having said that, we all know there are going to be about 15 accidents between Denver and the ET anyway, but someone who wanted to create mass casualties would have a pretty good weapon with a fully loaded semi. the what ifs go on and on of course, everything from the electrical grid to online banking etc. I don't trust A.I. enough to share the road with the robot car of death, and Fred you are absolutely correct about the law suits. it would be a total s.s.

I guess while I am bashing A.I. I'll mention that I have a few friends with kids taking drivers ed this summer and it is alarming what they don't teach them anymore!!! If your car parks itself, why on earth would you teach parallel parking? I guess my manual transmission jeep will be that much safer since none of these kids will have any idea how to start it let alone drive it lol!