We have the technology for cars to brake and come to a stop themselves if they sense you are getting to close to the car in front. And if all dirverless cars communicated to each other, the other cars computer would tell your cars computer that it is moving out of lane. So your cars computer could take appropriate action.
Technological Stagnation
- Thread starter Into Darkness
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We have the technology for cars to brake and come to a stop themselves if they sense you are getting to close to the car in front. And if all dirverless cars communicated to each other, the other cars computer would tell your cars computer that it is moving out of lane. So your cars computer could take appropriate action.
However most cars soled in places like Europe (and perhaps Japan, Australia etc..) are manual transmissions. And how does ABS, power steeering and traction control sperate you from driving?
ABS and traction control systemsl(TCS) can help prevent accidents, though their are times when you actually need to switch off TCS. As for power steering all that means is the steering wheel is easier to turn. It doesn't seperate you from driving. You still have to feel what the car is doing. The problem is that some cars give better feedback say through the steering wheel than others.
As for cruise control like anything else it's just another driver aid, you as a a driver still have to be aware of what is going on, and planning ahead.
My original sentence should have ended with "that a human could respond to better." Does that settle the contradiction for you and JarodRussell?
As far as the wording goes, yes. Can't speak for Jarod, though.
gturner has some interesting answers to your question, too.
But I think ultimately Lindley pegged it. Driver-assist technology is okay as far as it goes. However, we can't let it take the place of driver responsibility ... short of revolutionary changes in computer capabilities, vehicle capabilities, and human expectations.
Until then, the driver must have the same responsibility he's always had, regardless of how much automation is in place. And people need to understand that.
Transportation technology stagnated since the '70. That's correct.
Other technologies/sciences, on the other hand - computing, biology, etc - are advancing nicely.
About the legalisms surrounding driver-assist technology:
It depends on its safety.
If it's unsafe, it will not drive cars - not alone, anyway.
If it's safe enough (as in, probabilistically safer than human drivers), it will drive cars alone.
Eventual accidents will be the responsibility (vis a vis criminal law):
- of the proprietor of the car/person who has the obligation to maintain said car: if they're due to malfunctions of the technology.
-person in charge of quality control: if they're due to the lacking quality of the technology as it exists the factory.
This is not the first time such issues have appeared. They don't require a revolution in law to be solved.
Other technologies/sciences, on the other hand - computing, biology, etc - are advancing nicely.
About the legalisms surrounding driver-assist technology:
It depends on its safety.
If it's unsafe, it will not drive cars - not alone, anyway.
If it's safe enough (as in, probabilistically safer than human drivers), it will drive cars alone.
Eventual accidents will be the responsibility (vis a vis criminal law):
- of the proprietor of the car/person who has the obligation to maintain said car: if they're due to malfunctions of the technology.
-person in charge of quality control: if they're due to the lacking quality of the technology as it exists the factory.
This is not the first time such issues have appeared. They don't require a revolution in law to be solved.
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No, it's not. Not even close. Take a car from today and compare it to a car from the '70s. Other than having four wheels, a steering column, and an internal combustion engine, how are they alike? Car technology has changed dramatically over that period, particularly in terms of safety features and efficiency.
No, they don't fly, but then the market's not been looking for flying cars, either.
What about its propulsion - its engine, Robert? The progress here was snail-paced - consisting mainly of introducing computing technology.
Perhaps you want to talk about aviation and rocketry.
Relating to their propulsion, not their flight-attendant services or wall paper, that is.
Or perhaps you would like to compare the progress in transportation technology until the '70s to progress since the '70s.
Transportation technology DID stagnate since the '70s.
^^^
This post is inaccurate. When I was growing up - all the above was SUPPOSED to be available by the year 2000.
Aren't car engines of today both Petrol and Diesel based, more efficent and cleaner than a car from the 1970's?
Yes, today's car engines are somewhat more efficient than in the '70, etc.
This relatively small advance in over 40 years is not snail-paced when compared to the advancements in transportation between, for example, 1930 and 1970?
What advancements were you expecting, exactly? Most of the limitations of cars are actually human limitations. Cars don't go 300 miles an hour because humans can't safely drive them that quickly, for instance.
There are plenty of potential avenues of advancement, Robert.
What about the cost of travelling 1 km by car/plane going down? Cheap, easy access to LEO? Why not easy access to the solar system?
These, achieved not necessarily by continuing to use and marginally improving technologies ~150 years/50 years old (as we do now), but by creating new technologies?
Well, if they would start prosecuting hackers we wouldn't have that problem.
Are you implying that malicious hackers don't get prosecuted?
You just made Kevin Mitnick cry
A warehouse near me, Wood Fruitticher, has its drivers unload even long trailers all day long by themselves. It takes a whole warehouse crew to load it (perhaps replaced by KIVA systems one day)--but the rate of the poor drivers who get hurt having to drive and unload it during the day is just sad.
Ironically, the jobs that need the automated the most may not be.
Warehouses employ a lot of people doing monotonous work, and KIVA could replace that.
But the poor truck driver has to go out in the field, well away from flat, gridded, robot friendly warehouses. He may have to go up stairs, do complex tasks humanoid robots are decades away from doing well, etc.
The truck may well drive itself, and not have to do worry about being improperly loaded due to lazy workers. But it is the worst part of the task that the human still has to do--the situation-variant fuzzy logic stuff.
The driver enjoys driving, but not the backbreaking work. So the robot hasn't really done him much good. In gridded city streets, with smaller vans, maybe you can get away with a little more.
Still, the driverless system is safer, and less safe, due to lack of interest in its field of view. It is made to scan the road, not watch children play as they pursue a ball between two parked cars which may block a sensor. Yes there are some pedestrian avoidance measures.
Now I have seen visuals of intersections where there are no lights, and the car streams pass through each other. But if an engine stumbles, that could through the timing off just enough to cause a crash. On an interstate, drafting saves energy, the cars would have to communicate to keep the timing up, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Off road variables will still pose some problems. It is still easier to fly than drive.
It's a bit ridiculous to expect scientists to create a timeline for technological breakthroughs. By definition, the breakthroughs haven't happened yet, and there's really no way to tell when they'll happen. Anti-gravity, for instance, may be invented in 2 days, 200 years, 2,000 years, or never.
The corollary is that its impossible for us to know if we're experiencing technological stagnation. We're obviously experiencing some progress, but it's impossible to know if human civilization is evolving at a slow pace, a moderate pace, or a fast pace. We've never met any other species with advanced civilizations, and we don't have access to parallel realities to act as a point of reference.
The corollary is that its impossible for us to know if we're experiencing technological stagnation. We're obviously experiencing some progress, but it's impossible to know if human civilization is evolving at a slow pace, a moderate pace, or a fast pace. We've never met any other species with advanced civilizations, and we don't have access to parallel realities to act as a point of reference.
Okay, since you're basing this off a movie from 1985, let's compare today's technology to what was around back then and we'll see if we've stagnated.
Some stuff we have today that wasn't around back then is smart phones, lightweight computers, the internet, GPS and flatscreen TVs. Not to mention all the medical advances.
So I don't see how you can claim that we've stagnated.
This is probably the most ridiculous post ever on this bulletin board...I've gone over why flying cars are not the height of technological civilization here before. Infotech is the driving force behind accelerated change. Far from being stagnant, just try and keep up with weekly, much less daily advances in technology these days, it's just about impossible.
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