Centerfield

Robot cars! Can flying maids be next?

But maybe they will still allow exemptions for "classic" cars. Just like they now give exemptions from pollution controls for them.

Probably not a good idea, Tully. Jane's first rule of maids is "no riding the maid!"

Obviously this already applies, and will undoubtedly apply to the robot variety as well. The flying function would just add to the temptation.

Just think of all the extra time you would have for sleeping, reading and, as they used to say on the Newlywed Game, "woopie." (cameras, shmameras)

Vernor Vinge's latest book features annoyng autocars, about as Brian said - good for dealing congestion, and lowering the gate on who can drive, but with irritating safety systems.

As sad as it makes me, since I love driving, we have to get people out from behind the wheel of cars. It's the only way to eliminate traffic jams and accidents... generally speaking, people are simply incompetent drivers.

Computer controlled cars, assuming they actually work properly, would save what, 45,000 lives per year in this country (we'll ignore the gene-pool cleansing aspect here)? Plus imagine how many hours of sitting in traffic per year that we'd get back. It's a trade-off we'd be fools not to make.

Can you imagine the lines in the amusement parks at the bumper cars if this happens?

Have you ever noticed that the people who actually make their living in the computer business are among the least enthused about computer-controlled cars? I guess we just know too much about how reliable most computer systems aren't.

"Most of American [by now, world] business is critically dependent on millions of lines of computer code written by people with no visible qualification to have done so." And it shows. At least, to the people responsible for trying to keep the whole mess working.

wj,

I'm currently working on an implementation of a new, "state of the art", software-based transit fare collection system. It makes my want to be involved with the implementation of an antiquated mechanical, token-based transit fare collection system. Rube Goldberg is laughing somewhere.

I have this vision of people stranded at the side of the road, pounding on their dashboards. "Reboot, damn you, reboot!"

Computer controlled cars, assuming they actually work properly, would save what, 45,000 lives per year in this country (we'll ignore the gene-pool cleansing aspect here)? Plus imagine how many hours of sitting in traffic per year that we'd get back. It's a trade-off we'd be fools not to make.

I make the opposite assumption. I seriously doubt that they'll work properly in the snese of getting us all from A to B more quickly. Will fewer folks die in accidents under such a system? Undoubtedly. But we'll pay for each lif saves in untols extra hours of commuting time and frustration with messed up systems.

Now anyone who is adamantly pro-life id free to tell me and everyone else that all those lives saved MUST be worth it. I can't agree. It depends entirely on the additional amount of time and frustration added to the average life. After all, we could achieve the same life-saving benefit today by making the speed limit sat 15 mph, making airbags mandatory, and hamstringing all vehicles so they can't exceed the limit. But the cost of that would be judged far to high, and we'd never do that. So IMO you MUST do some sort of realistic cost-benefit, you can't simply privilege the value of human life as infinite.

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure nothing like this will be fully implemented until after I die.

Thankfully, I'm pretty sure nothing like this will be fully implemented until after I die.

Like, in a car wreck, maybe?

(God forbid, of course.)

Well, I already had my near miss last fall when a nudge at high speed (around 65 mph) on a rainy highway sent my truck into a 360 and then a rollover when we skidded onto the shoulder.

Prompted my cheerful membership into the buckle-up club!