I am sure by now many would have heard of Google's new invention: Driver-less automated cars. By now these cars have driven and been tested for miles and they seem to be doing fairly well. The state of Nevada has now legalized these Driver-less cars [1]. Their law states that this car can be used, however there needs to be a licensed driver behind the wheel at all times, and this driver cannot have alcohol in their system.
These cars are a revolution, which can save thousand if not millions of lives. The number one cause of death is due to accidents. Accidents that are caused by human error. A simple thought by Sebastian Thrun: we can take away the human error by introducing machines (paraphrased).
I currently do not see any problem in using these cars as long as they are fully secure and tested. In fact, these cars can later on change the lives of people who are unable to drive such as the blind or the disabled.
Technology does not fail to surprise me and it makes me feel very proud to be in a field that has enormous potential.
This technology is just awesome! I could definitely imagine a future where all our cars completely drive themselves. Imagine that we would no longer need things like public transit. Since the cars drive themselves, they could say drop one person off to work, and then go to pick up a different person to go elsewhere. I think the thought of that is pretty cool :P
ReplyDeleteThat sounds to me like the future of taxi's. Companies making their own automated Taxi's without drivers.
DeleteIt's definitely a fascinating thing to have and to think about, but driverless cars are very unappealing to me. Sure, it might decrease the number of accidents but it makes people lazier and more irresponsible. If they don't want to drive, then why not take the public transportation. If they don't have the patience to wait and travel longer with a crowd, then they should face their responsibilities to drive well in EXCHANGE of not having to drive.
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In all honesty, I was almost going to add the fact that all this new technology coming out is making humans lazier and lazier. There was once a scary thought in my head which said, what if humans invented something for everything. Like robots for all tasks, then what would be the point of humans anyway. Scary thought, but lets hope we dont get that far ahead of ourselves.
DeleteThese cars are really very cool and I hope that one day the technology can be used to its fullest. With that said, I still don't know if I would get behind the wheel of one of these cars. Human drivers are prone to human error, but computer drivers would be prone to computer error wouldn't they? I guess if every car on the road was one of these and they all communicated over what there planned movements were I would feel a lot safer.
ReplyDeleteIt is true, I wouldn't trust these cars. Like everything else it would take a lot of time for me to get used to them. I know that my dad still doesn't trust the GPS and sometimes it is a good thing. Technology is not always perfect, by solving one issue, as you said, other issues may arise.
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