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Sebastian Thrun should work for GM; he promises a self-driving vehicle within the next twenty years. Actually, perhaps not. After all, this is the same Stanford University scientist whose team actually built a robotic VW Touareg that drove itself 212 klicks across the Nevada desert to win DARPA's $2m prize. As globeandmail.com reports, Thrun has no compunctions of removing control from automobilists, to ensure that older drivers can maintain their freedom. The personal side of the story: last May, Thrun and his brother confiscated their father's driving license after their old man caused an accident. Thrun's father faded away soon after. “It was a very sad episode. I caused it by deciding it would be unethical for my dad to drive.”
18 Comments on “Only Twenty Years Left to Drive Yourself...”
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I can see it now. The government puts you on their watch list and before you know it, instead of driving to the local sports bar to watch the game, your 2027 CamCord will drive you to your local detention center, never to be heard from again.
I think it’s great, not only because people get too old to drive but because the roads are increasingly filled by totally distracted drivers, and I want their cars doing the driving for them rather than trusting to their minimal ability. We had a huge accident in Upstate New York a couple of weeks ago–five 17-year-old graduating cheerleaders, all cute and all beloved by their small town, literally incinerated in an SUV after a late-night head-on with opposite-direction traffic. Never mind that the driver only had a junior license and wasn’t supposed to drive at night, never mind that it was the classic teenage-accident scenario (car full of passengers), it turns out that the girl driving was, at the moment of the crash (phone records show) text-messaging a friend. I will gladly give up my ability to make believe I’m a racer on public roads in exchange for autonomous cars, which are inevitable whether you like it or not.
Goin’ to Lime Rock Thursday for a track day with my track car, and that sort of hobby will just have to do for the future.
I’d love to sit in the car while it drives me home from my favorite Irish pub.
I’m polarized about self-driving cars. On the one hand, they’re rightfully inevitable. The gains in traffic throughput from higher speeds, decreased following distances, lack of accidents, and flow optimization would be enormous. On the other, I love to drive.
The “I, Robot” scenario seems most likely. Cars that communicate with themselves, controlled by a collective intelligence, but retaining all the features of manual control.
The question is, what compelling reason could you offer a passenger for continuing to drive when such a system existed? It’s like having to explain why you would choose a manual over DSG, when DSG does everything better.
Well it would be great for my car to drive me to and from the pub, how would a system like this be integrated with those of us who still WANT to drive and actually enjoy it. What happens when a person wants to take their vintage 2007 Mustang or M3 out for a spin, only to get stuck behind a computer controlled vehicle. Or how about traffic on the highways? Either human controlled vehicles will have their own lanes or the government will ban them outright.
How did that old song go … “In the year 4545, our hands hang useless by our side”. Looks like we won’t have to wait that long before we can just strap ourselves, Stephan Hawking style, into a car seat and text message each other by twitching our noses.
All we need now are a few volunteers to sit in the back of the first Chery, M&M (or even GM) automated car as it zips at 70mph down the Pacific Coast Highway.
Presuming that autonomous vehicles are inevitable assumes that our mentality of a car (or two) for everyone is sustainable. I don’t believe either is the case.
“Well it would be great for my car to drive me to and from the pub, how would a system like this be integrated with those of us who still WANT to drive and actually enjoy it. What happens when a person wants to take their vintage 2007 Mustang or M3 out for a spin, only to get stuck behind a computer controlled vehicle. Or how about traffic on the highways? Either human controlled vehicles will have their own lanes or the government will ban them outright.”
You’d do the same thing then as you do now if you’re behind someone like me – zoom around me, then stop at the next light while I pull up along side you. Then you zoom away only to see me pull up along side at the next light.
The computer controlled cars will take note that you are speeding, and weaving in and out of taffic, and adjust accordingly.
If we had computer controlled cars, would speed limits still be applicable? Radar/lasers/optical sensors could see a lot further than you or me and a computer can certainly react faster. If vehicles become truly autonomous (and can communicate with each other), there is no reason for normal road rules to apply to them.
I think the cars would have set limits for various roads depending on where they were located (school zone, residential, highways, etc.) and would automatically adjust according to the road conditions. But there’s no reason to think that the speeds we drive at (legally) today, couldn’t be raised. As for my post above, I’m not talking about reckless driving. I just don’t see something that’s completely computer controlled being able to co-exist on the road with a vehicle driven by a human, with no sensors or way to communicate with the robo-cars. Then again, it just might be better than the drivers around here…
Robot cars 20 years from now? Get real. The few of us that survive the coming petroleum wars will be lucky if we have donkey carts to drive 20 years from now.
I’m investing all of my money in Soylent Green production.
…But there’s no reason to think that the speeds we drive at (legally) today, couldn’t be raised.
I see it going the other direction 68stang… With “OBD IV” double-nickels would be a reality. Or how about “OBD IV” that automatically gets the vehicle at its peak MPG for the vehicle/load and holds it there. It is going to be a sad day when the only thing we have to look forward to is minutes coming off of the ETA meter on the dash…
Another reason for holding on to my MGB and Porsche 944.
I’d imagine they’d have to create “caveman” lanes for the people that were dead set on driving themselves. Robotic drivers would probably be capable of safely handling much higher speeds than human drivers so there’d probably be some safety feature that disabled manual drive unless you jumped into the slower lanes.
Lexus will probably be the first company to offer the “robot driver as a luxury option on an LS…
Just because there are automated cars it doesn’t mean you won’t have the option of driving. You’d just have an overriding control computer that wouldn’t let you change lanes into a car next to you or rear end the car in front of you. The question is what happens with non-networked cars? Do you ban them from all roads? Just the interstates? Not at all?
If the cars do not rely solely on communication with other cars and have sensors to ascertain the position of other cars, computer and human drivers can coexist. How do you think the first automated cars will drive with humans at the wheel of every other car?
And I don’t see speed limits increasing much because there are other influences on road conditions like people and animals crossing the road, bicyclists, agricultural equipment, etc.
Why bother to allow the humans to move about at all? Just connect the drooling slaves to their home computing devices and let them live out their meaningless lives “online”.
Grrr!
Good grief, let me (apparently) be the only skeptic to assert that there will NOT be fully autonomous self-driving cars within 20 years. That’s nonsense. I would happily bet money on it and empty your wallets come 2027. It’s much more likely that cars in 20 years will still have cassette players, for Pete sake. GM cars anyway.
That’s the same kind of mentality that caused so many AI researchers 50 years ago to think human-level AI was just a few years away, where it’s continued to be ever since.
Cars that drive themselves will happen right after we get those amazing flying cars promised by Popular Mechanics 50 years ago.