Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum
Elon Musk: Human Driven Cars Will Someday be Illegal - Printable Version

+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html)
+--- Forum: Gadgets & Technology (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-83.html)
+--- Thread: Elon Musk: Human Driven Cars Will Someday be Illegal (/thread-645.html)



Elon Musk: Human Driven Cars Will Someday be Illegal - Yazata - Mar 19, 2015

Self-driving cars have the potential to be so much safer than human-driven cars, that Elon Musk is predicting that manually driven "two-ton death machines" will someday be outlawed.

http://mashable.com/2015/03/17/elon-musk-nvidia/


RE: Elon Musk: Human Driven Cars Will Someday be Illegal - Magical Realist - Mar 19, 2015

I will be 95 years old in 2055 and will still be driving my good ole Toyota pickup. You will never get true car lovers to give up their driving experience. It is an almost spiritual apotheosis this merging of man with machine. The driver becomes one with car, one with the Force, totally identifying with its look, behavior, and power. I would never trust a computer to drive for me anyway. What if it freezes up while driving 75 on a busy interstate? Are you kidding me? And talk about backseat drivers. You will never get the bored rider to shut up about taking the wrong turns, driving too slow, or finding a decent parking place. NEVER!!


RE: Elon Musk: Human Driven Cars Will Someday be Illegal - stryder - Mar 19, 2015

When the "Horseless Carriage" was first being developed there were a lot of people that considered it to be a rather dangerous contraption and considered that it would probably not be much of an invention in the end. The concerns over how deadly they could be meant that flag bearers warned approaching horse driven carts of what was coming down the road behind them so as to give a chance for the cart driver to control their horse from the noise the horseless version made.

There was concerns over the number of motor vehicle deaths caused by people apparently crossing the road without realising just how quick a motor vehicle could be on them. In fact it made speed limits in towns/cities of 3mph (It was based upon walking speed) and 4-5mph in the countryside.

Of course we've come a fair way since then and cars have to some extents had semi-intelligent systems applied to them. (Chipsets for controlling various golden ratios and traction control, anti-locking, smart suspension to lessen roll etc.)

Currently however I'm apprehensive about completely autonomous cars, mainly due to Commerce. There is always a concern when a single way of doing things is suggested, it usually causes concerns of a Monopoly, However in this particular industry there is a required industry standard that needs to be the same no matter the car manufacturer. There is concerns that cars that are built for driving on one side of the road in one country could find themselves having problems negating cars that drive on the other side of the road based upon their base programming.

There's the point of whether a car gets its instructions from a grand control system (similar to Air Traffic control which has had it's faults in the past causing multiple airports to hold flights on the runaways until the problem was resolved) or if the cars are suppose to have their own "brain".
(The problem with that is the newer the technology the faster the processing, the better the potential controls versus cars of a different Version software etc.)

Will the cars maintain having an Analogue auxiliary measure encase of an emergency and if so it would suggest you'd still need a designated driver even if the car was driving autonomously?

Currently autonomous cars is a novelty, companies are trying to "Bridge the Chasm" (The boundary between technological innovation and mainstream acceptance) however it's very much luck Virtual Reality which has been coming for approximately 30 or so years... always on the verge but never quite as mainstream as would be presumed.

Furthermore there is a lot of Cyber/technological activists that will want to hit the automotive industry, after all it's been responsible for the irresponsible acts throughout the world from the accumulation of wealth by the overly rich (one percenters) right through to oil robber barony.
Autonomy isn't going to be as simple as some would like.