Thursday, April 06, 2006
Robot, you can drive my car
One of the soon-to-come technologies that I find most exciting is the autonomous car. A recent article in InformationWeek covers the current state of the technology. It even looks like Highway 5 might be one of the first places automatic cars are put into service. Cool.
Think of the potential benefits for humanity:
People won't be able to complain about others' driving anymore
Other people's bad driving will not put us in danger anymore
If you're drunk, you can still get in your car and drive home
Oh, yeah, and there will be reduced fuel emissions and fewer traffic fatalities
Some concerns I have are:
Will the cars be programmed to brake for wildlife and little kitties running across the street?
What about malfunctions? Will the car just stop, or plunge us over the edge of a cliff?
What if the autonomous cars rise up and start taking us places we didn't tell them to go -- like they all at once decide to take everyone to a concentration camp and hold us as slaves? Or maybe they'll decide we all need a vacation and take us to the beach instead of work. (Nice cars!)
One of the soon-to-come technologies that I find most exciting is the autonomous car. A recent article in InformationWeek covers the current state of the technology. It even looks like Highway 5 might be one of the first places automatic cars are put into service. Cool.
Think of the potential benefits for humanity:
Some concerns I have are:
// posted by Margaret @ 11:41 AM 
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A few days ago, I watched a cool Nova special on the DARPA Grand Challenge. It may still be airing on the local PBS station (if you hurry!) If not, you could probably find it out on Bittorrent. It's definitely worth watching.
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