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When they can make an always perfect, fail-safe version of Microsoft Windows, I'll be ready to ride in a driverless car.
That is actually irrelevant. Though a pretty good car might actually allow Windows to run on a carefully isolated processor set to take care of your entertainment, social and business needs. But you don't let it near the actual mechanism.
It is an utterly different kind of software. Real time control systems are actually software at its finest. But it is not a product in itself...it is part of the hardware.
For instance the no visibility landing systems on airplanes allows only the machine to do the flying. The pilots only role is to supervise and abort.
I'm not sure aircraft landing systems with highly trained pilots is relevant to this discussion. The facts are millions of people are transported daily by taxis and shuttle drivers with extremely few incidents. Improving an already safe rate isn't necessary. The difference between 99.5 and 99.9 isn't all that great. I think you're not talking about taxis and shuttle drivers like the other poster brought up.
Actually machine code is pretty robust, and better at doing things like not texting and driving (or any other distraction from the job at hand), not driving drunk or driving tired. And it's more precise overall. A digital clock, microwave and the like are already computers, just simple ones. Your clock is probably pretty reliable, right? It's pretty hard for a car's main computer to fail even now, and when it does it simply won't run, which is a safe mode to default to.
When programming is used in dedicated hardware, without a lot of third party software running on top of it, it'll run reliably forever. It's completely different than a desktop or laptop computer environment.
I still trust a good, experienced human over any computer anyway for a task like driving. The problem on the roads are the bad drivers. Eliminate the bad ones and the safety rates will go way up. I don't see the advantage to eliminating the good drivers with the bad as this technology aims to do.
I still trust a good, experienced human over any computer anyway for a task like driving. The problem on the roads are the bad drivers. Eliminate the bad ones and the safety rates will go way up. I don't see the advantage to eliminating the good drivers with the bad as this technology aims to do.
It's for the children.
You know, just like many things today. Enact laws, or whatever, that punish the lawful as much, or more, than the lawless.
For instance the no visibility landing systems on airplanes allows only the machine to do the flying. The pilots only role is to supervise and abort.
I've seen that parallel drawn a number of times in this thread, and it's a very poor example. First of all, you're comparing apples to orangutans - as impressive as it may sound, the fact is that in many ways, landing an airplane is a far simpler task than driving a car in traffic. Many complex problems have to be solved, but most of them are completely predictable and the computer can be easily programmed to anticipate them and respond to them. You're moving an object in a straight line from a fixed point in 3-dimensional space, on a known and completely predictable vector, at a known speed toward another specific point in 3-dimensional space, without having to account for any significant changes in direction or speed, or the possibility of having to avoid another moving object. Very, very different from driving a car on a network of narrow city streets in the middle of a group of other vehicles of many different types and sizes, all moving at different speeds, in different directions, and stopping and turning at random.
Nevertheless, pilots only use the automated landing system when they have no choice. You say their only role is to "supervise and abort," and handwave it away as though it's a minor task. The truth is, one of the reasons pilots hate using the automated landing technology is that it is much more difficult for them to monitor and manage it than it is to land the plane themselves. It's not like they just hit the "land airplane" switch, then go back to first class for a half hour and sip champagne with Charlize Theron and Brad Pitt. They have to work far harder than if they were just landing the plane manually, and it is much more stressful and demanding.
In addition, they usually have to notify traffic control that they are using autoland so that ATC can adjust the intervals of incoming and outgoing traffic so as to give them more margin for error, and make sure there are no ground vehicles positioned in some way as to block or interfere with radio signals from the Instrument Landing System sensors and transmitters.
So no, it's nowhere near the simple, everyday practice that some of you are suggesting, and frankly, using it as an example of how easy and safe it would be for automated cars to drive in traffic does your side of the argument a lot more harm than good. Here's a picture of a plane that used autoland to touch down at an airport in Germany a few years ago. The pilots tried to override the computer at the last moment, and were able to save the plane and passengers, but only with great difficulty because the computer refused to respond to some manual override commands. So perhaps if y'all are going to argue that the technology already exists to make automated cars safe, you might want to sidestep away from the autoland feature on aircraft and find a different example to make your point.
I still trust a good, experienced human over any computer anyway for a task like driving. The problem on the roads are the bad drivers. Eliminate the bad ones and the safety rates will go way up. I don't see the advantage to eliminating the good drivers with the bad as this technology aims to do.
If your car can drive you home when your drunk, the fatality rate will halve instantly.
Look around you. How many of those drivers do you really trust? The ones with the phones in their hands? The ones with low skill levels? The ones that are too tired to be driving? The ones that have been drinking a bit (or more)?
Again, even if all manufacturers were legally required to make nothing but autonomous cars starting tomorrow morning, it would take 30 years just to replace HALF of the cars currently on the road. If you don't think that the systems will be pretty well developed by then, you're mistaken. AND you STILL won't have to drive one by then, so worrying that YOUR car will be taken from you in your lifetime is pretty pointless.
I'm not worried about being forced to drive an automated car, because I will absolutely refuse to do it. What I'm worried about is that some other moron's automated car will think I'm a city bus and plow into the side of me.
I gather that you clearly are not a pilot. Flying an airplane is a vastly more complicated task than driving. And doing so by instruments is even more complex and difficult. It takes many hours in a simulator or plane to even get moderately goood at it. I doubt in fact that instrument flying would be practical without autopilots.
Few if any pilots would ever be able to land one in no visibility. Simply requires a degree of coordination beyond that of a human.
As to your example I would point out that there have been two incidents recently demonstrating the shortcomings of human pilots. The Air France one being the worst. A plane load of people dead because three pilots forgot flying 101.
I gather that you clearly are not a pilot. Flying an airplane is a vastly more complicated task than driving. And doing so by instruments is even more complex and difficult. It takes many hours in a simulator or plane to even get moderately goood at it. I doubt in fact that instrument flying would be practical without autopilots.
Few if any pilots would ever be able to land one in no visibility. Simply requires a degree of coordination beyond that of a human.
As to your example I would point out that there have been two incidents recently demonstrating the shortcomings of human pilots. The Air France one being the worst. A plane load of people dead because three pilots forgot flying 101.
Except military flight training did that for years.
Except military flight training did that for years.
Not on the modern systems. Actually still not allowed in the US. Need 300 feet visibility on the runway.
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