Autonomous Vehicles

[doug]

How many years 'til human drivers will only be allowed to drive on specific roadways because it would be too dangerous to let them drive on the main highways?

How many years 'til human drivers are hunted down and run over by their cars, making it too dangerous to approach the main highways, or even your own driveway?

Just kidding. Started reading Robopocalyse last night and that's a major plot point.
Bad 'Bots, Bad 'Bots, Whatcha Gonna Do? : NPR

[TEG]

[Mycroft]

Doug, you would love, love, LOVE "Daemon" and its sequel, "Freedom (TM)" by Daniel Suarez. Science fiction doesn't get more current, topical, and scary than that!

[SByer]

Maybe we'll need to have another level of driver's licenses for those that are capable of handling a car without succumbing to phone calls or IMs. I'd sure bet that Google's project already drives better than 80% of the people I encounter on my morning commute:

[doug]

Here are some pics I took a couple months ago:

[TEG]

I think I saw that blue VW show up at Refuel Races last year. It came late in the day, and I don't think it went on the track. I wonder if they had it drive autonomously down 101 on the way there.

[dpeilow]

Is the large silhouette near the car you taking the picture? It seems like it missed registering you.

[JRod0802]

Bill Ford just gave a really good TED Talk on autonomous vehicles about a week ago:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsLuQM5V3FA

[doug]

Is the large silhouette near the car you taking the picture? It seems like it missed registering you.

The environment was a bit noisy, but it had registered me before. I think it already had me marked for deletion. This guy started suspiciously following me around:

Doug, you would love, love, LOVE "Daemon" and its sequel, "Freedom (TM)" by Daniel Suarez. Science fiction doesn't get more current, topical, and scary than that!

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll check them out when I get a chance. I finished Robopocalypse shortly after posting about it. Ultimately I think it will make for a better summer popcorn flick than it did as a novel. It left me wishing it had more depth. The ideas, characters, and writing style were all a bit thin. What disappointed me most was that the author, an engineer and Ph.D. expert in robotics at CMU, got some of his physics wrong.

[TEG]

"It wasn't the robot's fault"... honest:

This is Google's first self-driving car crash
Robot Car Involved In Crash; Google Blames Human - Forbes
Google driverless car causes five-car crash - NewsPlurk