CNN Money interview with Elon

[NigelM]

I was run off the road the other day by an elderly lady in a big car (thanks heaven for flat wide roads here in FL). She did apologize that she hadn't seen me, although her car was low enough that my Roadster was not invisible as it might have been to a high SUV. She did hear my horn but couldn't react fast enough. I can't imagine some drivers with heads-up displays.....

[SByer]

While parts of our brains can be trained from youth to adapt to certain new technologies, much of it cannot. The lizard part of our brains certainly cannot. Flashing and bright colors need to be avoided.

Our brains do not have the processing power to drive. To pretend to ourselves that we can actually drive, our brains short-circuit normal processing by 'pre-identifying' objects based on expectations (causing situational blindness). Audio processing takes a bunch of that brainpower away - and you don't realize it. Cell phone audio, being so bad (and for a number of other reasons), takes unusually high amounts of processing. And the lizard part of our brains treats audio as higher priority than visual information(!).

Glancing away at a GPS screen is a context switch / jump cut - more processing power needed. Whether it's on the dash or down to the right, probably doesn't matter. A heads-up navigation mechanism would probably be best since it would be a continual context that the brain could learn the pre-objectifying for (if designed right).

Yeah, I think we could adapt to technology, to a point (younger folks will generally do better), and certainly we could make technology adapt to us. But in the litigious U.S., doing so is going to take a lot of very careful, very long research. No ship and iterate here! A company as small as Tesla should probably not be the ones sticking their necks out.

[TEG]

I was run off the road the other day by an elderly lady in a big car (thanks heaven for flat wide roads here in FL). She did apologize that she hadn't seen me, although her car was low enough that my Roadster was not invisible as it might have been to a high SUV. She did hear my horn but couldn't react fast enough. I can't imagine some drivers with heads-up displays.....

Sounds like driving in Florida, particularly around Sarasota...

[Norbert]

Whether it's on the dash or down to the right, probably doesn't matter.

Based on my personal experience, the less you look away from the road, the easier it is to keep attention on the road, including from the corner of your eyes. For example, you can train yourself to keep attention on the road while you are looking into the rear view mirror (which you are supposed to do every few seconds). I like the Prius' speed display because you can quickly see the speed without loosing connection to the road. The left side mirror is also easier than the right side mirror, in this regard.

I haven't yet been on the Model S driver seat, but the display seems easy to read (surely for those reasons). The Wh/mile display is something you can quickly look at, and then 'consume" with your eyes back on the road. I'd hope the same is possible for GPS map display. It needs to be simple, such that you can get a good impression quickly, and then think about it with your attention back on the road. I'd hope that this is possible, but I wouldn't know without actual experience.

[stopcrazypp]

Based on my personal experience, the less you look away from the road, the easier it is to keep attention on the road, including from the corner of your eyes.

That's my impression too. At the very least it seems to improve reaction time since you don't have to waste time shifting your view back and forth (esp. true when looking at mirrors or checking blind spots). If the road is continually in your eyes, it seems your natural reflexes kind of kick in when something unusual appears (which is usually something that can cause an accident).

Something distracting probably shouldn't be put in the heads up, but necessities like the speedometer/tachometer make sense there (since I typically have to shift my eyes down to look at them anyways).

[AnOutsider]

Something distracting probably shouldn't be put in the heads up, but necessities like the speedometer/tachometer make sense there (since I typically have to shift my eyes down to look at them anyways).

Yes, I'd love a HUD, but I doubt that's in the cards for the first few years. Easy money for them if it becomes an option though.

[NigelM]

Sounds like driving in Florida, particularly around Sarasota...

That was her!!!! How did you find that pic????

[TEG]

That was her!!!! How did you find that pic????

Didn't you know that your backup camera has an IP address?

[dpeilow]

Technology advances, but humans remain largely the same (in fact, one can argue that our evolution stopped once we got medicines and civilization).

Actually the new theory is that evolution is being driven by birth rates not death rates. The implication was that certain classes of society that are prone to have more kids will become more dominant.

[AnOutsider]

Actually the new theory is that evolution is being driven by birth rates not death rates. The implication was that certain classes of society that are prone to have more kids will become more dominant.

mmhmm.. de-evolution:



for those that haven't seen it, basically stupid people reproduced way more than smart people and so our future is filled with... well, stupid people:

During the prologue, a narrator (Earl Mann) explains that in modern society, natural selection is indifferent toward intelligence. In a society in which stupid people easily out-breed the intelligent, the result is a crumbling Earth.

Anywho. So I should say we're not evolving the way we WOULD. Left to nature, people with poor vision would likely die quickly and the same with most other debilitating conditions that modern medicine has fixed or made it easy to cope with.