Self Driving Cars by 2030

Of course I may be wrong as time has a way of sorting things out but I call BS to all of this.

They tried to convert the USA to the metric system back in the early 1980s and that failed. And we were supposed to have flying cars by now but we don't. The electric car is not even normally used today among a majority, relegated to a specialty vehicle that lacks infrastructure. I'd say in 16 years we won't see a massive infrastructure (including tax laws, government agencies, political pressures, manufacturer compliance, public willingness) created for fully automated car travel over roadways and freeways. It won't happen. It can't happen.

 

Google's vision of their ideal world is where everyone takes their paycheck in one hand and passes a big chunk of it to Google with the other. They want to be queen in an ant colony. Their concept of "Singularity" is of Google being the single middleman in everything that everyone does, a monopolist's hand in every human action or interest.

Human beings can be separated into 2 groups - followers vs. leaders. Those in the first group are the majority and don't or can't think for themselves, they just try to ride or be in the wave wherever (and whatever) that emerges. The second group is small but instead of following people they follow their own ideas.

Many very intelligent people are leaders but many are also robots because they have very poor concepts of morality or wisdom. They just do what they feel like doing - it's what makes them intelligent and ruthlessly successful. But being a leader does not confer any gift of moral benevolence. And unfortunately, leaders don't have to pass psychological tests before they are given the green light to pursue their ideas.

So be careful of whom you choose to follow.

 

2030? I'm surprised Ray is so pessimistic. I think we'll be there by 2020, 2025 at the latest.

 

Hmm, I think you have your analogies wrong here. The change from horse-driven to horseless carriage was simply a change in the source of power, not the person in control.

You fail to realize that control is an essence of humanity's difference from the animal world. A human who gives up control is back to being an animal.

"Cool stuff" is not always good stuff.

 

What about not having to move around so much instead? Why commute at all?

Have you thought about the $billions$ that people rake in by suckering others into taking countless cheap vacations at far-flung locations, to fill the seats in the airplanes, to keep the aircraft factories running? When people come home they head straight back to work and they end up having no idea of who their neighbours are or what their own towns and cities offer.

The problem of driving has to do with how artificial barriers like city/business planning and lifestyle choices affect how far people have to travel for errands and getting to work.

 

Nonsense. We no longer manually control the spark advance, do we? Most people don't manually control gear selection... or speed (cruise control)... it's a small step.

The real control question is deciding where and when you want to go. That will still be in the hands of the humans.

 

Again, I wouldn't take Google's so-called new world order prediction very seriously. It will not equate to a fully automated USA interstate and local infrastructure of "accident-free" self-driving cars by 2030 or even by 2050. The entire highway infrastructure would need to be retooled. It can't be done in 16 years. They can't even complete a few miles of highway maintenance in that time.

Moreover, I'm always wary of these "big vision utopia" plans from giant monolithic corporations such as what Walt Disney predicted (and didn't happen).

For example, they said way back in the day of utopian society planning that computer technology would "decrease paper work" when it only created reams of more paper waste being spit out of printers.

But let's examine the article:

"Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs; but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily,” Juliussen says. “Traffic congestion and air pollution per car should also decline because SDCs can be programmed to be more efficient in their driving patterns.”

I always laugh at these expert predictions about how big vision utopia, non-established, technologies will revolutionize everyone's lives for the better. Whenever you read something like "accident rates will plunge to near zero" go ahead and laugh that away as pure BS. What often happens with utopian installation of "revolutionary" machinery is that accident rates do not decline but either increase or fail to live up to what was predicted.

Take, for example, the utopian fix-all of "Obamacare," the unsinkable Titanic, or traffic cameras at intersections that actually increased accident rates. Now put into play self-driven cars on a vast "grid" that is far-reaching and prone to failures at any point.

Commuter trains have been around for almost a century now and those systems fail with regularity resulting in occasional but massive deaths from collisions and derailments. And those are confined to highly controllable and physical railways.

 

Do you really think those millions of commuters stuck on the freeway every work day actually willingly choose and want to be there?

Also interesting that you don't control which gear or speed you drive in your Ferrari. You can select manual mode and press the throttle. But I do agree with you about the part where it's a small step. Just mind the drop though.

At any rate, I've said my 2 cents' worth and I'll let you techies espouse the virtues of driverless cars.

 

To the above bolded part particularly, that is because it hasn't become political yet. The second it becomes mainstream and political as a pending issue on the news and talk radio then it will hit a brick wall. This is the same kind of utopian bliss that the "green movement" encountered once it actually began to become implemented and politicized (enter the scandalous "Solyndra" and other unmentioned scandalous "Green iniitiaves" that Obama attempted to implement but failed on a grandiose scale and then became brushed under the carpet----Oh, how how attention spans and public memories are short-lived).

The Google "singularity" article mentions the pitfalls of their visions, actually, but sneaks it in at the last minute and downplays it. Here is what the article admits to:

"The study also notes some potential barriers to SDC deployment and two major technology risks: software reliability and cyber security. The barriers include implementation of a legal framework for self-driving cars and establishment of government rules and regulations."

Of course this is minimized and barely mentioned in the article and is left entirely unexplored. However the ramifications of these caveats are gigantic and far-reaching. They are aware that it may not even work else they never would have mentioned it. One such exploration, of many, that goes unmentioned is the fact that all parking lots and parking structures will need to be tied into this alleged self-driving grid of cars. That would require all independent contractors and businesses to comply and retool--something that is not only prohibitive but would incur expenses that would put most places out of business.

 

Will there be a manual option on these cars Ray?!

Kurzweil is fantastically smart but in an honest moment he'd probably be the first to admit that he's really part of the pr/marketing dept at google-and one thing that is certain is he does push up the stock price-certain b/c he helped produce the analytics program that proves it

Ray has some great great ideas around AI but many of his predictions have dates that are coming up pretty quickly here. The market will drive parts of this-it already does-but we won't see this total wholesale change this quickly

 

Exactly-if the market demand was so great for us to spend less time in cars then telecommuting would be even more widespread right now

 

Keep in mind, too, that a visionary and genius does not absolutely equate to mental stability or benevolence. Adolph Hitler was intelligent, too, and had visions for a master race yet he was insane and far too narcissistic to listen to rationality.

Realize that Kurzweil is an advocate of transhumanism and "immortality" which is another Orwellian/utopian vision that is not based in reality and has already been tried in the 3rd Reich which the allies bombed into oblivion for a reason. This idea of utopia that never seems to lose appeal is an atheistic/materialistic view that will ultimately prove disastrous. That is my prediction. But make up your own mind:

Transcendent Man - Official Trailer HD (2011)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjhB6J23Qjs]Transcendent Man - Official Trailer HD (2011) - YouTube[/ame]

 

Certainly they choose to be there. They choose to be there because that commute enables them to have something else they want, for example higher pay or a larger back yard.

Do you think someone forces them to be there?

I didn't say I don't control which gear I drive in, just that most people don't. And yes, technologically, it is a small step. Socially, it's a pretty small step as well.

 

People have been predicting self-driving/flying/floating/hovering cars for the last 100 years. Ray Kurzwell is a nutjob who thinks computers and people will merge. Sorry to burst that bubble but technological progress has actually been slowing for decades now. Outside of improved communication(internet) probably everything you are using was around 50-60 years ago as well in some form. Where are all the electric cars that Obama promised? How about all these super google inventions that have yet to materialize? Last time I checked they still make money from selling ads. Kurzwell has been debunked over and over.

 

+1000 you get it.

 

Um yea. Wage slavery and debt serfdom forces them to be there. Most daily commuters are just servicing past liabilities. Seriously do you think people want to be waking up at 5am to sit in traffic for 1-2 hours, then sit in a box, then go sit in traffic again?

Alan Greenspan talked about how having a heavily indebted society is a great way to keep workers from rattling cages. They are too afraid to lose their jobs.

 

Ok.

1900-1950's
Mass production, Automobiles, Planes, Faster trains, nuclear energy, major implementation of indoor plumbing etc. Going from 1900 to 1950 was like entering a totally different world. Forget day and night, it would be like that star trek episode.

1950's to today. Yea cell phones which are primarily used for chit chatting, facebook updates and playing games. You take someone from 50's/60's and place them in 2013 and they will notice what exactly? People dressed like vagabonds, women working("liberated") alongside their husbands just to upkeep an average household, everyone carrying loads of debt. Half the factories closed. They'll probably wonder why the Interstate system is full of potholes. Progress.

Technological innovation hasn't stopped its just *slowed* down. And the slow down is drastic. Apple is working on an Iphone that you can wear on your wrist. Facebook is figuring out more efficient ways to sell advertisements.

Medical technology is actually stagnant. Life expectancy is higher on average only because infant mortality rates are lower, not because people are living longer. Despite all these supposed medical improvements why is the general population so unhealthy? Obesity rates are sky high, cancer rates sky high, diabetes. Hell, most places today have hospital bed shortages. Only thing that has advanced is the useage of agressive sales tactics when pushing over the counter drugs to people by drug dealers, err I mean doctors.

Look at transportation. It took them over a decade to get the dreamliner out and it is not faster then what was around 50 years ago. Infact airline travel today is SLOWER due to security screening and outdated airports. What about trains? The ones that still exist run routes at comparable speeds to the 1920's in both UK and US. Automobile highways are more congested then ever and average commute to work is longer then ever.

Carbon fiber is now decades old and they still haven't figured out how to implement it cost effectively into automobiles. Even Ferrari cannot build frames on their mass produced vehicles cheap enough to make it worth it.


Sorry anyone thinking we are living in or heading towards a technological utopia where humans are gods is living in a fantasy. Ray Kurzwell watched too many sci-fi movies as a kid.

 

+1000 you just described most of America today.

 

+1,
It has taken over a decade to put a couple of extra lanes along 405-Fwy in West Los Angeles,
and they still going at it...
Do you know why it's called 405-Fwy? b/c you can only drive 4 or 5 mph. haha