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posted by martyb on Monday January 04 2016, @07:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-long-could-they-last-in-Boston? dept.

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A little while back, I saw the following tweet:

I can print mostly. My wifi works often. The Xbox usually recognises me. Siri sometimes works. But my self driving car will be *perfect*.

The tweet has since been deleted, so I won't name the author, but it's a thought-provoking idea. At first, I agreed with it. I'm a programmer and know full well just how shoddy is 99.9% of the code we all write. The idea that I would put my life in the hands of a coder like myself is a bit worrying.

[...] The reality is that self-driving cars don't need to be perfect. They just need to be better than the alternative: human-driven cars. And that is a much lower bar, as human beings are remarkably bad at driving.

[...] Self-driving cars don't get tired. They don't get drunk. They don't get distracted by friends or a crying baby. They don't look away from the road to send a text message. They don't speed, tailgate, brake too late, forget to show a blinker, drive too fast in bad weather, run red lights, race other cars at red lights, or miss exits. Self-driving cars aren't going to be perfect, but they will be a hell of a lot better than you and me.

Related: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday January 04 2016, @07:50AM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday January 04 2016, @07:50AM (#284370) Journal

    Is there some way automation can ensure that these undesirables will be denied existence in our perfect society?

    Sure: an automated credit check done when you give Uber your credit card number and other details.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2016, @07:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2016, @07:56AM (#284373)

    So insightful you are, for confirming that real life already is a perfect society for narcissistic yuppie cocksuckers.