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from the how-long-could-they-last-in-Boston? dept.
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
(Score: 2) by Marco2G on Monday January 04 2016, @09:38AM
I am fully aware that I am a mediocre driver. Also, with traffic having become one great clusterfuck (I live in Switzerland, just for reference), the point where driving has turned from fun to tedium is long past (well, I recently had to get a new car which is actually fun to drive but I don't expect that this sentiment will survive very long).
I mostly want to get from A to B. The less pain involved (whether that be traffic jams, cost or safety) the better. I am reminded of that one futuristic thriller where autonomous taxis were able to climb highrise buildings. I think that would be a worthwhile concept to pursue even without the climbing part. So yes, I am all for Uber having autonomous electric vehicles that I can call with my mobile app whenever and wherever I need it and never have to worry about paying insurance, taxes, filling 'er up and so on. No garage to waste space either.