My in-laws would benefit from a driverless car. My FIL is the only one with a driver’s license, and he can only find places he has been before. Even then, it has to be a while back; his short term memory is shot. The MIL does not suffer dementia yet. Since she does not drive, she could still maintain her freedom with a driverless car, and hubby could still live at home. He isn’t too far gone, just too far for driving anywhere new.
I cannot see driver option going away, guess we can get back to this thread in 20 years and see!
I kind of agree with @Caddyman 's assessment although I don’t relish that future. Your EVERY move will be logged and tracked - easily becoming an Orwellian world. ie - you only allowed to go to destinations you’re “authorized” to go to. . . And they’ll justify it by saying they need to reduce your carbon footprint or prevent terrorists from moving freely. . . The only thing I see slowing it down is the cost of setting up the supporting infrastructure.
Not too sure about logging where you go.
I think in 30-50 years all cars will be driverless. Driving on the road when ALL vehicles are driverless…a few other things come into play.
. They talk to each other…sending real-time information of road conditions to the other vehicles. This can lead your car being diverted to another route because of new construction.
. Because they are now all talking to each other…traffic flow will be much more fluid…and one estimate I read is that the roads could easily handle a 40-50 percent increase in vehicles without any problem.
. Not only can the vehicles be networked to each other, but also city traffic systems to help control flow during peak hours.
Ed - If you have a cell phone and/or a toll pass tag on your windshield then you are already being tracked and logged. If you ever use credit cards instead of cash, you are being tracked and logged. The privacy ship has sailed (and a long time ago at that). And if you don’t think that all this information isn’t already in use to keep you (or bad guys) away from sensitive areas…
You’re right @bloody_knuckles , that privacy ship has sailed, we’re well on our way to the world depicted in George Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty-Four” and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Anyone remember a comic called “The Far Side” by Gary Larson? There was one where a guy was standing on a soapbox on a VERY crowded city street yelling, “The Vampires! The Vampires are everywhere! You must protect yourself now! The Vampires are everywhere!” Everyone walking on the sidewalk was ignoring him. Behind the guy, two moving men were walking by with one of those large hotel lobby style mirrors, and in the mirror’s reflection the guy on the soapbox was standing alone on a deserted street*. Most days I feel like that guy on the soapbox.
(*In Vampire mythology, vampires do not reflect in a mirror.)
MikeInNH: “They talk to each other” Thank you. I was going to post a question concerning that. I hate seeing age old traditions disappear. Now I’m confident an offended driverless car will be able to transmit an 01010101… version of screaming obscenities and giving the finger to an offending driverless car. It reminds me of a comedy routine from decades back involving Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. Johnny: "I think yesterday was the coldest I’ve ever experienced in NYC. Ed: How cold was it? Johnny: It was so cold I saw a cabbie make a suggestion to a pedestrian and his finger froze!
The modern version-
42 45 45 50 21 21 21
46 55 43 4B 20 59 4F 55 20 50 41 4C 21
Actually I liked the Pods movie the best. Think it was 1957 with truck loads of pods waiting for people to fall asleep and the pods would take them over. At any rate they had some great shots of brand new 57 Fords that makes watching it worthwhile. I’m wondering how I would break up a fight between the dishwasher and the clothes washer? Maybe just unplug them if they get too hostile. Of course you never know what goes on between them all when no one is home.
What was the question again? Oh yeah driverless cars or dishwashers with a mind of their own. I guess I just live in fear of that dang dishwasher.
@“Ed Frugal”, you are much more interesting than me, apparently. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to track my movements. Unlike you, I’m too boring. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it must happen.
I wouldn’t call Hex modern. IBM mainframes use to do a Hex dump when your program crashed. Those were fun to read.
If you did not know some traffic maps are based on cellphone gps data. Can it connect you and your car, Shirley. The one that gets me is maybe fitbit or some other health app where you have to sign in and all your data is uploaded and fair game for anyone, uploaded to Korea for the app I looked at. Sure I use cash, sure I have the gps turned off on my phone, though triangulation between cell towers usually gets my location close enough, sure I have friends that did not lie on their facebook profile, can get their name, address, birthday, phone, mothers maiden name from obituary posted, there is so much information given out, was at the Dr for a routine physical, oh you have cataracts? Did my eye doctor get connected? Oh yes, every thing you do in the medical service is associated to your name.
Of course there is an upside, caught some pedophiles based on gps coordinares embedded in their pictures.
When Jt mentioned a driver’s license, he inadvertently brought up an interesting point. When ultimately driverless cars become ready for prime time, I wonder how the licenses will be handled? If an unlicensed passenger is in the back seat and the car violates a traffic law, who gets a ticket? And for what?
“Johnny cabs” will eventually become reality. If I’m still alive & kickin’, they’ll probably be a blessing for me, as I probably won’t be able to drive myself by that time. Will I be able to register one in my name without a license of my own? What about state inspections? Will the car be able to drive itself to the shop for the inspections, and how will they get paid for? Will we have gas jockeys again so an empty car can get refilled?
It’s way to early to actually be addressing these issues, but they’re fun to ponder.
Good points, but I hope to see see anyone convicted of multiple dui cannot drive a car, but can have a self driving car. and I do not believe a self driving car involved in an accident would implicate the passenger, no matter what the state of inebriation unless it was shown they interfered with the operation of the driverless car.
There are so many different paths this new technology can travel it’s tough to predict.
I see no reason to ever get a license if the vehicles become fully autonomous. What’s the point?
Car drives self to get an inspection? Sure -why not?
Dive to school to pick up kids? Again -sure.
Drive to grocery store to have a clerk put groceries in trunk that you ordered and paid for on line?
It can be fun predicting the uses.
I wouldn’t call Hex modern.
Sheesh, talk about completely and utterly missing the point.
@“the same mountainbike” "Will the car be able to drive itself to the shop for inspections. . . " More importantly, will an unscrupulous mechanic be able to make unnecessary repairs?
The more I think about it, if we get to that level of technology, there probably won’t be many reasons to even leave the house. Kids will be educated thru the internet, eliminating the need for teachers, janitors, administrators, and physical schools. Drunks will get their booze delivered, eliminating need to travel to bar / liquor store. Your groceries will be delivered via unmanned drone. Vacation? Virtual reality helmet.
Isn’t all of this part of what folks refer to as the “singularity”? And by the way where’s @dagosa been lately? Wasn’t he a big part of that long discussion on the singularity we had a while back?
@jtsanders "@Ed Frugal, you are much more interesting than me, apparently. " No, I’m about the most boring person in the world. Its the principal of it for me. I guess its just the way I’m wired.
" I can’t imagine why anyone would want to track my movements." MONEY. Plain and simple. Anyone who can track the movements of another person knows everything about that person. They use this information to build a psychological profile on you which they use to persuade you to spend more money on things you otherwise wouldn’t have bought. As I’ve stated before, all of these data-points are like pixels on a television screen, by themselves they don’t mean much, but put them all together, and big data knows more about you than you know about yourself. So they can manipulate your behavior without you even knowing that you’re being manipulated.
Companies are moving away from employees working remote. Especially the larger companies. Too difficult to manage.
As for getting a degree on line. Some degrees -yes. Degrees that require a lot of lab work with specialized equipment (physics for one)- not likely.
I think you boys are correct about the “logging and tracking”… All in the name of “security” and or “Marketing”
I think @“Ed Frugal” and @bloody_knuckles have it pretty well summed up. That reference to the cartoon of the Vampire on a Soapbox has me thinking…and in a dark manner.
No one wants to think about this stuff… I guess its naive to think about it any other way… What better way to track people than hand them a powerful computer in the guise of a telephone…and EVERYONE has a cell phone these days…and I mean Everyone in capital letters for sure.
Almost all of them have GPS…more and more are “smart phones” with internet access… If I were a Mustache Twisting, Plot Hatching Mega Capitalist type of guy I couldn’t think of a better way to keep track of the masses than this…
Uh Boyee… Remember the days before the cell phone? I do… We actually called each other from where we lived…and people answered the phone… You never needed to ask them…“Hey where are you” when you called someone.
The Good Ole days before 24/7 availability…and yet…I don’t think I could get by without the damn Smart Phone nowadays…(Of course I could…because we used to just fine) it just isnt as productive without the cell phone. My phone generates a ton of earnings for me these days… Its the bad side of this device that I pay so little attention to…probably at my own peril.
Ugh…
Blackbird