Last Saturday, a Chevy Tahoe named “Boss” scored a $2 million prize by winning the DARPA “urban challenge”. Pretty good for a car without a driver.
The DARPA challenge is a 60 mile urban course that must be completed in under six hours by an unmanned vehicle. For three years, computer controlled cars self-navigated this course, but this time was different. This time a new rule required the vehicles to “obey all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic.”
Wow! If we could only get manned, womaned, seniored and teened vehicles to do the same. Better yet, maybe DARPA is onto something; why not take humans completely out of the driving equation?
Can you imagine what life would be like if all our vehicles were sons and daughters of “Boss”?
Can you see yourself early on a dark winter morning, holding a Starbucks in one hand, clutching a bagel in the other, speeding down a freeway entrance ramp toward a long string of tail-lights? Can you see yourself doing this while shrieking at a cranky two year old and simultaneously making a stock-trade on your IPhone?
Okay, now imagine that WITHOUT using elbows to steer!!
Think of the possibilities! For one, no more DUI's! You can drink Chicago dry then drive all the way through WISCONSIN on I94 without a single tag. Maybe you could revive the old Texas tradition of a dashboard brewmeister. Think of it, no more speeding tickets, moving violations, or fear of blue and red flashing lights. No more gawker's slow-down.
Isn't the future grand?!
Oh, but I can see the naysayers. The resisters. The Luddites who shudder at the prospect of the great American automobile morphing into a soulless nanny-cab. You know who I am talking about. People like Uncle Walt. Bring up the subject and he will start the slow burn. His face will blaze as the blood pressure rockets toward critical -- then off he goes, thundering about how road-rage, tail-gating and excessive lane change are protected by the second, eighth, and twenty-ninth amendment of the Declaration of Independence.
Most of us, never having read the document, cannot disagree but we can sooth people like Uncle Walt by expressing faith in our country and countrymen.
When have we ever let good technology, do good? Look at what our culture did with other devices. Look how we turned the simple cell-phone into an annoying source of offensive videos and obnoxious rings tones. So too, can we render the automated driving system into an expression of the American spirit.
After all, think about it.... the first successful prototype was a vehicle named “BOSS”.
Author: Greg Schiller
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Comments: 28
Kids will be sent to grocery stores or to pool parties or any other time taxing chore Mom has to do now. There will be pilotless cars out of gas along interstates or stuck in city traffic.
Sign me up. I'll take 3.
I for one ride a motorbike.
Funny take on this, Greg.
As for the car? Gotta have one. I could slep all the way to work, and instead of being disheveled, I'd actually be alert, and ready to work.
No more wrecks from people who are slaeep deprived, falling asleep at the wheel.
First, Minority Report. Recall that Tom Cruise's character, a policeman, was being chased by the police when he was framed for intending to commit murder. The nice automatic car (working on a spiffy mag lev system that actually has plans reviewed by Spielburg's team) got pinged by the police, and Tom's destination was changed as the police took control of his vehicle. Now, that's not a bad thing in and of itself, but think about the consequences should hackers find themselves able to control that system. Great. A 14 year old sending my driverless car to Chuck E Cheese or off a cliff...
The second example was in the movie I, Robot. Will Smith's character, another policeman (is there a trend here?), has a spiffy automatic car, but he doesn't trust it because he doesn't trust robots. Turns out he was right. If he hadn't had the ability to control his car in an emergency, the huge transport carrying hundreds of killer robots would have certainly turned him into paste, and ended this movie rather abruptly.
I'm not a Luddite. I love technology and all of its possibilities. But like anything else done for human beings, when humans are removed from the equation, silicon, chips, circuit boards and logic don't have the common sense of a Senator in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.
By the way, I give you a 10 for original thinking.
X Tabber brought up the subject of movies. I also thought of that. The Matrix comes to mind with computers running the world. Maybe it won't reach that extreme but I do think of it at times.
I enjoy driving. Really do. It's all those others out there who have no clue as to what the heck they or I am doing out there on four wheels, that freak me out.
Hey... I drive by my middle finger. Someone once asked..you got a license to fly that bird? I was in Army Aviation at the time... I said yupper...do.
All seriousness aside... I hope I don't really live to see the day. Unless I can have the "Will Smith" controls, to take over when needed.
Nah, Greg. You're right. One way or another humans will manage to cock it up.
We love our computer-enhanced Prius. It controls engine, transmission function (there are no gears) and braking system. I'd drive an automatic car made by Toyota, but the US Big Three has yet to earn that kind of confidence.