A great idea, isn’t it? Imagine – the car knows the way, it knows the speed limits, it knows when it can cross an intersection safely and when it can’t, without even traffic lights to tell it. Basically, it cuts out the whole human error bit, doesn’t it?
Well, all the human error bit except for the part that goes into the software design. Personally I want my first driverless car to use an Apple operating system. I don’t fancy the car informing me that ‘an unexpected error has occurred in the car driving system’. Presumably the only satisfaction I would get, while hanging from the seatbelts, upside down in a ditch, would be the opportunity to answer the question ‘report error, y/n?’
Still, I suppose that’s no worse than the errors we get these days in the human-driver-based configuration (as I suppose we’ll have to learn to refer to it). And at least it’s a lot better to go to that far-off meeting as a passenger than having to concentrate on the road and fight the growing tiredness.
But then I thought: from driverless why can’t we move to passengerless cars? Not only would I not have to drive to Birmingham for that tedious meeting, not only would I let the car do the driving, I wouldn’t even go myself. I’d let the car go on its own.
Of course, that leads to a problem when it comes to actually holding the meeting. But that’s not a hard one to solve. There are phones. There are Video Conferencing systems. Why, there’s even Skype.
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| Driverless car: inspire confidence? Perhaps you might prefer passengerless too |
Think of the fuel we’d save. Think of the accidents we’d avoid. Think of the time we could use for other things.
You know, I believe there may be real mileage to this idea. I wonder who I can suggest it to?
2 comments:
I'm glad you stopped when you did. I was afraid the next step would be to get rid of Birmingham entirely.
Always a good idea to stop before Birmingham. On the other hand, your thinking isn't without merit.
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