At the beginning of 19th century, people were not moving around so much in their daily life. Most people lived in the same town though their entire life. It was not because they liked it so. They just had no choice because moving to a different town was not so easy. First, people moved on foot at about 5 km/h. Then, we got animals to help us move a little faster. As early as 1550, train was invented to take a large group of people over long distance. However, it was the invention of automobile that took personal mobility to a different level. It would be considered one of the most important inventions of human history. It brought so much potential and possibility to our everyday life. As crazy as it sounds, the very firstcar was built in 1769 and had a top speed of only 2.5 mph. After about 250 years, some cars can even move 100 times faster.
Modern cars are faster, safer, prettier and have many more
function than what people could ever imagine back in 18th
century. But the improvement of
technology has never stopped as Google introduced their driverless
automobile. The driver is a super
computer inside the car, using GPS and environmental sensors to not only drive
the car, but also make decisions on how to drive the car. Google claims that their driverless
automobile put human error the thing of the past.
In 2011, Nevada first legalized the driverless
automobiles. Then Florida
followed. Last week, California,
the state, which has 10% of US population, made a big decision on allowing
driverless cars on the road. It
tells us that another landmark change in the personal mobility is on the
way. Future that described in
sci-fi stories, where people can travel to places with a touch of bottom is
just steps away.
On the other hand, behind the glory of technology, there is
the concern of people’s acceptance to this new way to living. Traffic regulation is not the only thing
that needs to catch on to the speed.
People don’t like changes, so that many try to find all kinds of
downsides when a new technology is introduced. “Driving enthusiasts see them as the harbinger of a boring,
55 mph future. And politicians see them as high-tech boogeyman to scareseniors into voting booths.”
Recently, Consumer Watchdog rose the concern of the use of data that
driverless car collected in the course of driving. As the group's Privacy
Project director John Simpson wrote in a letter to Governor Brown,
"A law regulating autonomous vehicles must provide that
driverless cars gather only the data necessary to operate the vehicle and
retain that data only as long as necessary for the vehicle's operation.... It
should provide that the data must not be used for any additional purpose such
as marketing or advertising without the consumer's explicit opt-in consent.”
This is not he first time that a new technology faces
challenges from the society. But
at the end, we all know that technology would win and society will change for a
better future.
The idea of self driving automobiles scares me. There are so many factors that influence driving decisions that need to be made based on experience and situations. For example, will a computer driven car be able to detect bikes coming up on your right as you are about to make a right turn? Or will they detect pedestrians crossing the street as you make a left turn across an intersection? While the idea of a self-driving car seems cool, the human should be the one who is in overall control. Lexus cars have sensors in the front of their car that will automatically stop the car if the driver doesn't notice an obstruction in the distance. The key is to have cars that are computer assisted, not totally computer controlled.
ReplyDeleteThe self driving car uses technology, like radar, light senors, heat sensors and many others, to simulate a 3 dimensional map around itself. This 3D map is also able to look around the blind corners, which human cannot see. There is also no blind spot. Moreover, the computer processing speed is in term of nano seconds, which is way faster than the human reaction time. This means that if any dangerous thing jumped in front to the car, the self driving car can react imminently without error or "panic," unlike human, who are much more likely to make a mistake under such situation. We should all accept that human brain is the most unreliable machine in the world. People have to realize that computer nowadays are capable of performing better than human at complicated actives, like driving. The google's self driving car can literately put human error, which is one of the most common reason for traffic accident, the thing of the past. Technology has became so advanced that it can solve almost all your daily problems, but there is one problem it cannot solve. That is the prejudice of human. It is the idea of losing control and accepting the fact that computer can do better than human scares people. We have understand that using self driving car is not to lose control of your personal mobility, it is a step toward safer road.
DeleteSelf-driving cars are the future of the automotive industry. Ever since I saw them in I-Robot (with Will Smith, awesomely terrible movie) I've wanted one. Humans are obviously much more error prone than machines, so taking them out of the equation is only natural. But the part of the article I was most intrigued with was the quote in which privacy of the data collection is of paramount importance. I had never looked at it that way before. As soon as humans don't have to drive cars anymore, we're going to be completely overrun with advertisements in our cars. It's the next natural progression of annoying advertising. As much as I hate it, the good is going to outweigh the bad.
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