They can’t even
get automated traffic lights to work – to sync the green/red
cycles in order to smooth the flow of traffic – but we’re supposed to believe
that millions of automated cars are going to sync perfectly, whizz along at 100
MPH in tight formation, without a hitch – just like the Blue Angels, the Navy’s
precision flying demonstration squadron.
In the rain and
snow. The heat of high summer, the bitter cold of January. Dirt, sand,
potholes. 24/7, year ’round – for year after year after year, ongoing. Mechanical
and electrical components will never wear out – or crap out,
unexpectedly.
Really?
Traffic lights
are pretty simple things – even the “smart” ones that have cameras and sensors
with which they can “see” traffic (just like automated cars). But coordinating
lights to go green at the same time – instead of one going green and then the
next one just ahead going red, causing needless stop-and-go traffic congestion
– seems to be a bridge too far for the same technocrats who promise a seamless,
Blue Angles-like automated car experience.
Even when
traffic lights are successfully synced, they rarely remain synced
for long.
Something always goes
wrong. A power outage scrambles their brains. A software/programming/hardware
glitch upsets the apple cart. The timing gets jumbled. Red light, green light,
red light.
Stop – and go.
But at least
you can stop (and go).
For now.
Your
current autonomous car – the one controlled by you –
still has brake/accelerator pedals and a steering wheel.
Your Future Car
may not. The idea being to automate those functions, in order
to take away your autonomy.
The good news
is that it’ll probably work about as well as automated traffic lights.
Leavings aside
the emasculation that automated cars would impose on us – male and female alike
– by depriving us of the ability to control our vehicles, which would mean a
return to childhood, a time when our parents took us places
and we sat in the back and had little to no say in the matter – there is the
false assumption about the omniscience and perfection of automated vehicle
technology.
Notwithstanding
the abundance of evidence that technology – much simpler technology than the
technology necessary to automate millions of cars – routinely craps out.
Traffic lights,
for instance.
Or the computer
you’re probably reading this on. Your smartphone. Have either ever crashed or
done something Weird for no apparent reason? What happens when you accidentally
spill some coffee on them? Drop them? What about five or six years from now,
when the drive is getting arthritic, the OS out of date?
At least
they’re not moving down the road at 70 MPH.
Automated cars
will – we’re told – move down the road at much higher speeds. Inches apart, us
asleep in back or watching YouTube videos.
Whisk, whisk.
In perfect
safety. Just like the automated Uber . . .
The Blue Angels
also fly inches apart and at hundreds of miles per hour. Usually, without
crashing. But they are piloted by autonomous humans, who do
not depend on rote programming or technology to maintain formation in an
environment of constantly changing variables which they – their autonomous
intelligences – must recognize and correctly deal with, independent of
technology. Each pilot makes minute course corrections, based on his
independent judgment. No programmed auto-bot can anticipate every scenario.
Computers can only react in ways anticipated by the programmer.
Unlike an
autonomous human pilot at the controls. Or a competent human behind the wheel –
assuming he’s allowed one.
Also: Aircraft
are obsessively maintained and inspected according to a schedule that would
never fly in a daily-driver (or daily driven) automated car scenario. It’s too
complicated – and much too expensive. There is a reason why most people don’t
own airplanes – even single-engine Cessnas. It’s not so much the training (and
skill) needed to learn how to fly. That part is affordable, a few thousand
bucks and a few months, if you’re interested. About the same in expense and
time as it takes to get a driver’s license in Germany.
But the aircraft is
a six figure proposition and the FAA mandatory scheduled safety
inspections/teardowns and rebuilds double down on that. Combined,
it’s beyond the financial means of nine (point nine) out of ten people.
Yet it would
take something along those lines – assuming the technology can even be made to
work reliably and safely outside of the attenuated world of a handful of
demonstration mules – for this automated car thing to ever scale.
Millions of
automated cars would have to be tied in to an FAA-esque infrastructure
and mandatory scheduled inspections/teardowns/rebuilds very
similar to those currently mandatory for aircraft.
This will get
into serious money.
Who will get
the bill?
How will they
pay it?
Is anyone buying
this?
Yup, they are.
It’s a carny’s
market out there.
. . .
Got a
question about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link
and send ’em in!
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