[LINK] Standards, please! The third coming of electric vehicles

[Stephen Wilson]

On 23/04/2012 11:12 AM, jim birch wrote:
> The reaction will be intense, just like the first jumbo plane crash.  
> No doubt there will be a latter day red flag act or two.  However, in 
> the long term I can't imagine we would want to rely on the slow, 
> biased, low bandwidth, egotistical, etc, human brain. 
I think you underestimate the computing prowess of the brain. For image 
analysis, it's magically fast. One of the great things about bias is 
that it permits the brain to sort the important details, especially in 
an emergency.  Like when an oncoming car veers into your lane, and your 
evasive action might see you mount the curb and crash into a crowd.  Can 
you program a bias-free computer to perform safely under these sorts of 
circumstances?

Etc.

> It's not rocket science :)
No, it's much harder.  Steering a rocket, dealing with just one rule 
(F=GmM/r2), is child's play.  They could do it in 1969 with computing 
power equivalent to an iPhone. ;-)

On a serious note ... I understand that the automatic reverse parking 
system of at least one European car only does the steering, and leaves 
the driver to control the throttle and the brake.  Is this feature 
universal in auto parking cars?  Why would that be?  I wonder if it's 
because lawyers for the car company want to keep a human in the driver's 
seat, to take liability for prangs.

Cheers,

Steve Wilson
Lockstep
http://lockstep.com.au/blog/software-engineering