[LINK] Why you may not own, or drive your vehicle in 10 years time

[Paul Bolger]

Personally I can’t wait for advertising subsidised travel. “Sir, in a
moment we’ll be passing your local supermarket, and for a short time
I’m authorised to offer you, at an incredible %25 off … SIR! If you
don’t take those earbuds out in five seconds I will be charging you
the full price for this trip, and a $10 contract dishonorment fee.”

On 10 June 2016 at 15:00, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
> On Fri, 2016-06-10 at 11:38 +1000, David Lochrin wrote:
>> Way back in the 60's artificial intelligence comparable with human
>> intelligence was confidently forecast to be a reality in 10 or 15
>> years.  Ten years later it was another decade or so away.  We're now
>> half a century further on and there are still no AI systems
>> comparable with the human mind.
>
> All true. But this discussion has little to do with AI. We are talking
> driverless cars. There are many things that we once took to be the
> epitome of intelligence which have turned out to be perfectly doable
> using nothing but a metric shedload of data and blind processing speed.
> I don't expect driverless cars to be "intelligent" except in the
> marketing blurbs. Any more than a factory robot or Big Blue is
> "intelligent" (though it has to be said that we do keep moving the
> goalposts on our hapless candidates for machine "intelligence").
>
>>   Eventually rule-based systems were produced, but they're a
>> different thing altogether.  Games such as GO and chess are also in a
>> different class because the rules are highly defined and finite, even
>> though the combinatorial complexity is very high.
>
> I used these games only as examples of things we said, with great
> confidence, would never be done by computers, yet here we are. And IMHO
> there is a very great deal of overlap between how those challenges were
> met and the requirements for driverless cars.
>
>> And with any road system like the one we have now, no amount of on
>> -board AI is going to get around the necessity for real-world
>> information outside the immediate road environment and the ability to
>> understand its significance.
>
> No, of course not (leaving aside the gratuitous use of "AI"). So that
> information will be acquired, in real time, by the vehicle. Unless you
> are postulating types of information that "will never be able to be
> processed by computers" in which case I refer you to my first paragraph
> above.
>
> Again, look at the rain of bodies caused by human drivers on the
> world's roads. I don't think humans do that good a job of dealing with
> unpredictable events while driving. Or even with predictable events,
> for that matter, for some value of "predictable".
>
>>   However driverless technology might be useful in certain highly
>> controlled environments.
>
> It's been there for years - in warehouses, hospitals, factories.
> Warehouses, hospitals and factories full of unpredictable humans, even.
> They don't transport humans, but there's no reason we couldn't have a
> driverless hospital gurney, and I'm sure the odd warehouse employee
> hitches a ride every now and then down to the far end of the shed.
>
> Heck, a tape silo is pretty much "driverless technology" for tapes. But
> I don't think "tightly controlled" is the point here.
>
>> And finally, any such technology has to work in the messy legal,
>> political, economic, and social environment of the real world.
>
> Absolutely. Like all the other things we now use computers for and that
> have transformed and are transforming our legal, political, economic
> and social environments.
>
> Regards, K.
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
> http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
> http://twitter.com/kauer389
>
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