The Singularity

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The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

It's getting closer

Totally Kafkaesque
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Johnny Carwash »

That's pretty cool, but at the same time it reminds me of a thought I had recently: I think we have to acknowledge that humanity kind of sucks at robots compared to where we thought we'd be by now. Like, if you went back to 1985 and asked people what they thought life would be like thirty years in the future, what you'd hear ubiquitously would be "robots!"--every house would have a robot maid/butler, stores would be staffed by robot clerks, hospitals would have robot nurses, our militaries would be made up of robot soldiers, etc. Instead, where are we now? We give a bunch of scientists billions of dollars, lock them in a lab for a decade, and we get a robot that can walk for about twelve feet and then falls down.

e: Sorry if I came off as dumping on your post--this was just a mini-rant I had loaded for a while and was looking for an opportunity to let loose.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by howard »

All I want from technology is a flying car
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Jerloma »

howard wrote:All I want from technology is a flying car
Image
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Re: The Singularity

Post by duff »

That's no car.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

Johnny Carwash wrote:That's pretty cool, but at the same time it reminds me of a thought I had recently: I think we have to acknowledge that humanity kind of sucks at robots compared to where we thought we'd be by now. Like, if you went back to 1985 and asked people what they thought life would be like thirty years in the future, what you'd hear ubiquitously would be "robots!"--every house would have a robot maid/butler, stores would be staffed by robot clerks, hospitals would have robot nurses, our militaries would be made up of robot soldiers, etc. Instead, where are we now? We give a bunch of scientists billions of dollars, lock them in a lab for a decade, and we get a robot that can walk for about twelve feet and then falls down.

e: Sorry if I came off as dumping on your post--this was just a mini-rant I had loaded for a while and was looking for an opportunity to let loose.
Yeah, autonomous robots are WAY harder than most people thought they'd be decades ago. These Boston Dynamics guys have made great strides (ha!) in mobility, but it's obviously still a very hard problem. And then, when you get to good AI, it's an order of magnitude harder.

That said, I can't fucking wait for wide availability of self-driving cars. That might realistically happen in the next two decades and it could change the world.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by The Sybian »

I used to hang out with a guy who built robots for Boston Dynamics. Scrawny guy who could take down mountains of cocaine. Very shortly after 9/11, the CIA came after him and his ant-like robots to use in searching caves and mountain bunkers for Bin Laden and Co. He probably shouldn't have told us that, but discretion wasn't his strong suit. And he was terrified of drug testing or honestly answering questions about drug use. Of course, they didn't give a fuck. I never saw him after he went to Afghanistan. Would have loved to hear some stories, or hear about the projects he works on. Fascinating stuff.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by L-Jam3 »

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Re: The Singularity

Post by Steve of phpBB »

Shirley wrote:That said, I can't fucking wait for wide availability of self-driving cars. That might realistically happen in the next two decades and it could change the world.
Just curious, why do you feel self-driving cars will be that exciting and world-changing?
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Re: The Singularity

Post by mister d »

Bike avoidance technology would be pretty cool.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

Steve of phpBB wrote:
Shirley wrote:That said, I can't fucking wait for wide availability of self-driving cars. That might realistically happen in the next two decades and it could change the world.
Just curious, why do you feel self-driving cars will be that exciting and world-changing?
Several reasons.

- The expected drastic reduction in car crashes. Over 30k people are killed every year in the US in car crashes (and well over 1 million world-wide). I'm sure many times that are seriously injured.

- Much greater efficiency in the use of our roads. Autonomous cars don't drive erratically, don't rubberneck (and there were would be very few accidents anyway), can handle high traffic situations, and could much more efficiently handle intersections.

- More efficient commuting time. Not only would a commute presumably be shorter because the travel is more efficient, but all of those drivers could now do other things. I think of this every time I spend 3 hours driving to the beach. Driving is boring and I'd much rather be reading a book or something.

- Less need for individual ownership of cars. Think of how much time cars spend parked in your garage at home or the parking lot at work. What if we could share cars instead and they'd show up when we need them? This is the long-term vision of Uber and it's a pretty damn cool one.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by mister d »

I'm sold.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Johnny Carwash »

I agree it's probably inevitable at some point in the future and will have a profound cultural impact. The other thing I think of, is that there's going to be massive resistance if/when they make self-driving cars mandatory. Libertarians will flip the fuck out about it being an infringement on freedom, and they'll be mostly right.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

Johnny Carwash wrote:I agree it's probably inevitable at some point in the future and will have a profound cultural impact. The other thing I think of, is that there's going to be massive resistance if/when they make self-driving cars mandatory. Libertarians will flip the fuck out about it being an infringement on freedom, and they'll be mostly right.
Yeah, that would probably be a ways down the road (ha!). Autonomous cars would have to be able to deal with human drivers, just like Google's cars do now. I could see them possibly requiring all cars to have equipment on them that could communicate with other cars so they could coordinate speed, direction, etc.

Once these cars are feasible and cheap enough though, I think you'll see a massive drop in people who really want to drive. Who likes driving in traffic or along a long interstate, which is what we all do 95% of the time?
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

Oh, another benefit I missed - much greater practicality of electric cars. The main problem with them now is limited range and long recharge times. Well, if cars were smart enough to drop you off at work and then go charge themselves up before you need them again, this becomes way less of a problem.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Steve of phpBB »

Interesting. It seems to me that most of those benefits require a substantial majority of people to let their car to the driving for them. I wonder how that will play out in practice.

I think I would always rather drive than sit in a car, even on a long interstate.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

I find the onset of driverless cars to be totally fascinating, and all of the benefits are things that I care about, but I still have this nagging sense that it is going to be difficult to implement. Beyond all of the industries (and unions) that have a vested interest in this not succeeding, I think it's going to be tough to convince people to sit in machines that can move them up to 70MPH and that they cannot steer or control. I realize that this is exactly what we do when we board a train or airplane, but at least in those situations we are placing our trust in another person. I also realize that the technology is going to be rolled out incrementally (i.e., the early generations of self-driving cars will have steering wheels and pedals), but eventually the idea is to phase out human control altogether.

And then you get to the really creepy stuff: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -accident-" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: The Singularity

Post by P.D.X. »

Rex wrote:And then you get to the really creepy stuff: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -accident-" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

Cars don't kill people, people kill people.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

It was odd that the article didn't seem to realize that Google has had autonomous cars on the road for years now.

I agree that it's a really hard problem, but it does seem like one they've made a ton of progress on. I think Google depends on really detailed road maps for now, but that need will lessen while at the same time, more of that data will come available.

As for robots deciding who lives and dies in an accident, that is tricky, but I'm not sure that it's so unsolvable. It's kind of funny that we're cool with no rules about that now, but somehow when we can actually do something about those situations and make clear (if difficult) choices, people get squirmy. I think the reality is that if all cars were autonomous, the situations where they have to choose one life over another will be pretty rare.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by A_B »

I kinda hate the idea of self driving cars.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

I don't hate the idea, but I think that a lot of people will, which is the reason for my skepticism. The benefits of not doing something that is stressful and dangerous as part of my daily routine seem clear enough to me, but it's not as obvious as, say, the benefit of a motorized vehicle over a horse-drawn carriage.
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Re: The Singularity

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Rex wrote:I don't hate the idea, but I think that a lot of people will, which is the reason for my skepticism. The benefits of not doing something that is stressful and dangerous as part of my daily routine seem clear enough to me, but it's not as obvious as, say, the benefit of a motorized vehicle over a horse-drawn carriage.

Americans love their cars more than they love their guns. It's why we can't get funding for Amtrak to build a serviceable system. Some people would go for the concept, I know my wife would be thrilled to not have to drive. A lot of techie types would jump at the chance of being early adopters. Most people are going to wait it out through the first couple generations of cars to iron out the kinks, and for it not to seem weird anymore. Shirley raises some great benefits, which I never spent the time to think about. I'm with Steve, I prefer to drive on a long trip than sit. I'd go stir crazy in the driver seat without the ability to control the car.

Interesting ethical concerns with determining accident avoidance. If a person, bike, animal or pothole requires crossing the double yellow, it would be impossible to program every scenario into the computer system. As flawed as human decision making is, I think you need a human making those determinations. If the cars started making those decisions, how long before an option comes out to pay fees to have those decisions in your favor? If a head on collision is coming, the owner who paid for the upgrade has his car speed up while the poor guy has his car slow down.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by howard »

Collision futures arbitrage. Let's jump on that before Goldman Sachs thinks of it. Mo money, mo money!
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

I mean, look at all the people who still smoke, and there's no benefit to doing that. At least I can tick off benefits to driving a car manually.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by A_B »

So no one has had a computer crash unexpectedly? Just me?
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Re: The Singularity

Post by The Sybian »

howard wrote:Collision futures arbitrage. Let's jump on that before Goldman Sachs thinks of it. Mo money, mo money!
You don't disagree, do you? You are the last person I'd expect to disagree that would happen.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by DC47 »

Death arbitrage involving selling insurance policies and similar angles has been a large and increasing element in the investment biz for some time. The practice dates to the advent of life insurance in the western world in the 17th century.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by DC47 »

I find the driverless car notion quite interesting and very plausible. An aspect that puzzles me though is whether many of the advantages of this form of transportation will be defeated unless all or most are operating in this mode in a particular area. For example, can you really pack cars tight on a commuter route to garner efficiency gains if many of them are not driverless?

I imagine it will be a long time before having a car that is manually operated is both illegal and can be detected and detained. There will be some resistance to sharing the road with driverless cars, and more with actually turning over control. But that will pale besides the resistance to making manually operated cars taboo. There's a lot I don't understand about the automated car concept. Is the need for wide spread adoption not as big a deal as I imagine?
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

No, I agree with you. I kind of wonder the developers of the technology are suffering from living in a Northern California/European bubble, because they haven't lived in places where people would rather have 90-minute commutes on crumbling roads than to pay an extra penny of sales tax so they could have a 45-minute train commute.

And driving a car will never be illegal under our constitutional government. Someone will find a penumbra somewhere or decide that a well-armed militia requires human-controlled autos.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by howard »

The Sybian wrote:
howard wrote:Collision futures arbitrage. Let's jump on that before Goldman Sachs thinks of it. Mo money, mo money!
You don't disagree, do you? You are the last person I'd expect to disagree that would happen.
I agree this is a likely possibility (paying more for software that promises or even delivers 'selfish' decision making by your car.)
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.

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Re: The Singularity

Post by The Sybian »

howard wrote:
The Sybian wrote:
howard wrote:Collision futures arbitrage. Let's jump on that before Goldman Sachs thinks of it. Mo money, mo money!
You don't disagree, do you? You are the last person I'd expect to disagree that would happen.
I agree this is a likely possibility (paying more for software that promises or even delivers 'selfish' decision making by your car.)
Good, I'd be worried if you lost your cynicism.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by DC47 »

Goldman Sachs just announced they will be dealing in derivatives based on the level of Howard's cynicism, and the volatility in this level.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Pruitt »

Driverless cars are great in theory.

But I was on a few roads (ridiculously termed "highways") in Nova Scotia that raised interesting questions regarding driverless technology. Like, if a two land highway is so fucking bad that the only safe choice for a driver is to straddle the centre lane for the better part of 50 kilometres in order to avoid tire shredding holes and foot deep ruts, how will a computer driven vehicle handle it?

Image - those are snow filled ruts - this road is so bad that they can't even plow it.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia ... -injection

And despite their plans, no work has been done on this road.

So, what happens when two driverless cars approach each other on a road like this?
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Re: The Singularity

Post by A_B »

Well, I think the answer to that is "Fuck Canada."
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Re: The Singularity

Post by howard »

DC47 wrote:Goldman Sachs just announced they will be dealing in derivatives based on the level of Howard's cynicism, and the volatility in this level.
Now that is a boring market. There are few things less volatile/more stable than my cynicism.
Who knows? Maybe, you were kidnapped, tied up, taken away and held for ransom.

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Re: The Singularity

Post by Shirley »

I think concerns over avoiding collisions or bad roads are a bit misplaced. If all of the cars on the road were autonomous, these situations should be much safer.

Take the example of a busy road and a pedestrian, maybe a toddler, walks out into traffic too close for brakes to stop. The option is no longer to either kill the pedestrian, swerve onto the sidewalk or swerve into oncoming traffic. With cars that can make decisions in microseconds and communicate with each other, the entire traffic pattern can adjust. Every car could swerve, brake or accelerate as necessary to avoid any collision. Think of how birds in a flock or fish in a school react to obstacles.

In fact, given that idea, you really wouldn't need to have lines on roads at all anymore. Let the cars use the space in the most efficient way possible given the traffic needs at that time.

Same with a bad road. Wouldn't two computers deal with sharing limited space a hell of a lot better than two random people?

As for computers crashing, that's definitely something that is a concern, but it's also manageable. Cars today already are run by dozens of microcontrollers running lots and lots of code. How often has your car blue screened? For the more complicated parts that control the whole car, two things can be done to minimize the risk of crashing. First, have all systems default to some sort of safety mode - stop the car, pull over, send out emergency beacon, flash lights, etc. The other is to have some redundancy, like what NASA has done for decades. If the main system crashes and it's critical, have another ready to go -either hot (already running) or cold (have to start up the backup).
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Steve of phpBB »

Shirley wrote:If all of the cars on the road were autonomous, these situations should be much safer.
I think the real hard part is whether we can get to the point where all the cars are autonomous.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by Rex »

People still drive stick, for pete's sake. And not just hipsters.
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Re: The Singularity

Post by brian »

It'll take decades, but eventually it'll happen. If nothing else, once people realize the potential insurance savings. Imagine a world with almost no traffic accidents. Insurance policies would more or less only have to cover theft and damage incurred in non-traffic situations (a tree hits your car in the driveway, etc.)

I'm an early adopter by nature, but I'd be all over a self-driving car. I hate flying for anything shorter than a 8 or 9 hour car ride as it is. I'd love nothing more than to get in my car, program it to drive to San Diego and read a book and take a nap and get there in five or so hours relaxed by not having to take my life in my hands in Cajon Pass.
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