44 Replies to “It’s Your Life”

  1. What a big surprise for the generation dependant on their helicopter moms. That’s male & female helicopter moms.

  2. Part of the plan. You know the sci fi movies where everyone just sleeps in their cubicles (small apartments, no land ownership) in their human farms (cities) and get in those “autonomous vehicles” to wisk them away to their planned job and back? Day after day, rinse and repeat.
    Well that is an actual game plan elites are constantly trying to put in place. Slowly but surely.

  3. There’s probably quite a waiting list for the models with the automatic arse-wipers.

  4. Google, Tesla, et.al. … will have to pry the steering wheel from my cold, dead, hands ! And yes … I am a boomer … who will NEVER entrust my very LIFE to any form of AI.

  5. Not really.
    Being a silver-backed greybeard engineer, I’m quite skeptical. Then again, I grew up around all sorts of mechanical and electrical devices, even taking apart some of them just to look inside and, perhaps, figure out how they work. That’s one of the benefits of having parents who were journeymen in their respective trades.
    The younger generation has little such knowledge, if any. I doubt that any of them even know how to use basic hand tools to do simple repairs, let alone understand how an automatic machine to which they’ll entrust their lives actually works.
    I’ve noticed that with many students in engineering nowadays. They’re completely clueless about such things and have no practical sense of reality. And why should they? They were brought up with magic boxes such cell phones and the Internet, smothered in layers of self-esteem. If it doesn’t come out of a computer, it surely must be false, right?

  6. I look at autonomous vehicles as a workable version of high speed rail. Except it has no rails, no limited schedule, and best of all – It takes you right to where you want to go! You don’t share a room with a random bunch of strangers either.
    I hope it does work out. Imagine being able to hop in your car in the morning and letting it drive while you take care of your email while you eat your breakfast? Or making that two hour drive to visit your parents?
    Even if it only works on a limited access freeway, it would do most of my driving. .

  7. …and the infantilization of society continues apace. Infants trust everything, and now the state is our nanny. Sieg Heil.

  8. The question you have to ask yourself is why there is such enthusiasm among governments for autonomous vehicles, (especially given their hysterical hatred of all things drone-related). There is a tremendous incentive being given for auto manufacturers and large software developers to rush into this space. Why would governments be supportive of this when they’re terrified of someone operating a 5 lb. consumer kiddy drone within 10 miles of an urban airport?
    Why indeed? Why would governments be enthusiastic about developing supervisory technology that necessarily tracks all your movement, and that ultimately could control where you travel and when?
    For the life of me, I can’t understand why any consumer would have the least interest in a self-driving car.
    Having worked in software development, (I currently do marketing for a company that among other things develops tech for BVLOS drone missions), I am appalled at the potential for chaos and carnage if a large number of these things actually make it onto the road. I’ve learned that engineers often lack the imaginative capacity to anticipate consequences.

  9. Perhaps I am paranoid but this could just be another toy hackers can cause mayhem for the sheer evil fun of it. And of course there is ISIS who have used vehicles as weapons.

  10. Imagine a robot car facing off with a delivery robot, both of them stuttering up and down their respective decision trees.
    People who don’t understand machinery and software might assume they’re trustworthy, but I’ve seen the safety barriers around robotic equipment in factories.
    I’m going to invest in much bigger bumpers for my truck if these things make it on the roads in Canada.

  12. Sounds like a real winner.
    Tesla Customers Sue Over ‘Dangerous’ And Non-Functioning Autopilot Software
    Buyers, who paid a $5,000 premium over the standard vehicle price, became “beta testers of half-baked software that renders Tesla vehicles dangerous if engaged,” according to the complaint, filed on behalf of three customers by Seattle-based firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. Recent software updates that were part of Tesla’s AP2.0 resulted in cars “behaving as if a drunk driver is at the wheel” when Autopilot is engaged, the suit said, citing a customer report.

  14. Whats gonna kill autonomous cars. Insurance fraud. Pedestrians or other vehicles deliberately getting themselves hit by these cars and suing.

  15. Canuckguy >
    “….ISIS who have used vehicles as weapons”
    No worry’s there Mohamed is #1 name for babies in the UK and soon the entire western world. i.e. No need for robots, when you have a whole new generation of Baby Boomers at your disposal.

  17. As long as they have to program these things to stay the F@%#k out of the left lane so I can drive past them it’s OK by me.

  18. My local utility, PG&E, already has installed “SMART” meters on my gas and electric services. Now they can flip a switch in a central facility and SHUT DOWN my utilities … if … I happen to be contributing “too much of a carbon footprint” than deemed acceptable by the all-knowing Central government.
    After all … why should MY HOME be any more “comfortable” than the average East African’s “home”. THAT is called “environmental justice”. Welcome to the Brave New World of BIG (interlocking government-corporate) BROTHER.
    And lets not forget all the “drought shaming” that the Eco-LEFT hurled at Beverly Hills residents. The ONLY thing that kept this Eco-Statist smear tactic from working … was when the “drought shaming” starting identifying Leftist Eco-Champions … like Barbara Streisand’s multiple ESTATES … as gigantic Water “wasters”. Oops ! Gotta protect the narrative.

  19. If I’m going to die in a car crash it will be my mistake, not some hack programmer’s screw up in California.

  20. “SMART” meters on my gas and electric services…
    Propane tank. Generator. Wood stove.
    I’ve been told that running a generator at peak Ontario Hydro billing times is cheaper than using electricity off the grid. My response was that pretty soon it’ll be cheaper ALL the time.

  22. The more dependant we become on the grid, the more I want to stock up on generators, diesel and live close to a farm.
    Imagine the powers government could assume if the grid went down.
    (tinfoil hat status; disengaged.)

  24. “If I’m going to die in a car crash it will be my mistake, not some hack programmer’s screw up in California.”
    Doubtful. It will be one of Turdeau’s dopers celebrating the legalization of weed.
    You have to wonder whether any of the hundreds of tokers at the Alberta legislature yesterday have jobs and why they weren’t at those jobs.

  25. How DARE you demonize a Trudeaupian with a “medical condition” REQUIRING “Medical” Marijuana to cure ! Why would you want a disabled worker to SUFFER without their Bong ? Meh. So a few drivers got KILT … they should have taken MASS Transit.

  26. I’m waiting for the survey done with IT professionals and programmers.
    How many of them want to trust their and their families lives to computer driven vehicles?
    This means trusting the economy’s transportation sector to a programmer/hardware interface, too.
    Maybe, Lance can set up an online survey, sending it out to those qualified to answer?

  27. Propane tank. Generator. Wood stove.
    Yup… Converting a gasoline generator to run on propane is relatively easy and the diesel fuel for my truck stores indefinitely, and half of it I get for free.
    People who choose to NOT live in cities will be the least effected by this automation bullshit. People who do live in cities are committing themselves to a life more and more entrenched in ‘Big-Brother’ socialism.
    “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” -Ben Franklin

  28. You may talk o’ gin an’ beer
    When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere,
    An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot;
    But if it comes to slaughter
    You will do your work on water, 5
    An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.
    With all due respect to Kipling, I thought it fit the topic. The point is:
    If you live where there’s not much traffic you’ll not understand the purpose or the need for automated vehicles. Go live in SF Bay area or LA or in NY city or Dallas, or Toronto. You’ll feel different about it, especially if you are older or as you realize that you will grow older. There is little pleasure or rather there’s plenty of pain in driving in congested urban environments.

  29. Many Y’s and Z’s believe big corrupt, overbearing and incompetent government “manages economies.”
    IOW should we care what they “think?”

  30. Go live in SF Bay area or LA or in NY city or Dallas, or Toronto.
    Why would I want to do something as stupid as that?

  31. “…I’ve learned that engineers often lack the imaginative capacity to anticipate consequences …”
    That’s the fundamental flaw in the “self-driving” car. The car isn’t going to be driving itself, an absent person is going to be driving it with a set of instructions they wrote for the car, long ago and far away. People are bad enough at driving when they are there in the moment seeing what’s really happening.

  32. Don’t worry. I’m sure if we smash all the spinning jennies the weavers won’t lose their jobs.
    I wonder if all the PhDs and rocket scientists here have ever taken a subway. Because those are controlled by automated switching and speed control software coded by those engineers y’all have so little respect for.
    Real-time control software is far and away the hardest to code, and we’re still in the early days. Tesla allowing autodrive on production models is tantamount to criminal negligence. But autonomous vehicles are coming, and they’re going to have a better safety record than human drivers.

  33. Meh.
    75% of Canadian Drivers say they are above average, when rating their own driving skills.
    Of course the kiddies will say they favour the self driving car, but the real world test will be the usual..what do they BUY and how do they use it?
    Naturally people who understand technology and have real life experience of those ,”Guaranteed not to fail” technologies of times past, will be sceptical of automation.
    And those who have spent careers keeping shit working,will be well aware we no not need terrorists to create chaos, blind trust in Government approved systems will do very nicely.
    Todays performance standard: Good enough for government.
    Two weeks after government approves wide spread automation of congested roads ways, an app will be on sale, Divert/Destroy the automous traffic in your way.

  34. I get it. this is what became of those truly stooopid 50s and 60s predictions of personal helicopters providing delightful short cuts.
    or was it drunk driving in 3 dimensions? both !!!

  35. also, wtf are the licensing requirements for autonomous ve-hic-les?
    does this mean anyone can put anything on the road that self drives?
    that should be fun. kinda like the present fondness of drones peeking everywhere and flying in front of passenger planes.
    yup. lotsa fun and a huge opportunity for the scrap metal business.

  36. I wonder if all the PhDs and rocket scientists here have ever taken a subway.
    I wonder if Daniel understands how highways and subway tracks are fundamentally different.

  37. Being a silver-backed greybeard engineer, I’m quite skeptical.
    Being similarly inclined, I suspect it comes from hundreds of thousands of hours driving in a wide variety of conditions and emergencies that would confound a computer driven vehicle on a roadway. Computers allow many people to make mistakes 10 times faster than they ever could before.

  38. there are buses, trains, cabs, planes. if man can make it man can break it. self driving vehicles on an open stretch of 12 lane highway with all the variables, ha freakin ha. kiss your ass goodbye.

  39. THX 1138. A George Lucs Film
    Exactly what you are describing….and underground to boot.
    Sex is illegal
    Drugs mandatory
    You can get busted for Drug Evasion….

  40. The next stage of cyber-bullying, or of the knockout game, will be taking remote control of a car and seeing if you can blind the sensors (making the car crash itself) or changing lanes and speeds, and turning so quickly that the occupants puke.
    If you would trust your life to your anti-virus software then self-driving cars are a good bet for you.

  41. Today’s attempts at self driving cars is like putting a bridle on a Lamborghini and expecting to steer it by pulling on the reins. What is needed to make self driving cars safer is the right infrastructure that allows the car to get to where you want it to go. A 12 lane expressway built for human drivers is not likely to meet the machine’s requirements since it is not a human. However if you put in the right kind of guidance system and driving environments the car will be able to get to where you want it without accident or incident.

  42. change the roads, of course. rails, magnetic strips, in other words controls, and no self driving.

  43. Kenji….We had this “Smart Meter” installed in our home in Ontario.
    Not only did the utility cut 95% of its meter reading crews province wide, (thy now drive Google type Cars up and down the streets – pulling your address/usage info via WiFi), and now have the ability to “customize” your rates:
    Original Plan was something like this
    7 AM – 9:30 AM. Std rate plus +35% (High Rate)
    9:30 AM – 3:00PM Std rate +20% (Mid Day Rate)
    3:00 – 11PM Std Rate + 35% (High Rate)
    11PM – 7:00 AM….your Standard rate.
    This, in a bid for so called energy conservation …. trying to push the populace to buying appliances with 24 hr timers so you could do your laundry at 3 AM and dishes at 3:30 AM.
    Nothing but a F&%$ing SCAM to bone ya….
    They are in place now …We left that Sad Sack of Progressive Lunacy 7 yrs ago and have zero regrets…
    for those of us that Live in Alberta, watch for that Communist POS Notley to try the same BS..

  44. As to Autonomous Vehicles….? as if.
    I will NEVER get into one..not happening.
    The programmed variables will never be able to take into account for the driving insanity perpetrated by “newcomers” operating vehicles who in their previous incarnation have never even seen a Car let alone anything with 4 wheels and steerable….
    I meet them everyday on the roads in Calgary….and I can tell ya, you better be driving defensively…

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