I can’t remember for the life of me where I read it, but I remember reading a kinda sci-fi/fantasyish novel in my teens that had universal ai controlled cars, and the main character asked how they didn’t get into accidents sometimes and the other characters were like “are you stupid? It’s one centralised ai controlling them all” and that stuck with me as an obvious requirement for driverless cars.
Anyway I don’t think any current driverless car creators read that book.
I remember during the initial hype for driverless cars there was a plan for cars to have ad hoc/ mesh networks with each other so they could perfectly optimize traffic and weave lane changes and left turns in between much smaller gaps than humans can. Somehow it seems just as far away as when it was first proposed.
Replace all car roads with trolley tracks, a huge sprawling network of tracks, with streetcars all operated with AI planning. Hell let people buy their own personal trolleys if they want, just don’t let them disconnect from the central planning system, get out where you want and the trolley will head to a tracked storage facility to await your next pickup, out of the way of incoming trolleys all perfectly maneuvering around the city
Trains are to transit evolution as crabs are to biological evolution. If you actually try to improve efficiency in any transit system you’ll inevitably reinvent trains.
It’s still funny that these car-brained tech bros can’t go beyond individual cars controlled independently even when faced with both the obvious downsides and inefficiencies as well as clear ways to improve car based transit.
Barely related, but I want to point out that carcinization only happens to hard shelled creatures, possibly only aquatic ones. Different groups of animals have a few different ideal forms.
For predatory mammals, the ideal form is ferret. Become long.
If by “ai” you mean pathfinding and routing algorithms, that makes total sense. If by “ai” you mean the actual driving part and crash avoidance, ping will start killing pedestrians.
Some sort if hybrid system would be great. Knowing that there are no cars on the intersection you plan to cross would save a lot of time with slowing down to check. Equally, having on board systems to slam on the anchors because someone is in the road or whatever would be a requirement.
Waymos as it stands are very good at not crashing. Humans are very bad drivers and frequently hit things, the waymos have been good at not doing that with whatever system they are using now. Obviously there are a few kinks, but it’s not enough to discard the technology. A self driving car is better than a human driven one, but it’s still a car.
I can’t remember for the life of me where I read it, but I remember reading a kinda sci-fi/fantasyish novel in my teens that had universal ai controlled cars, and the main character asked how they didn’t get into accidents sometimes and the other characters were like “are you stupid? It’s one centralised ai controlling them all” and that stuck with me as an obvious requirement for driverless cars.
Anyway I don’t think any current driverless car creators read that book.
The invisible crankshaft of the free market.
I remember during the initial hype for driverless cars there was a plan for cars to have ad hoc/ mesh networks with each other so they could perfectly optimize traffic and weave lane changes and left turns in between much smaller gaps than humans can. Somehow it seems just as far away as when it was first proposed.
Probably further away than when it was first proposed tbh
Replace all car roads with trolley tracks, a huge sprawling network of tracks, with streetcars all operated with AI planning. Hell let people buy their own personal trolleys if they want, just don’t let them disconnect from the central planning system, get out where you want and the trolley will head to a tracked storage facility to await your next pickup, out of the way of incoming trolleys all perfectly maneuvering around the city
Life purely on the rails
just like my childhood dreams!
Also, batteries on cars are bullshit, see that SUV with a 1000kg of batteries, but a trolley is connected to an ac grid.
Yes. You see the vision
Minority report had it right
Game theory but for AI cars
One central AI controlling all of them is just the first step into reinventing trains, again.
Trains are to transit evolution as crabs are to biological evolution. If you actually try to improve efficiency in any transit system you’ll inevitably reinvent trains.
It’s still funny that these car-brained tech bros can’t go beyond individual cars controlled independently even when faced with both the obvious downsides and inefficiencies as well as clear ways to improve car based transit.
Barely related, but I want to point out that carcinization only happens to hard shelled creatures, possibly only aquatic ones. Different groups of animals have a few different ideal forms.
For predatory mammals, the ideal form is ferret. Become long.
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Reading this comment chain on a high speed train really enriches the experience
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If by “ai” you mean pathfinding and routing algorithms, that makes total sense. If by “ai” you mean the actual driving part and crash avoidance, ping will start killing pedestrians.
Some sort if hybrid system would be great. Knowing that there are no cars on the intersection you plan to cross would save a lot of time with slowing down to check. Equally, having on board systems to slam on the anchors because someone is in the road or whatever would be a requirement.
Waymos as it stands are very good at not crashing. Humans are very bad drivers and frequently hit things, the waymos have been good at not doing that with whatever system they are using now. Obviously there are a few kinks, but it’s not enough to discard the technology. A self driving car is better than a human driven one, but it’s still a car.
In Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer there are people artificially enhanced into supercomputers that control the world’s network of flying cars.
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