self-driving cars.
i'm not sure if elon musk is realistic with his timeline (driverless taxi fleet by next year). given the two fatalities by driverless car collisions last year, i think we're still a ways off from his dreams. maybe in a decade?
i sure as hell won't be getting in an uber with no driver anytime soon.
I think self driving cars can't work well in such a world that we are living in today. This technology is to advanced for this period and it doesn't fit our streets at least not in most of the countries. Maybe in the future, when everyone will use electric cars and the streets will be safer but right now I wouldn't get into such a car even if you pay me.
Interestingly if humans were forbidden from driving, you could get rid of traffic lights completely and reduce traffic delays A LOT.
Perhaps such a day will come when humans won't be allowed to drive on public roads...
Driver-less cars are almost here, of course Uber doesn't count, but there are far more serious efforts. Still that Uber fatality could have probably occurred to a human driver given the circumstances. No, there are far more serious efforts by Google (or Alphabet) and Tesla, and i think Volvo and others too.
There is a problem of interaction of AI and human pedestrians, but even that is being improved. Humans that follow the rules are not the problem, but its because humans can ignore the rules bad things happen. The AI needs to learn defensive driving as well as minimizing damage in unforeseen events. For the couple of unfortunate Uber deaths you can also watch a ton of youtube videos of Tesla saving their drivers from nearly impossible to avoid by a human driver crash situation. Machines react faster and sense better, don't get tired (or drunk) etc.
Give it more time and fatalities by car accidents are going to dwindle, ironically because of taking the humans away from the wheel (or what i think, no wheel/pedals, like the original Waymo concept).
And not too long later, the planes will do the same thing. Its taking longer, but we will see. More than pilots and drivers, there might be an operator at most, or even a single operator for various vehicles from a remote facility. No one will be able to hijack a plane again because there won't be any way to change its course internally, just like UAVs are remote controlled and AI assisted. Suicidal pilot/copilot in a commercial aircraft? Never again.
This is also happening to ships, those giant ships moving containers or tanker ships are going to drive themselves soon.
So yeah, count self-driving self-piloting among the technologies i'm following. AI is deeply related to it.
