Law commission 13th programme of law reform seems to hint at testing happening here in the near future.

Good or bad?

Soon we won't need people at all. Not quite sure what the point of making everything automated is. I was talking to a very eminent academic this week who was telling me that the way that news is now mostly consumed online in snippet form is starting to affect the way people can process longer pieces of writing and that if we carry on like this then the brains of children will start to develop differently. Driving is an activity requiring physical and mental coordination. I wonder what will happen to our brains if we outsource that to machines as well. What are we aiming at? Becoming fat monsters who sit in front of screens all day eating because there is nothing else to do?

I think social media is generally pernicious too and feel we lose something by moving the bulk of our social interactions to the online world. The very essence of humanity will be changed if we are not careful. Whereas in the past the Church would have acted as a scrutiniser of this type of things, there is no brake now and we are all urged to embrace progress and are portrayed as curmudgeonly if we don't. Personally I think we have already lost a lot in terms of humanity, and the epidemic of loneliness in our society is testament to that. I can see that automated cars might be good for some severely disabled people, but the thought of being in one myself leaves me feeling very uneasy.

Yep, me too. I ponder on both the safety and sociological impact of dispensing with drivers.

The mix of real and virtual road users seems particularly difficult to engineer safely.

I suspect that the Law Commission 13th Programme of Law reform is highly influenced by particular companies rather than a balanced view of whether being involved in the forefront of testing etc is a good idea. I am not quite sure what to make of the "automated cars" project which was due to start last month. Anyone have any news on it?

*Puts Pringles away*

*Logs off*

I entirely agree with Amber, but I can see advantages for the disabled & elderly. Besides which, I like driving!

I am massively excited about autonomous vehicles. It will however have a huge impact on our society. There will no longer be a requirement to own cars since they should be running all of the time and that is a big shift, car ownership is so often tied up in ego.

It will reduce traffic on the roads, but what impact on mass transport?
It will improve safety (when it is working fully), will children be able to travel in their own vehicles? Will drink / driving no longer be a thing?

Energy consumption is one of the biggest challenges to overcome, peak consumption when they are charging might mean we have to consider our overall energy usage. It may mean traditional working arrangements change.

It is so much more than it first seems and whilst I am not sure it will have a major impact on my generation it will definitely change the lives completely of my grandchildren.

Whilst I understand the POV, it is coming and just like the automobile at the dawn of the 20th century it is another step change in our society.

I'm not sure why the rush to driverless cars anyway when pilotless planes would be infinitely easier to achieve. Anyone care to speculate why there's so little enthusiasm for those from Google et al? I suspect they just think they can make (more) huge piles of cash out of a much less regulated (hence easier to insert thin end of wedge into) industry.

Suggestions that we'll somehow need fewer cars when they're driverless are pretty much failing to look at how human society operates. We'll all still need them to get to work, and 95% of them will still be sitting idle once we've got there.

Post of the year so far anotherdad

_________________
mad?

I don't know, he's got some stiff competition from some of his own posts

I'd appreciate it if you would unpack all the plus points a bit more -- it's hard to grasp what is being aimed at and why it would be so much better without drivers in the future.

And can a mix of driverless cars and driver- operated cars work on our roads as we know them now? I would be very interested to see the real analysis of what happened in the Arizona accident for example --- supposedly she just leapt out immediately in front of the car and there was no evidence of braking at all either. But there was a driver. Something doesn't add up in the reporting but no hope really of a layperson ever seeing the real detail.