On a recent trip, with my car in cruise control, I noticed something interesting: if the car in front of me slowed down, my car would slow down along with it. Apparently it’s equipped with proximity sensors in the front and back, which serve to protect against lazy drivers who hit cruise control and then start reading email on their iPhones while zooming down the highway. (Not me!) Which is great, but I couldn’t help but imagine the obvious next step: once you have cruise control and the ability to adjust to the speed of traffic, not to mention cars that park themselves, you are most of the way to self-driving cars.
You will be unsurprised to learn that I’m not the first to think of this. Tim Lee has written an interesting introduction to the state of the art, as well as speculations on what the effect of automatic driving would have on urban cityscapes. (Via Yglesias.) A big one: parking is incredibly resource-intensive, but if your car can drive away and wait for you at some central location, vast stretches of land can be returned to human uses rather than automotive uses.
Will we have self-driving cars within the next few decades? I don’t think it’s such a leap, given what technology is already available — and that technology can be confined to the cars themselves, there is no need to put rails down or any such thing. There is even a sensible phase-in strategy, where we convert present-day carpool lanes into automated-driving lanes. But Atrios is skeptical:
I think self-driving cars are going to be here some time after flying cars, my jetpack, and Glenn Reynolds’ sexbots, but this little thought experiment is useful for highlighting that while we talk about highways and roads and whatnot, the biggest problem with cars generally is parking. They take up space. Lots of it. That space reduces density most places, and reduces the benefits of density in places where it exists.
Concerning flying cars and jetpacks, I’m likewise pessimistic (at least sometimes). But those sexbots are on the way. And they’ll be arriving in self-driving cars.
Well, we already have Self-Driving Laptops. What are they waiting for…? 😉
definitely not. too much security problems. ask yourself why people are afraid of flying but not of driving? one reason is because they want to be in control.
I don’t think your cruise control is meant to protect against lazy drivers. It is very frustrating when your cruise control is set to 70 and the car in front of you drives somewhere between 69 and 70. This usually happens when the speed limit is 65 and each car is trying to drive 5 over the limit. I often wished for automatic sensing in my cruise control at such times, which occur too frequently for me to bother even using cruise control, especially during long road trips.
Given how many more Americans die in car crashes than from, say, terrorist attacks, isn’t this something we should be devoting more of our resources to pursuing? (I’m presuming, of course, that automated driving would be safer than what we do now.) About 42,000 Americans die every year in car crashes — that’s 14 September 11th’s per year.
Sexbots.
I want a sexbot.
I don’t care about flying cars or anything else.
Cruise control is a great thing. Mine is accurate enough I can thumb it up or down 1mph at a time. If every car were on cruise, we could have much better “packing” at high density traffic flows. Stop & Go waves begin with small decelerations that are amplified into wavelike behavior ( from particulate cars! Some cool simulations have been done ) and they’d go away.
Sexbots? Ewwwwww. Not even if it gets me into the carpool lane.
Here’s your flying car maker…
as soon as we have cars that can drive themselves, there will be a virus written that will hijack control of your car and take you to the nearest fast food drive thru. of course, the corporations will deny they had anything to do with it.
I can just imagine the early models of the sexbot going horribly wrong. Think of Robocop, but more… intimate.
I really don’t think this is too far off.
I can actually imagine a time 40-50 years from now where it might actually be illegal to drive manually in certain areas. There are so many potential benefits to letting cars, with optical and communications systems that are constantly talking to each other and course-adjusting, do the driving instead since a human being will never be as conscious of the traffic conditions as a car communicating with a grid would be.
I reckon they will be standard in Asia 10 years from now, common in Europe in 15, and outlawed in America.
Some remote mines are starting to use pilotless construction machinery, and the benefits in terms of mechanical wear and tear are astounding.
Lemming,
Are you referring to the self driving cars or the sexbots?
e.
Wow a whole generation of new jokes.
…a man walks into a bar with a sexbot on each arm….
e.
The Japanese version of the Prius will automatically parallel-park.
*or*?
On the flying car thing, you might be interested in my brother-in-law’s startup, terrafugia.com
Great, in 15 years now, girlfriends/boyfriends will be obsolete.
/can’t wait.
e.,
McCain walks into a bar with an earmarked sexbot glued on to each ear. The bartender whispers, “Hey, your wife is here…” McCain screams, “SORRY, CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
:/
(Those who want to kill me can do so in the cafeteria on Mondays to Thursdays after 4.30 p.m., except Wednesdays when I do yoga)
lemming,
can’t wait to hear about the astounding benefits of the sexbots on “mechanical wear and tear”.
e.
I actually like driving. I like getting out on a curvy road in the mountains and really driving the vehicle. Riding a motorcycle is even better.
I am not some luddite, but I actually find this idea a bit distasteful. I don’t want a computer doing every last thing for me. And we are going to be so lame we can’t even park a car? A computer has to do it for us?
One area where this could benefit though, is drunk people could have their own cars take them home on autopilot.
WOW envisioning a future where it would be illegal to manually drive cars. Aren’t there too many laws already? I think so many laws have been made that we really don’t have “freedom” in the United States anymore. My stupid mayor controls when I can water my lawn, what my dog food bowls have to be made out of, and an endless litany of other ridiculous minute controls over daily life. Is that why the west was won so government bureaucrats could tell us when to water our lawns? Instead of making it illegal to drive cars in certain areas, I think they should cut down on the number of traffic lights in cities so that traffic would move more smoothly. I know governments often mean well (reducing water use in the desert say) but there is way too much government control already. Its very easy to make new laws and city ordinances. Pretty soon you will have to ask the government permission to leave the house.
How is having your car drive away and wait for you at a “central location” going to reduce land devoted to cars? Is the central location your house? What good would that be? So I’d have to sit there wherever I was and wait for my self-driving car to come and pick me up. Seems kind of self-defeating. Why not take a bus instead?
What other central location did you have in mind? A parking lot for automated cars? Assuming the same number of people would be on the road won’t the same amount of space be required for all those waiting cars for people at the mall? Here is a better suggestion: population control. If there were fewer people, a lot of “issues” would go away.
When highly sophisticated sexbots become a reality, either of the following will happen:
1) Laws will be passed to make them illegal.
2) Men will become sexually liberated.
Cars will hopefully be replaced by public transport, and therefore cities will once again be designed for people.
A mature technology already exists that allows your car to drive away and wait for you at some central location.
It’s called Public Transportation System.
Okay, a subway train (or even a taxi) is not exactly “your car”, but when you live in urban area, in a planet with huge carbon oxide problems, you have to make some compromise. It’s a shame that many governments will rather invest on building more roads for 1-driver-no-passenger cars, instead of building a better public transportation service.
Oh, oh, of course, I meant carbon dioxide. How embarrassing… 🙁
(Carefully checks spelling again…)