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Just came across this idiotic quip by Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.:deadhorse
I am a petrol head, I dislike the various gizmos that are added to the cars that takes away the true pleasure of driving. Personally I will not dare to even think about the day when computers take over the wheels in our cars.

Source: Google CEO: Ridiculous that humans drive cars — Autoblog

IMHO that will be very safe transport,

But the pleasure of driving???? I believe there will be a manual override switch, or there is always a Jugaad.stupid:

Its ridiculous, I think so too. To err is human, and the way traffic moves when a human is in control is really inefficient and error and accident prone, better to automate such routine tasks such as driving to work/driving to pick up groceries and such errands. Traffic would become more efficient, more people would reach their destination faster and safer.
Differentiate the task of driving - driving for pleasure and driving for everything else. Driving for the sake of driving (i'll do it) and driving coz i have to do it (let the computer do it, with a manual over ride if necessary).

To each their own but driving an hour each way every day in chaotic traffic is anything but pleasurable. I would love to have an option where computer drives the car for me for commute and I get to drive the car (and hence get the pleasure) on open roads.

BTW, what is idiotic about this? He might have a different viewpoint than yours but that doesn't necessarily make his comments idiotic.

Exactly.

And I think its only a matter of time before driving becomes completely automated. Still want driving pleasure? You'll probably need to head down to a racetrack for that...

Well then it makes most sense to have high quality, comfortable, fast, efficient, well-planned out state-of-the-art public transportation systems instead of computers driving everyones cars.
The point of driving a car is pleasure (granted that's hard to find in chaotic peak hour traffic).
If it was just about getting from Point A to B in the manner that requires least effort on my part, I'd take a taxi.

Idiotic.... at your own peril my friend. Regular commute to office is hardly any fun doesnt really matter if your car can take turns at million miles per hour or has million horsepower.

My comments are based on the progress we have made in automated systems.

Aircrafts can easily be programmed to fly on their own, this technology was available decades ago. But why haven't we replaced the human pilots. Will you fly an Airline which has no human pilots?

Computers lacks the human touch, that is where the problem lies. There are so many factors that one has to consider while driving. Can you program all of these into a computer?

In a real world scenario how efficient will be a computer in driving a car in a city traffic. In a country like India, where there are more potholes than road, people crossing in the middle of the road, cows lying on the road, two wheelers cutting you across and many other situations, can a computer be made smart enough to accommodate for all these variables. Will a person really trust a computer driving his car?

As a concept I understand its ingenious, but from a practical point of view I do not think computers can replace humans. Some things are better left for humans to handle.

Google's CEO could certainly have chosen better words.

It's the age old humans vs AI debate. Depending on a person, driving is both pain and pleasure. Same way working is a pain as well as pleasure. I slog 8 hours on my laptop each day - sometimes I like it sometimes I don't. AI hasn't made much headway in the work space despite decades of effort and I don't see it making much headway on the roads as well.

IMO you can extend the reasoning to include other things as well - take cooking for example. It can sometimes be a pain for working women so will it be ok to say 'Ridiculous that humans cook'. You could say something like - there's scope in making cooking easier for people. By saying that a thing is 'ridiculous' Schmidt is himself taking an extreme position.

Well, not sure what to say, because, when Henry Ford invented an automobile people laughed at his invention saying "How could a carriage move without horses". But the same country has one of the highest number of cars running on the road. So I'm reserving my comments on this one.

But my question remains, but should a mishap occur, will the bot be arrested? Will the lawyer argue in the court on behalf of the bot? Even if he did, will the bot be taught to lie to comply with the lawyer's argument?

Frankly speaking, by the time the world (especially India) gets 100% automated transport. We'd all be long gone.

So i don't think we need to worry about it so much.

And as for the future generations, they will adapt to it as well as we did to cars.

Shan2nu

Earlier it was Microsoft's Bill Gates got into tiff with car industry with $25, 1000 miles per gallon quote and was battered by GM's response ---> Microsoft vs. GMlol:

Now its Google's Eric Schmidt's turn. Lets see the response of car industry :D

That's the future guys. Lexus already has a self parking car. Self driving car is only a matter of time. Even I feel ridiculous that human's drive cars. I am sure we will see these cars in our lifetime.

Ha ha. That was one hell of a reply:uncontrol

Coming back to topic, someone ask this guy to ride a bicycle. Or drive a car like the one Fred Flintstone drives:D

Most modern aircrafts fly with the help of computer and from what I know pilots take over during take-off/landing/turbulence.


This was an email-joke-fwd.

But I believe that computers would one day be able to take the driving-work off humans. The possibilities of creating a network of computers driving a whole traffic is immense. The cars can communicate to each other and achieve the optimized speeds and fuel efficiency. The cars can re-route themselves to alternate roads. The cars will find a parking space themselves. No valet parking!. :D