Memories from the early 2000s
Sep. 17th, 2012 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
techtalk When I was younger, about ten years old to be exact, I saw a movie called I, Robot. It was a movie about the future of the world, where humans utilize robots as “servants” aiding them in people’s everyday lives. A robot breaks one of the three robot laws, which every robot must follow and kills a human. The robot is later found to have a sort of consciousness. Anyway a favorite actor of mine stars in the film, Will Smith. In the middle of the movie he has this huge car chase where he is following a big truck filled with robots and the robot that killed the human is activating all the robots to attack Will Smith. Since Smith and the Robot carrier were traveling at such great speeds... and it was the future, his car was driving itself automatically. Smith goes into manual mode to better dodge incoming robots trying to stop him from chasing the robot carrier. The next day, Smith’s boss questions him as to why he switched his car into manual mode, pointing as to it was nowhere near as safe as having the on board computer drive. I thought that was the coolest thing ever, having a computer be better at something than a human. I thought it would be even cooler, if that sort of thing would be around in my lifetime.
Throughout the next couple of years of my life, technology had begun booming. The once popular Motorola Razor flip phone was now a thing of the past and touch screens were becoming the “norm”. I became more and more interested in gizmos and gadgets. I had watched a documentary surrounding a computer that had defeated the world’s best chess player. The computer was given knowledge of each of the world’s best players strategies and used those to surpass every move the human had challenged it with. I knew it was only a matter of time before all of those science fictions movies I loved became a reality. Sadly, no one had announced the driverless car yet, but I was sure it would be around soon enough. One day while browsing through random internet news sites, I saw it. It was like seeing that one present you had waited for all year under the Christmas tree. The company Google had been working on driverless cars. For over 300,000 miles the cars had successfully driven on public roads in Nevada without causing, or getting into a single accident. The article had stated that going that distance without a single accident was better than the average human driver. This was it, computers were becoming more reliable than human beings. Today, Google’s driverless car software and hardware is street legal in both Nevada and California.
There will no doubt be much controversy over having autonomous cars replacing human drivers. Although if California and Nevada provide positive results of them allowing autonomous cars on their streets, there is no doubt that eventually other states will allow them as well. Having autonomous cars could also solve the countless number of automobile related fatalities worldwide. How these cars function in California and Nevada will ultimately decide the fate of autonomous car usage in the United States. I have complete confidence in Google’s products, they would not release such technology without it being perfectly safe for human interaction. It is not no one is sitting in the driver seat. As in the movie I,Robot (humans will be able to take over the vehicle at any time) just incase something does actually go wrong. I hope when I am middle aged that autonomous vehicles will be rather common throughout the United States and that one could obtain such technology while still having the social status of middle class.
Throughout the next couple of years of my life, technology had begun booming. The once popular Motorola Razor flip phone was now a thing of the past and touch screens were becoming the “norm”. I became more and more interested in gizmos and gadgets. I had watched a documentary surrounding a computer that had defeated the world’s best chess player. The computer was given knowledge of each of the world’s best players strategies and used those to surpass every move the human had challenged it with. I knew it was only a matter of time before all of those science fictions movies I loved became a reality. Sadly, no one had announced the driverless car yet, but I was sure it would be around soon enough. One day while browsing through random internet news sites, I saw it. It was like seeing that one present you had waited for all year under the Christmas tree. The company Google had been working on driverless cars. For over 300,000 miles the cars had successfully driven on public roads in Nevada without causing, or getting into a single accident. The article had stated that going that distance without a single accident was better than the average human driver. This was it, computers were becoming more reliable than human beings. Today, Google’s driverless car software and hardware is street legal in both Nevada and California.
There will no doubt be much controversy over having autonomous cars replacing human drivers. Although if California and Nevada provide positive results of them allowing autonomous cars on their streets, there is no doubt that eventually other states will allow them as well. Having autonomous cars could also solve the countless number of automobile related fatalities worldwide. How these cars function in California and Nevada will ultimately decide the fate of autonomous car usage in the United States. I have complete confidence in Google’s products, they would not release such technology without it being perfectly safe for human interaction. It is not no one is sitting in the driver seat. As in the movie I,Robot (humans will be able to take over the vehicle at any time) just incase something does actually go wrong. I hope when I am middle aged that autonomous vehicles will be rather common throughout the United States and that one could obtain such technology while still having the social status of middle class.
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Date: 2012-09-19 04:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-19 05:34 pm (UTC)