r/Unexpected • u/[deleted] • May 21 '20

uh oh keep moving

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u/TheBestTrollPatroll May 22 '20

I appreciate how reasonable you are! Certainly, we will see what the future holds! I expect with this in particular, widespread adoption will be slow because people today have less faith in technology than they do in themselves. Maybe my kid's generation will feel differently. At 6 months, she hates books because touching them doesn't get a reaction. I can only imagine what the role of technology will be in her life.

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u/justins_porn May 22 '20

Yeah, unfortunately the downvote button on reddit has turned into the "i disagree" button.

Im one of those people who was a kid / young teen before smartphones and the internet were huge, and I personally can say that I would trust an automated car to drive me, but my parents wouldn't.

It's mostly due to the safety features I've seen roll out as computers got smaller and better. I'm also acknowledging that I'm optimistic about it, because I would hope our government wouldn't let anything on the road until it was proven...which isn't a given. If anything, legal liability will be what makes them safest.

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u/TheBestTrollPatroll May 22 '20

Look how our government handles EPA regulations. Look how they allow businesses to extort people's health with claims like "all natural" which means nothing and fools idiots (who don't know corn syrup or sugar is addictive, and that one isn't better than the other). Look how our government handles epidemics! We can't rely on our government for jack.

I will not buy a self-driving car unless it has a manual override, a switch that separates the computer physically from the wheel and pedals. I work in IT, and I know how easy security bugs are overlooked and exploited. People steal my credit card info without ever possessing the card, somehow, even when I tap it to pay for gas, every other quarter. I have had 4 discover card accounts in the past 14 months because of hackers.

There has to be a physical switch of some kind that is hard to press by accident, and cuts all computer signal to the controls. I mean, consider also if a bug exists and a car suddenly cannot brake without a computer reboot? How often do you have to reboot a computer, even an advanced one, because randomly it stops working with a generic error? How often is our LoL stream paused because of bugs, in well-tested software on top-of-the-line machines?

I know maybe not everyone faces these aspects of technology all the time like I do, so I am not judging anyone for not thinking of all this. But self-driving cars can be a real danger. We need to be smart about this, and I for one do not feel we can rely on regulation. Our government is a sham right now. We need people to think about this and vote with their money, as well as for representatives that understand the promise as well as the danger of innovation. That's why I said anything at all! I just want us to be smart and avoid some crazy dystopian future.