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Apple Watch not the SciFi future I was hoping for
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I think Aaron's conception is a bit more realistic. As for the "Internet of things", that is one field I am avoiding like the plague. I prefer my things to be dumb, docile, and disconnected. I prefer to fix rather than replace, too, and will pay more for a product that can be disassembled and ones built with higher quality control or longevity-designed parts.
Kenneth wrote: "As for the "Internet of things", that is one field I am avoiding like the plague. I prefer my things to be dumb, docile, and disconnected. "Agreed.
We've gotten into the habit of looking for the most disconnected items for purchase.
No, I do not want my fridge (stove/dishwasher) connected to the net. No, I do not want my thermostat to "learn my habits" and NO. My TV does NOT need to listen to me speak. My remote works perfectly well.
See I want my thermostat to learn my habits and adjust for me I don't mind my computer/tv listening to me speak...what I don't want is this data going anywhere else and I don't want anyone controlling my thermostat. It's cool it's smart and knows my habits what wouldn't be cool is the government going electricity is too important beep boop and turns off my A/C because it knows better then I do.Micah wrote: "Aaron wrote: "I for one cannot wait until I can just set my car to drive me on my commute to work which might be a 50-60 minute commute because I can just hook up my PS5 to my oculus rift and playi..."
No I'm seeing this occurring that soon...2025 by the latest. Ocular implants will not be till like 2030-35 for the non-disabled come on man. Plus oculus rift or whoever leads the pack will totally be a smartlens or in some form we aren't thinking of right now. Plus this will be the PS5 slim+ and the PS6 will be out but it will have no games. Also sending video from the cloud to play games is highly inefficient and unlike though cables ground we have very limited bandwidth to transfer data though space, so perhaps with a very advance node network locally communicating with your device over a very short range but certainly not with anything like our current infrastructure and it seems too expensive for the benefits compared to the simple solution of building the video locally. Plus it introduces lots of unnecessary lag factors that would be annoying even assuming perfect transfer rates. Maybe eventually but I feel like that falls under the not economically smart category, kind of like flying cars.
Aaron wrote: "See I want my thermostat to learn my habits and adjust for me I don't mind my computer/tv listening to me speak...what I don't want is this data going anywhere else and I don't want anyone controlling my thermostat. It's cool it's smart and knows my habits what wouldn't be cool is the government going electricity is too important beep boop and turns off my A/C because it knows better then I do."But do you really believe that Google is going to let you put their smart thermostat in your home without having access to the data?
Do you believe that Samsung is going to stop keeping all data?
I don't trust Big Brother and I damn sure don't trust Big Business.
I don't think they'd turn your A/C off. They'd probably not spy on you in the shower either.It's worse than that. They'd collect massive amounts of data on all of your habits, quirks, preferences, routines, and interests. They'd use this data to market themselves to you in more receptive, pliable ways that you'd find appealing and would not be able to resist. They'd also use the information to make your private life very public should you deign to buck the system. And by "system" I don't mean some clandestine draconian sect, I mean individual people on different tacks, each with their own private power trip and their own private goals and means.
And it's not really the future. They're already doing it, and social media is providing them with a jackpot they could never have dreamed of finding.
I wouldn't necessarily rule out the government adjusting thermostats during a heatwave. They already do that in a ham-handed way by employing rolling brownouts, which targets entire areas in a city. This saves the over-taxed grid from failing entirely. Probably easier to simply adjust people's thermostats slightly.That said, once we get genuinely usable solar cells and batteries, we can have our cake and eat it, too, by having smart homes which are also disconnected from the grid.
Then we'll have homes taking care of themselves after the apocalypse, as in Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains."
It's linked to their iPhone.As a company I can see why they did that. As a consumer I think it's ridiculous.
I'm a consumer. =)
This popped up today on one of the blogs I follow, although it's from January: How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The Economy by 2025.Interesting factoids:
"Both Google and Tesla predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination” – will be available to the public by 2020."
"And current research confirms that we would be eager to use autonomous cars if they were available. A full 60% of US adults surveyed stated that they would ride in an autonomous car, and nearly 32% said they would not continue to drive once an autonomous car was available instead."
I think an iCar (which you know that is what they'll call it) will sell like hotcakes.
Trike wrote: "This popped up today on one of the blogs I follow..."Ray Kurzweil agrees. But he goes even further:
"By the 2020s, most diseases will go away as nanobots become smarter than current medical technology. Normal human eating can be replaced by nanosystems. The Turing test begins to be passable. Self-driving cars begin to take over the roads, and people won’t be allowed to drive on highways."
But then I think Kurzweil's predictions are largely a bunch of hooey. Automated cars by 2020? Sure. But most diseases will go away? Uh...yeah, Ray, you really don't know much about biology, do you?
Diseases going away is a real utopian idea. I don't put any stock in that. Autonomous cars? Maybe. But they won't replace the whole infrastructure all at once. There's too much inertia, too much investment for it to just flip like a switch.
Kenneth wrote: "Diseases going away is a real utopian idea. I don't put any stock in that. Autonomous cars? Maybe. But they won't replace the whole infrastructure all at once. There's too much inertia, too much in..."It's happened before, though. The switch from public transit and horses to cars in the first place, for instance. Or the adoption of personal computers. We didn't even really need them back then and they weren't actually good for anything, we just wanted them. I got my first computer almost 30 years ago and looking back I don't even know why I did that.
Autos -- specifically electric autos -- will be like cell phones. There will be resistance at first and they will be mocked, but as soon as they become good enough and cheap enough, people will see their obvious benefits and adopt them wholesale. We went from almost no one having cell phones to everyone having them in less than 10 years. Now you can barely find a pay phone anywhere in America, something that would have been completely unbelievable to people in the late 90s. When I was in Australia a couple years ago, all the American tourists were taking pictures of the payphones. We went from having more than 2.5 million payphones in 2000 to fewer than 200k today.
I agree inertia is a huge factor, but when something better comes along people jump on it.
These photos represent the abandonment of gigantic industries in under a decade. I think the turnover from cars to autos will result in similar photos sooner rather than later.
Micah wrote: "By the 2020s, most diseases will go away as nanobots become smarter than current medical technology. Normal human eating can be replaced by nanosystems. The Turing test begins to be passable. Self-driving cars begin to take over the roads, and people won’t be allowed to drive on highways.""Hey they already had a Turing test that made people think the computer was an annoying 12 year old on the internet.
It didn't happen overnight, Trike.And the public transit changes were orchestrated by GM and other rising stars, who bought out and then decommissioned trolly systems as a means to force the public to buy cars.
Cellular phones took at least 20 years to get to the point they're at now. The initial run was clunky, ungainly, and unreliable. People recognized the benefit and the direction the technology was going, but it was not quite there.
None of these changes are as severe as overhauling the entire interstate system and all public roads. I think it will happen, but not overnight. It'll take several decades at least.
Personally I don't see the interstate system and public roads just going away for a long long time, that's why we don't have self driving cars already is they have to be made to work in the current system, we don't have the luxury/problem of building from scratch.
Trike wrote: "Both Google and Tesla predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination” – will be available to the public by 2020."5 years? LOL. I don't see it happening. Maybe not even 50 years. The world marches at a different pace than corporations, especially when it deals with massive infrastructure changes.
People like to feel in control of their actions. Smart phones and smart technologies give people power over their environment, access to knowledge at a moments notice, and a way to switch off or be taken out of the moment. I don't think driverless cars will take off quickly because they do the opposite - you have to relinquish control and trust a machine with your life. True, people fly by the million, but Pilots are amongst the most respected of professions ( even though probably a lot of what they do is now automated). I don't think people would be so keen to get on a plane with no pilot, and I think the same will be true of cars - at least for another 50 years or so.
Neal wrote: "Trike wrote: "Both Google and Tesla predict that fully-autonomous cars – what Musk describes as “true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your de..."They are talking about in the current infrastructure. The main hold up is going to be stigmatism against it because it's scary and government regulation in reaction to those fears. Also by 2020 it might exist but it will be really expensive, and have annoying limitations it would take another 5 years to trickle down into the consumer market and away from the look at my cool toy market.
Sam wrote: "People like to feel in control of their actions..."I think that's a good point. At least in America there's a huge status/identity/machismo thing attached to owning a car (at least there is in the mainstream, sports-fanatic, gotta-have-a-big-Fing-truck population).
I know people vehemently opposed to electric cars because....they don't go VROOOOOM! VROOOOOOM! Seriously. I'm not joking.
Driverless cars will be seen as emasculating tech by many Americans. "No way. No f-ing way, man!" they want to put the pedal to the metal and let 'er rip.
Plus, as Aaron pointed out, there will be objection from the "Danged GUBBERMINT takin' over my right to drive!" crowd. I can see it being used as a wedge issue: libruls wanna take your car...AND YER GUN (vote for us).
Aaron wrote: "They are talking about in the current infrastructure..."Yeah all the actual driverless cars I've seen are going for the no-infrastructure-upgrade-needed approach.
Once they get this tech all straightend out and running smoothly, we can get our flying cars at last. Those will have to be auto-piloted. ;D
Trike wrote: "It's happened before, though. The switch from public transit and horses to cars in the first place, for instance..."That transition actually took a good amount of time, and was in fact accelerated by necessity. The first international urban planning conference was held in New York City in 1989. The major topic of that conference was: horse manure. Cities were drowning in it. Horse pollution was a major problem. The 19th century was a horse based economy and standards of living were going up by the later part of the century...Ergo: more horses were bought.
Two years later, there were only like 4,000 something automobiles sold in the US. It wasn't until 12 years later that automobiles outnumbered horses in New York City. And even then it wasn't until the 1920s that motorized trucks replaced horses for hauling freight. So it actually took over 20 years even when there was a huge need for the technology to be adopted.
Now? There's no real pressing need. Autopiloted cars will be safer and save a lot of lives, and they will be greener, as their systems can be run more efficiently. But they're not going to save us from a crisis. Not, at least, unless they all are run on sustainable, non-polluting fuels.
The move to driverless cars will come because at last we will soon be able to do it. And there are some clear advantages. But it'll take longer due mainly to our love affair with people-driven, dangerous machines (and probably legal issues and some pushback from vested interests).
Well the people that were protesting AI this weekend were a bunch of lefties. The left has been the ones historically against new technology not the right. So the correct line would be the companies want to control everything your doing and know everything your doing in order to conspiracy. Though in reality I think it will mostly just be fear of something new and there isn't really a large industry I can see that's going to go poof because of AI cars so I don't really see any threat of Union power trying to stop it, and I don't see any massive loss for the companies heck I see only things to gain. Basically I see gains all around except in the taxi industry so there isn't really any $$$$$$ against it. I see no religious objections. As far as my children aren't safe everyone knows people who have died in car accidents and sees them all the time, imagine a world where those are rare.If you meant many members of the right will be against the government banning the driving of cars and forcing everyone to use AI controlled cars. Then yes I would tend to agree.
I guess thinking about it, it's possible it gets tied to anti-AI as a whole which AI will be basically removing a large large portion of low skill jobs over the next 20ish years.
Micah wrote: "Aaron wrote: "They are talking about in the current infrastructure..."
Yeah all the actual driverless cars I've seen are going for the no-infrastructure-upgrade-needed approach.
Once they get thi..."
The problem with flying cars is how effective wheels are, until energy costs are basically gone, flying cars will remain nonviable because physics says so.
Maybe automated cars will one day take over in cities, but I see real problems with automated cars in rural settings. How would a rancher try to follow or track a lost head of cattle in his 'automated' pickup? How will a romantic couple program their automated car to go on a scenic trip in the countryside? How would a prospector get his SUV to wander a deserted landscape while looking for promising deposits? How could a team of rescuers drive around while searching for survivors of a disappeared plane if they don't have a coordinate to enter in their 'automated' vehicle? Automated vehicles will have zero value in cases when you don't have precise departure and arrival points to enter in your car's computer.
Predicting the demise of the manually-piloted car is as short-sighted as when many predicted the disappearance of the main battle tank because of the advent of the anti-tank missile, or when some said that fighters were not needed now that we had surface-to-air missiles, or (now) that drones will replace combat aircraft. Technology is fine, but it can't and won't ever replace completely the human factor. Part of the appeal of driving is, well, driving! Would you go watch a car race where the cars are automated?
What I think is a lot more realistic and desirable to expect is better mass transit systems (faster, more convenient, less polluting, denser networks) and more advanced medical treatments, especially against currently incurable diseases.
Predicting the demise of the manually-piloted car is as short-sighted as when many predicted the disappearance of the main battle tank because of the advent of the anti-tank missile, or when some said that fighters were not needed now that we had surface-to-air missiles, or (now) that drones will replace combat aircraft. Technology is fine, but it can't and won't ever replace completely the human factor. Part of the appeal of driving is, well, driving! Would you go watch a car race where the cars are automated?
What I think is a lot more realistic and desirable to expect is better mass transit systems (faster, more convenient, less polluting, denser networks) and more advanced medical treatments, especially against currently incurable diseases.
My guess is you would pinpoint where you want to go on a map and the vehicle would make the decision as to whether it was accessible or not, as well as just being able to draw a route that you know of on a map on a tablet with a stylus.Tell it where to go on google maps and it goes there with options for alternative routes.
But its not like the radio will replace the newspaper or anything.
Aaron wrote: "Well the people that were protesting AI this weekend were a bunch of lefties. The left has been the ones historically against new technology not the right..."If you mean the anti-AI protest at SXSW, there were only about 24 people involved in it. That's hardly representative of any demographic.
Different technologies are and have been opposed by all stripes of politics. Conservatives groups currently are opposed to alternative energy technologies, ostensibly because they believe global climate change is a hoax, but really because it threatens the profits of big oil (a major source of political money here in the US). Liberal groups are currently opposed to GMOs because of fear that profits will be put before public safety, despite the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community that GMOs are safe.
As to who would oppose driverless cars, I think we only have to look at who opposed mandatory seat belt and airbag laws.
For starters, car companies opposed those. They argued that these were excessive mandates because of the cost, while arguing that the benefit would not be that great.
Autonomous cars would be far more expensive and the scare mongering about their reliability and safety would be much more convincing.
Others who opposed seat belts and air bags did so on "infringement of personal freedom" grounds. I'm sure autonomous cars will get much more of that.
On top of those I'm sure you'll get the car enthusiast crowd up in arms because every road rage aggressive driver out there is convinced they are the only person who really knows how to drive and the highway is their personal speedway. Take that control away from them and they'll go ballistic.
And, of course, there's the mandate thing. If laws start requiring autonomous driving be mandatory on all new cars, we'll get the ideological government mandate argument all over again. I mean if people are going to argue that when it comes to health care coverage, they'll argue it on anything.
Michel wrote: "How would a rancher try to follow or track a lost head of cattle in his 'automated' pickup..."Why would they need to? Animal Identification RFID tags are already available: http://www.hidglobal.com/products/rfi...
So the rancher just has to send up his personal drone squad, which have search pattern algorithms built into them along with high res satellite topographical maps. They fly off, find the cattle and wire the data back to the rancher. If his automated pickup needs to take him there, then he has the coordinates and the truck drives him there.
Michel wrote: "How will a romantic couple program their automated car to go on a scenic trip in the countryside?"
Even easier. You get in the car and tell it to take you down such-and-such a road. When you want to deviate and go off somewhere you don't know, you tell it "take the next left..."
Or more likely, you just download other people's "Romantic countryside drives" travel plan from the internet, just like you would a "Romantic '80's Pop" playlist.
Michel wrote: "How would a prospector get his SUV to wander a deserted landscape while looking for promising deposits?"
Google Earth is already everywhere. He just draws his route on the app and his SUV follows it, using built-in AI to find the best routes around, up, and down really bad terrain (while adjusting shocks and tire pressure to match the terrain).
Michel wrote: "How could a team of rescuers drive around while searching for survivors of a disappeared plane if they don't have a coordinate to enter in their 'automated' vehicle? Automated vehicles will have zero value in cases when you don't have precise departure and arrival points to enter in your car's computer."
Again, behold the power of drones and big map data. Drones could do much of that work w/out blundering around in a land vehicle. Once they spot areas that need a close examination by people, the coordinates and current terrain goes back to the crew/vehicle and Bob's your Uncle. Autonomous vehicles won't exist in a vacuum. AI, robotics, drones, projects like Google Earth/Street View (vastly improved), and massive computer processing will open whole new capabilities.
I am sorry, Micah, but I am not convinced, nor impressed. I write SF, so I certainly don't lack vision, but I do not believe in technology for technology's sake. The examples I used would need in the case of an autonomous vehicle a set of sophisticated, high-definition sensors linked to a quasi-AI computer, something that will add very significantly to the vehicle's cost. Also, any glitch, failure or hacked network computer could immobilize whole cities or blackout large areas, making your sophisticated central network useless for minutes, hours or days. Your network of AI, drones, public view cameras and centralized control computers would also be like a godsend to anyone able and willing to hack it to take control of it in order to further whatever their interests are. Just look at what a group like ANONYMOUS can do today.
Let's stop looking at this through rose-colored glasses. What we need are things like better mass transit systems, not millions of new cars that would cost at least double the prices we have today. You want to make vehicle traffic safer? Then add simple safety features, like a speed control system that would prevent a non-emergency vehicle from going above the posted speed limit. Technology is fine, but keep it under the control of individual users.
Let's stop looking at this through rose-colored glasses. What we need are things like better mass transit systems, not millions of new cars that would cost at least double the prices we have today. You want to make vehicle traffic safer? Then add simple safety features, like a speed control system that would prevent a non-emergency vehicle from going above the posted speed limit. Technology is fine, but keep it under the control of individual users.
Micah wrote: "Driverless cars will be seen as emasculating tech by many Americans. "No way. No f-ing way, man!" they want to put the pedal to the metal and let 'er rip.Plus, as Aaron pointed out, there will be objection from the "Danged GUBBERMINT takin' over my right to drive!" crowd. I can see it being used as a wedge issue: libruls wanna take your car...AND YER GUN (vote for us). "
I actually addressed this in my post above.
We heard the exact same things about hybrids. Hybrids were the butt of jokes by every comedian. There were false things being said about hybrids, claiming they were MORE damaging to the environment then a regular car. Then it turned out the people making those false accusations were part of a disinformation campaign by the oil companies. People would joke about the liberals in Hollywood and treehuggers buying their little toy cars.
When was the last time you heard a comedian on any national stage make a joke about a Prius? About 5 years ago, right? Which was just about a decade after they were introduced.
Hybrids are all over the place. Every car company has two or three hybrids in its line-up and so many people have bought them and are singing their praises that they've gone mainstream. Heck, even Ferrari is making hybrids now, and Acura's next NSX will be a full-on hybrid supercar.
Have hybrids completely replaced regular cars? Nope. But no one is joking about them.
Same thing with trolley cars and cell phones. It's the exact same pattern, over and over and over again.
Autos already exist. The entire suite of technology already exists. VW/Audi, Mercedes, Toyota, GM... they already have autos. Even Google has them. They've been quietly driving around America, Europe and Asia for better than 15 years now. They're going to be introduced soon.
...and we'll hear the exact same jokes and complaints we heard about cell phones, about hybrids, about everything. And then everyone will calm down and we'll get over it. 20-25 years from now there will be roads set aside for people to drive their own antique cars, which will have to be either specially licensed to operate on public roads or have automated systems installed so you can use them when not on the track.
And we'll look back the same way I do now to 30 years ago and have a hard time imagining life without a ubiquitous Internet or cell phone in my pocket.
Michel wrote: "Maybe automated cars will one day take over in cities, but I see real problems with automated cars in rural settings. How would a rancher try to follow or track a lost head of cattle in his 'autom..."In large part farms and ranches are, watch out for the pun, driving the development of autonomous vehicles and robots. They're having a hard time hiring people to do the thankless and often dangerous jobs farming requires, so they want robotic replacements. Plus, robots don't get tired or distracted.
One of the very first challenges DARPA set before robot cars was to navigate across unmarked terrain in the Mojave desert. The initial belief was that it would take participating teams about 10-15 years to solve the problem. They did it in 3. Turns out parking lots are much more difficult for autos to traverse than trackless open spaces.
DARPA did this to create military autos for supply lines, of course, but it's pushing the whole industry forward, and farmers are eager to get in on this since good help is hard to find.
Certainly rural states will be slower to adopt this tech, but it will happen eventually everywhere. Milking robots are already taking over the jobs of regular milking machines operated by hand, just as combines took over from threshers which took over from horse-drawn apparatus.
The early Hybrids were more damaging then they were worth, batteries are hellishly bad for the environment, and they were really crappy in the earlier hybrids because well they were the earlier hybrids but it's not like many of the early hybrids even existed because they were obnoxiously expensive and had many problems, much like the early self driving cars.Also if you would note the right is against green energy when it's funded by the government...and loud wind turbines. While the left is for the government blocking Nuclear/Fossil Fuel(fracking/pipeline currently) power.
Also hybrids have remained a choice, not a mandate. If that ends up being the case for autonimous vechicles, then forget what I was saying earlier because there wouldn't be much resistence to them on the basis of cost or freedom of choice issues. The consumer would choose whether to pay the additional amount.And hybrids might be everywhere, but SUVs are still the best selling vehicles in the US.
Michel wrote: "I am sorry, Micah, but I am not convinced, nor impressed. I write SF, so I certainly don't lack vision, but I do not believe in technology for technology's sake. The examples I used would need in the case of an autonomous vehicle a set of sophisticated, high-definition sensors linked to a quasi-AI computer, something that will add very significantly to the vehicle's cost..."Well, first of all, I'm not selling anything. I'm not advocating. I'm not trying to get anyone to bow down before the great AI overlords to come. I'm only stating what I see as possible.
And the scenarios you gave are really not all that difficult for near-future tech to overcome. Autonomously piloted drones have already been designed using the computing power of off-the shelf smartphones, coupled with detailed maps stored in their memory. No super AI needed, no high tech sensors.
The tech I talked about is all largely here already, it just takes someone putting it together and interfacing it with an autonomously piloted vehicle. And, as I've said above, I don't see manual controls going away. If there's a glitch in the system, your hypotheical lovers off on a romantic drive (seriously, that one's a complete no brainer) will just have to activate manual control and find their way back home the old fashioned way.
Could they be hacked? Sure. But so could our power grid--right now. So can most cars--right now. So will the refrigerator you'll own that will be internet-ready.
I'm not advocating this tech, but it's coming. And as a SF writer, you should be able to see that if anything, it's all great fodder for stories. You don't need to predict the automobile, you need to predict the traffic jam, as a great man once said.
Internet of things, baby.