It might look like a confusing mess of numbers and images but the Tesla autopilot also closely resembles the readout from a Terminator movie when you really think about it since the computer is taking in just about everything that it’s been programmed to notice. There are plenty of variables that it doesn’t notice however as it does feel as though it might be information overload if it was designed to be that sensitive. When giving thought to how many variables would need to be accounted for when trying to factor in the landscape, the possibilities that could happen in the instance of driver error, and many other issues that occur, it’s kind of likely that the program would crash entirely since it would be too much to take in. But just driving down the road it feels as though one might be sitting inside an AI that might be on a seek and destroy mission as it analyzes everything within its immediate scope and thereby determines what actions to take. Is anyone else starting to get just a little worried about the technology that our species is continuing to create? Many would likely say no since we’re still in control and it’s hard to argue with that, but given that the advancements in AI are still headed forward it’s kind of hard to think that one day we’ll have forgotten what it’s like to live without these many technological wonders.
In a way we already have since cell phones and other gadgets have become such an integral part of our lives. In fact computers, such as the one you require to read this article at the moment, were at one time far larger, less complicated, and couldn’t even run a simple video game, much less be designed to fit into a car and be used to engage the autopilot, something that was unheard of decades ago. What we have now amounts to the kind of science fiction that our parents and grandparents used to read about, machines that can do things that were only imagined back in the day and were thought to be things of the future that were unattainable at those times. Now that we have them though a lot of what we see is still hard to believe since it’s gone way beyond what we would have expected to be possible just a couple of decades ago. Of course some people would state that they were expecting flying cars by now, though it would appear that this is something that might on the drawing board as well, even if it hasn’t been realized yet.
Those wishing for a return to a simpler time are often those that see the new technology as something that’s not necessarily needed but difficult if not impossible to stop. It’s very true at one point that humanity tended to go at a different and much more relaxed pace, but it’s also true that the world was a very different place back in those days and there were less of us to satisfy and more open space to simply enjoy. These days the technology has to keep moving forward to satisfy the masses, and it’s doing so in a big way as more and more technological marvels tend to come out every year. When it comes to cars that can drive themselves however it’s still somewhat unnerving to think that people are willingly giving up the ability to do something on their own since it speaks of being lazy even if a lot of folks would say that it’s safer and cuts down on the reliance of humans as we do tend to make a lot of glaring errors in judgment at times. Unfortunately human judgment is still a little more reliable than self-driving cars at this point since there are plenty of reasons why such cars aren’t the best idea just yet. It might sound like yet another person wanting to keep humans in the loop as much as possible, but complete reliance on a machine for anything, despite the fact that this is already the case in many areas of life, feels like a mistake.
The fact that the display does look like a Terminator movie is kind of disquieting since it gives the impression that should an AI be allowed to take over a car there’s nothing to say that something won’t go wrong, even if it doesn’t involve the apocalypse that so many people are still worried over. There’s just too much that can go wrong with the software and there’s too much that can happen to the system to really be that trusting with it. Yes, people are working on it night and day to make sure all the bugs are worked out, but all the same there’s something satisfying about sticking with vehicles that can’t drive themselves.
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