"Look Ma, no hands" - Hands free driving Detroit to Nola

[Lowell]

An interesting and amusing read from today's Free Press where reporter Mark Phelan is given the keys to a self-driving Lincoln Navigator for a [largely] hands-free drive. [Smart plugola PR move by Ford noted.]. Are you ready sit back and let the machine do your driving while the massage seat works you over?

"I was at - but only occasionally touching - the wheel of a 2022 Lincoln Navigator. Equipped with everything from massage seats to 28-speaker Revel audio, the luxurious SUV was about as welcoming spot as you'll find for one-day drives of 900 and 1,100 miles, as I traveled to and from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival."

[Jimaz]

It's really interesting and I hope it works but this whole "self driving" idea seems unnecessarily risky to me. I'll go out on a limb and predict it will eventually flop and most folks will be happy when it does {by the time they start noticing its flaws}.

I have a toy "computer" game from my childhood that's intriguing because it's extremely easy to learn and play but almost impossible to win. For that reason it's easy to believe that it's artificially intelligent. It isn't. The designers simply exploited a very simple trick to win the game and built it into the mechanism. That's the only trick it knows.

AI flopped in the 70s. It's useful when thought of as a direction to go toward improvement but it's foolish to think of it as a goal that will have been achieved. The only way to make that happen is to dumb down the definition until it fits.

Auto makers should have stayed with the "driver assist" language. That's doable. "Self driving" should be thought of as "self driving but with an acceptable loss of life."

[canuck]

It's really interesting and I hope it works but this whole "self driving" idea seems unnecessarily risky to me. I'll go out on a limb and predict it will eventually flop and most folks will be happy when it does {by the time they start noticing its flaws}.

I have a toy "computer" game from my childhood that's intriguing because it's extremely easy to learn and play but almost impossible to win. For that reason it's easy to believe that it's artificially intelligent. It isn't. The designers simply exploited a very simple trick to win the game and built it into the mechanism. That's the only trick it knows.

AI flopped in the 70s. It's useful when thought of as a direction to go toward improvement but it's foolish to think of it as a goal that will have been achieved. The only way to make that happen is to dumb down the definition until it fits.

Auto makers should have stayed with the "driver assist" language. That's doable. "Self driving" should be thought of as "self driving but with an acceptable loss of life."

I’ll be in heaven when I can say; Hey Siri! Drive my Apple Cart, will ya?

[401don]

It's not the vehicles that are the problem - it's the infrastructure. They can't maintain roads and bridges and yet they are going to have perfect roads with no construction, detours, potholes, snow, etc.? Oddly enough I do think it will work for semi's on Interstates.