The Future of the Car

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about cars and how technologically they don't seem to have developed much in that they still rely on a human driver to do the majority of the work.

Technology is beginning to reach the stage where no one will learn to drive except as a hobby to drive the old cars. These two BBC articles are typical are some of the new technologies that are being developed:

Connected cars 'promise safer roads' (BBC)
Look, no hands (BBC)

According to these articles the car of the future will require no driver and will be constantly forming ad-hoc networks with other local cars to share information about road conditions and traffic jams.

The result fast moving traffic jams, I am thinking it will be a lot like starlings at dusk. All the cars will flock together on the same roads, then come apart only to make up a new traffic jam on another road. It is an unlikely vision of the future but when all the cars are processing all this data and decide an alternative route is appropriate what will happen. If they all run the same program with the same variables wont they all make the same instantaneous decision.

How about a neural network, one that learns from mistakes and adapts to regular routes and localities. Then ever car would be as unique as the owner, but who wants to own a thick car that cant cope with driving round London just because it hasn't been there before.

There is also the consideration of whether we trust computers to do the driving or think that we are the best drivers. Manufacturers know about this pride in our own driving skill and so are introducing technology slowly so we still feel in control.

If computers drove all the cars on the road then in all probability there would be less accidents and less deaths.

"We kill about a million people a year around the globe. Almost every loss of life is a result of human error. Statistics will tell us the truth, that these cars are more reliable than human driving."

- Professor Sebastian Thrun, Stanford artificial intelligence expert.

Of course the one problem trusting computers with safety issues is viruses. What if a rogue car sets out along the road and spreads a virus through these ad-hoc networks and overrides the safety protocols causing high speed crashes. In reality the systems would be isolated from each other and to gain access to the engine controls you would need to be wired in with a hardware key.

It will probably be one of the most exciting developments in technology, that moment when we trust computers to drive us to work and back.

That is if there is still work to be done by mere mortals or the world hasn't ended in some environmental or technological catastrophe.

Then there is the problem of getting a computer to cope with questions from the kids. How do you program a computer to satisfactorily answer the question "Are we nearly there yet?".