4 ms·
I was recently reading up on GM's firebird concept/research cars from the 50s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Firebird https://en.m.wikipedia.org
by mysterydip 8y ago
I was recently reading up on GM's firebird concept/research cars from the 50s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Firebird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Firebird
One of the features envisioned at the time:
> It also featured a sophisticated guidance system intended for use with "the highway of the future," where an electrical wire embedded in the roadway would send signals that would help guide future cars and avoid accidents.
So the idea has been around for a long time, approached from different directions.
- scotty79 8y agoThe idea is as old as a car because with a horse and cart you could doze off and trust the horse on usual routes. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point someone tried to train animals to do the driving and achieved modest success.
- mysterydip 8y agoGood point. I can't find it right now, but I seem to recall some experiments with a mouse/rat in a ball controlling a robot based on stimuli (LEDs or video). There's also this: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained-robot/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained-robot/ Maybe someday horse neurons will control our cars!
- reitanqild 8y ago> I wouldn't be surprised if at some point someone tried to train animals to do the driving and achieved modest success. Somewhat relevant (animals, real time) but I think it failed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
- stephengillie 8y agoWe found that humans are the best animals to train for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauffeur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauffeur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Driver
- scotty79 8y agoObviously. But lazy buggers won't drive me cheap enough. ;-)
- skykooler 8y agoThere were two dogs in New Zealand trained to drive a car a few years ago. (All the training and testing was on a closed track of course.)
- charlieo88 8y agohttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-new-zealand-dogs-are-being-taught-how-to-drive-cars-154159690/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-new-zealand-dog... This is the first link I found... I could have sworn remembering an article about them teaching sheep dogs to drive their masters home after a late night at the pub.