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It'd be interesting if some Y2K type bug caused the brakes on all self-driving cars to fail at the same time, rush hour on a Friday. It works 99% of the time c

It'd be interesting if some Y2K type bug caused the brakes on all self-driving cars to fail at the same time, rush hour on a Friday. It works 99% of the time could be true, but the catastrophic failure modes might be unknown to us, i.e. not just be a wreck, it might be something much larger and less fathomable. Maybe it'll all be better than what we have now, but of course there's no guarantee.

kkfx 4y ago
That's why in the past we have almost switched from mainframe to cluster. Or the society in the past was connected BUT far less interdependent on anything central than today. Take cars: any car can fail at any point in time, but as long as they are individual cars, not centrally managed the likelihood is low, is far lower if they are also diverse in tech (for instance some relay on some technology, some on some others, so a scarcity in fossil fuels a day and a solar EM storm another not affect all of them at once). Nowadays I just start going serious on BEV, not because they are ecological (they aren't at all) nor because their are sustainable on scale (they are not, again) or better (marginally, since can act with my home BUT not as they should nor easily as a home emergency battery far larger than the one I already have stationary, but limited lifespan and range are big minus) and well... I'm DISGUSTED to a point I think that if I'm a dictator I'll BAN THEM ALL, not BEVs in particular but new cars on sale now in general, arresting their designers and managers for crimes against humanity. Really. The amount of crappyness and surveillance capitalism inside is so sky high that ALL apical figures involved must be sentenced for many years even for life for their crimes. Technology per se is not the issue, the way is pushed and chose is. For instance design chargers of nth different vendors, demanding mth different Android/iOS ONLY crapplications and "cards" to charge, designing cars in ways that NO practical diagnostic for the formal owner is possible but complexity and bad design are so high that's hard trying a car even a single time without spotting not one but MANY bugs. That's not technology that's just a deliberate crime.

kkfx 4y ago

That's why in the past we have almost switched from mainframe to cluster. Or the society in the past was connected BUT far less interdependent on anything central than today. Take cars: any car can fail at any point in time, but as long as they are individual cars, not centrally managed the likelihood is low, is far lower if they are also diverse in tech (for instance some relay on some technology, some on some others, so a scarcity in fossil fuels a day and a solar EM storm another not affect all of them at once). Nowadays I just start going serious on BEV, not because they are ecological (they aren't at all) nor because their are sustainable on scale (they are not, again) or better (marginally, since can act with my home BUT not as they should nor easily as a home emergency battery far larger than the one I already have stationary, but limited lifespan and range are big minus) and well... I'm DISGUSTED to a point I think that if I'm a dictator I'll BAN THEM ALL, not BEVs in particular but new cars on sale now in general, arresting their designers and managers for crimes against humanity. Really. The amount of crappyness and surveillance capitalism inside is so sky high that ALL apical figures involved must be sentenced for many years even for life for their crimes. Technology per se is not the issue, the way is pushed and chose is. For instance design chargers of nth different vendors, demanding mth different Android/iOS ONLY crapplications and "cards" to charge, designing cars in ways that NO practical diagnostic for the formal owner is possible but complexity and bad design are so high that's hard trying a car even a single time without spotting not one but MANY bugs. That's not technology that's just a deliberate crime.