Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin!
When sci-fi writers think of the future, they
tend to think of flying cars and human-like
robots that do our work for us.
And while we’re not quite there yet with
either of those, we’re getting close to
a different innovation -- self-driving cars.
In fact, companies like Google and Tesla are
already working on these!
It’s possible that within the next ten or
twenty years, these cars will become common,
and our roads might even become safer.
I mean, looking at the numbers, about 1.2
/million/ people die every year from traffic
accidents and around 94% of those accidents
are caused by human-error.
So, it’s possible that well-made self-driving
cars could drastically decrease that number.
But also, these cars could make driving possible
again for people who couldn’t drive otherwise,
like the visually-impaired or elderly.
And on top of all that, think of how much
you could get done during your daily commute!
I could finally read that Game of Thrones
book everyone talks about!
Or, ya know, I could just sleep more which
is probably what I’d end up doing.
But, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.
Let’s first figure out how these cars will
even /work./
This is probably obvious, but these cars first
need a GPS system to get a rough idea of where
they are and where they need to go.
They also have a bunch of sensors to constantly
scan the area around the them, looking for
any hazards -- whether that’s another car,
a bicyclist, or even a rogue bird!
For Google’s self-driving cars, these sensors
include a camera to see, and radar and lasers
to map out the area.
And these are constantly monitoring 360 degrees
around the car, which is much better than
what a distracted driver could do.
But arguably the most important -- and challenging
-- facet of self-driving cars is the software
that makes them run.
This has to take in all the data from the
sensors and GPS -- and even things like traffic
and weather conditions -- and make decisions
based on that.
It determines how to steer, stop, and go,
and everything else involved in getting you
from Point A to Point B.
But of course, this technology isn’t perfect
and inevitably, these cars will be put in
a situation where a crash is unavoidable.
And in some cases, the car will have to choose
between two evils -- like crashing into pedestrians
or putting the car’s passengers at risk.
In that case, what should it do?
In a study, researchers found that most people
would rather the car sacrifice the passengers
for the common good.
That said, these same people would rather
/ride/ in a car that protected its passengers
instead.
So, there’s a bit of a issue here because
what these people want self-driving cars to
be like isn’t what they would want themselves.
What would you want in that case?
A lot of companies want self-driving cars
to be road-ready by 2020.
Will you be driving one when they come out?
Let me know in the comments below.
If you want to learn about another technology,
check out our video on WiFi.
There’s a link in the description if you’re
on mobile.
As always, I’m Blocko.
This has been Life Noggin.
Don’t forget to keep on thinking.
