Thanks for writing this. You articulate pretty much everything I was thinking when reading Pueyo's article earlier this week, and back up your arguments with subject-matter expertise, experience, and the deft keyboard of a writer.
I currently drive a hybrid vehicle with "advanced" driver-assistance tools that are mostly camera-based, complemented with a little front-facing radar and those little proximity sensors on the bumpers, front and rear. I also live in Ottawa. The otherwise pretty neat driver assistance tools are rendered useless about 30% of the time due to meteorological phenomena known as "winter" and their side-effects. Driving into a nice, bright setting sun in the summer also cripples them.
As you say, hardly edge cases for a great many of us.
What struck a nerve was the PTSD flashback I had to one of Pueyo's other recent works (https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/100-billion-humans) that had a very similar the-future-will-be-awesome-if-we-just-let-tech-do-its-thing vibe. I've learned to really enjoy his "historical explainers" (as I call them) but am completely skeptical about any of his futurism, because it's just so unrealistic on so many levels.
It's a shame, really... the world needs optimism right now, but the visions of the future need to be realistic enough as not to be immediately dismissed.
Will there be a critical mass of driverless cars on the road one day? Almost certainly yes. Will that day come within the next 5 years? Almost certainly not, even in the most "progressive" of jurisdictions.
Thanks for writing this. You articulate pretty much everything I was thinking when reading Pueyo's article earlier this week, and back up your arguments with subject-matter expertise, experience, and the deft keyboard of a writer.
I currently drive a hybrid vehicle with "advanced" driver-assistance tools that are mostly camera-based, complemented with a little front-facing radar and those little proximity sensors on the bumpers, front and rear. I also live in Ottawa. The otherwise pretty neat driver assistance tools are rendered useless about 30% of the time due to meteorological phenomena known as "winter" and their side-effects. Driving into a nice, bright setting sun in the summer also cripples them.
As you say, hardly edge cases for a great many of us.
What struck a nerve was the PTSD flashback I had to one of Pueyo's other recent works (https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/100-billion-humans) that had a very similar the-future-will-be-awesome-if-we-just-let-tech-do-its-thing vibe. I've learned to really enjoy his "historical explainers" (as I call them) but am completely skeptical about any of his futurism, because it's just so unrealistic on so many levels.
It's a shame, really... the world needs optimism right now, but the visions of the future need to be realistic enough as not to be immediately dismissed.
Will there be a critical mass of driverless cars on the road one day? Almost certainly yes. Will that day come within the next 5 years? Almost certainly not, even in the most "progressive" of jurisdictions.