First TL-9 items

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Self driving cars don't work. Self driving systems are from level 1 to level 5 . Ask yourself, how typical are roads in California and nearby states for the US as a whole or some of the rest of the world.

For the US those roads are probably pretty typical. Based just on what I've seen on Top Gear in the US we've bent the terrain to fit the roads while other places they've bent the roads to fit the terrain.

If I had a self-driving car the route to my favorite grocery store would be easy. same for the pharmacy and the doctor's office. The only difficult one would be a friend's hosue where we game sometimes and that'a GPS/road construction problem not technically a "driving" problem.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

3. Social resistance. People don't like change and invent all sorts of excuses and rationalizations to avoid it. There is also a level of arrogance involved. Many people overestimate their driving ability and few will be willing to admit that a robot can drive better than they can.

This isn't necessarily irrational. Have you read Jack Williamson's story "With Folded Hands . . ."? When my self-driving car starts refusing to take me to destinations that aren't socially approved, I'm going to have problems.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by whswhs

This isn't necessarily irrational. Have you read Jack Williamson's story "With Folded Hands . . ."? When my self-driving car starts refusing to take me to destinations that aren't socially approved, I'm going to have problems.

If you aren't allowed to go there, does it matter whether the car is self-driving or not?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

If you aren't allowed to go there, does it matter whether the car is self-driving or not?

It could if you assume there's such a rule but no effective enforcement of it other than the car control system...

Or perhaps if you think somebody is going to be allowed to program your car to refuse destinations even though they aren't allowed to forbid you to go to those places?

Of course, both seem to have the same easy workaround: get out of the car nearby and walk. Much like a mundane blocked road.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by maximara

The first practical photovoltaic didn't even exist until 1954 while atomic power had been predicted as far back as 1914 (World Set Free). Most writers can't extrapolate technology that either doesn't exist or is so new its future is uncertain.

Heinlein had solar power as the primary energy source for his Future History, which was written in the early 1940s. So the idea was there even if the technology wasn't.

Originally Posted by maximara

IMHO any future Tech in GURPS beyond what we have in development should be given TL (current TL+y) and/or TL (current TL)^. And the tis ignoring any cultural dynamics.

That's probably the most accurate model but it can be a little impractical in game terms and makes the system a little meaningless. It's easier to make plausible guesses for what kind of technology will we create next and what later and what possibly never. It's also easier for the GM to give a general list of what kind of tech might be around in his 22nd century interplanetary campaign and allow him to customize as needed. I would appreciate a scale of superscience rather than just lumping torch ships and straight up magic tech in the same category.

Originally Posted by maximara

Then you have the issue that with old Sci-fi: if a work was too "fantastic" and the author couldn't do it himself it generally didn't get published.

It is only through luck we know of Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century which was a mixture of hit and misses. Who knows how many rejected manuscripts that we don't know about existed.

If you inserted the specs of a modern M1 MacMini into an 1950's story back then odds are it would have been rejected as "too outlandish".

Yes and no. Old school SF could be a little weird in retrospect. Clarke's 2001/2010 assumed much faster progress in AI than we actually had but didn't really catch the internet/smartphone revolution. Asimov's robot stories had robots that approached human intelligence and dexterity by now but not hand held computers which are far less of a challenge. Piper's Cosmic Computer has robotic servants, but the super AI of the title is an old school massive computer system hidden deep underground. And of course everyone grossly underestimated how difficult spaceflight would be.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by whswhs

This isn't necessarily irrational. Have you read Jack Williamson's story "With Folded Hands . . ."? When my self-driving car starts refusing to take me to destinations that aren't socially approved, I'm going to have problems.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

If you aren't allowed to go there, does it matter whether the car is self-driving or not?

"Not socially approved" is not the same as "not allowed". Strip joints are legal but not socially approved (in many societies).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anders

"Not socially approved" is not the same as "not allowed". Strip joints are legal but not socially approved (in many societies).

Of course, it's hardly a given that self-driving cars would be designed to refuse to take you to such places. After all, I've never heard of GPS's having such a restriction. There is an issue that, to be fully effective, self-driving cars would need to share their location with a network, making it easy to track if you went to such a location. But that problem already exists, thanks to cellphones (indeed, many map programs use cellphone location data to determine if a road is congested - there's a humorous video where a guy pulls a handcart filled with cellphones down an empty road, and the map program shows significant congestion at his location; I've also seen this myself when behind a slow-moving bus full of people).

Self-driving cars would certainly allow such "soft" restrictions to be in play more readily than a GPS, of course, particularly if they are self-driving only.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Self-driving cars completely eliminate all of those. They will never be perfect but they are already superior to a typical human driver.

Sure, but at the moment what is being called self-driving mostly requires an alert human driver in the loop.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

They haven't been implemented for three main reasons:
1. Cost. A proper self-driving system costs more than a typical automobile, which is why they are being installed in million-dollar mining and agricultural vehicles and not automobiles. In time costs will come down.

Are those mining vehicles truly self driving or have they merely been programmed to run between points in that specific mine?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Of course, it's hardly a given that self-driving cars would be designed to refuse to take you to such places. After all, I've never heard of GPS's having such a restriction. There is an issue that, to be fully effective, self-driving cars would need to share their location with a network, making it easy to track if you went to such a location. But that problem already exists, thanks to cellphones (indeed, many map programs use cellphone location data to determine if a road is congested - there's a humorous video where a guy pulls a handcart filled with cellphones down an empty road, and the map program shows significant congestion at his location; I've also seen this myself when behind a slow-moving bus full of people).

Self-driving cars would certainly allow such "soft" restrictions to be in play more readily than a GPS, of course, particularly if they are self-driving only.

Yes, exactly.

There is a writer named Theodore Robert Beale who is associated with the science fiction community (I won't say "part of it," because he has been bitterly rejected by great masses of fans at WorldCon). Some years ago, during the Sad Puppies controversy, I heard his name for the first time, and looked up what he had to say for myself—and found that some of the widespread statements about his views did not accurately describe what he had actually said. So I made a practice of taking a look for myself rather than trusting the online community to get it right.

And then, a few months ago, I put his common user name into my browser and it didn't list his site. In fact, none of the search engines I tried did so (note that I primarily use Duck Duck Go rather than Google). I did some hunting around and was able to access his site by a roundabout route; now I go there directly when I want to take a look. (Note that his views are radically different from mine on most issues—but I had rather see that for myself.)

This may be a "soft" restriction, but it does substantially affect Internet traffic. And I don't like having choices made for me; that's why, for example, I've never joined an HMO.

Of course, the real potential for authoritarianism lies in having an agency of the state step in and dictate what maps can be used and what information they can include. If you want to be dystopian about it, imagine your self-driving car deciding (or being told) that it has to take you to the State Security Office, and locking the doors to keep you from getting out. For your own safety, of course.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

<snip>
Are those mining vehicles truly self driving or have they merely been programmed to run between points in that specific mine?

Interesting distinction. By that logic, the easiest thing to make self-driving would be locomotives/trains, with subways close behind. After all, the train only has to follow the tracks, and the tracks aren't especially likely to get up and move, and have a limited number of rail to rail junctions.

The hardest parts would be:
Railroad-road junctions which might have small radar-avoidance set-ups to check for road traffic, or detectors that automatically activate safety barriers when the train reaches x distance from the road;
and obstructions on the track. Obstructions on the track are of two sorts. Soft obstructions, such as cows and small children, which won't stop the train, but are undesirable and perhaps best avoided by putting up barriers near the rails (e.g., high fences/concrete barriers, that prevent entry to the roadbed). Hard obstructions could stop/derail the train. They'd likely need a small locomotive with a camera attached to scout the rail ahead and signal the train (& notify a work crew) of the obstruction, stopping the train until the obstruction is cleared.

Self-driving trains anyone?

Self-piloting planes might also be easier to make than self-driving cars, though more likely to be resisted by passengers.