Suggestions for using AI

[iNow]

2 hours ago, studiot said:

how do you know what is enough fuel ?

Pretty much every modern vehicle sold by every major manufacturer today automatically calculates distance to empty based on total fuel in tank, charge remaining in battery, and past behavior of the driver. 

Given this complexity has already been solved, comparing the DTE number to current distance to destination (plus distance from there to the nearest refueling stop) is rather straight forward. 

You’re presenting it as an obstacle, but it’s one that got solved many years ago already. 

2 hours ago, studiot said:

what happens if the motorway is closed for an incident and vehicles are subject to a 50 to 100 mile diversion ?

Then they’ll have to walk to get more fuel exactly like today when people who get diverted waited too long to refuel. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by iNow

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, iNow said:

Of course they are, in MANY locations  

Yes, it seems the situation keeps developing. Last I heard, Level 6 autonomy was not yet cleared to roam free without human supervision; only under testing conditions. That may already have changed. In Ontario, it's still a pilot program, under strict regulations. Some states seem to have permitted Level 4 and 5 autonomous vehicles and several have not yet drafted the pertinent legislation.

 

3 hours ago, studiot said:

And what happens if the motorway is closed for an incident and vehicles are subject to a 50 to 100 mile diversion ?

Then the autonomous car would be reduced to calling for help, just like a human driver. Only, it would happen less frequently, because the autonomous vehicle never leaves its storage garage less than fully charged (while many human drivers leave home with less than half a tank, assuming fill-up opportunities along the way). They would unobtrusively listen in on weather, traffic and road condition reports at all times and be warned in time to avoid the detour, as a human driver rarely is.

The dangers and foreseeable problems are very similar to those confronting all drivers - minus fatigue, distraction, diminished capacity due to emotion or chemicals. The possible sources of danger include mechanical malfunction, error, infraction and bad judgment by other drivers, weather, sudden hazards like runaway cattle or truck wheels - plus hostile action by humans who resent autonomous vehicles.

Certainly, the problems are real - but then, they already exist. Some will be solved, some won't, as has always been the situation. Change happens: some people welcome it, some don't, but it happens anyway.

 

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Peterkin

[wtf]

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

Why? Autonomous mass transit is perfectly feasible. The autonomous trucks don't need any more roads; there are way too many roads already.

Ok first, note that you are not arguing with anything I've said. I presented an argument that some anti-car factions make. So you should take this up with them.

But "too many roads already?" Well if you look at the gridlock around most major cities during rush hour, and you ADD a whole bunch of autonomous cars, it's pretty clear that we need MORE roads. That's the argument (which I'm reporting, not defending). That autonomous vehicles will increase demand for roads and decrease mass transit.

The reason people want transit is that they don't want to drive their car to work. But if the car drives itself while they surf the net, they'll want cars and not transit. You'd see a lot of unintended consequences, one of which would be increased demand for roads. 

How can you say you want more autonomous vehicles, then say we have too many roads? When autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous, there won't be nearly enough roads. We'll have to pave over whatever green space is left.

 

 

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

Of course I know what you're fretting about. You think the only way to be free is the Davy Crockett way.

Unbelievable. You are still arguing about guns. You think I'm arguing about guns. I'm not. I don't care about guns. You are so obsessed with guns that you can't even read what I'm writing. 

If you were a pro-gun fanatic and you wanted to crush the houses of people opposed to guns, I'd still be calling you out on that. I don't care about the guns. I care about house-crushing as a tactic for people who hate actual democracy and the rule of law. 

 

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

Well, he was an ass. Having a constitution ought to mean that laws are based on the welfare of the entire polity, not that some people run off with a fragment of text and do whatever the hell thy like, because they have a powerful lobby and craven, corrupt politicians. if I'm emotional, it's about people exercising their gun rights school-children.

So you want to crush the houses of law-abiding gun owners. And where does that stop? Maybe next week the mob wants to crush your house. Don't you think it's a problem when you operate society by violent mob rule organized against anybody that someone doesn't like? 

There's a famous quote from the play (and terrific film) A Man For All Seasons.

"William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

Replace the Devil with gun owners and there's my eternal reply to you and everyone who thinks like you.

 

 

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

I have no designs on their doors, nor on their houses, or whatever other property you're worried about. Just the guns. That's not negotiable. And be warned: I'll be demilitarizing the police next. 

Do you have a cat? Reason I ask is that sometimes cats type on keyboards when their human's not looking, in order to cause trouble. Did your cat type this?

On 8/6/2023 at 6:39 PM, Peterkin said:

I want great hulking cybermen to stomp up to gun-owners' houses, crash through the door, find and scoop up the wretched guns (unless, of course, the owners chose to bring them out and surrender them) and carry them away to oblivion - maybe have them come back eventually as baby buggies and gardening tools. It's a modest little dream....    

I ask you directly: Do you affirm or retract this quote and the sentiment it expresses? Do you deny writing it? Do you advocate smashing through the door and crushing the houses of people who exercise perfectly legal rights that happen to upset you? 

What's the difference between the attitude expressed here, and the lynch mobs of a hundred years ago? They were emotional too, and just as convinced of their own moral righteousness.

Maybe you should just blame your cat for writing such a foolish and dangerous sentiment, which earlier you tried to pass off as a joke, and now want to pretend you never wrote.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

Yep. Pretty soon, I'll demand to see those kids who have not been gunned down in their classroom properly fed and given adequate medical care, even if their parents are poor. Catastrophe is sure to follow.

And whose houses will you smash until all the poor kids are fed?

The catastrophe is destroying the law to smash the houses of people that the mob doesn't like this week. If you can't see that, you'll be surprised when the mob comes for you.

Earlier I suggested studying the French revolution for a bloody datapoint, but the lesson seems to be lost on you.

 

 

On 8/10/2023 at 9:25 PM, Peterkin said:

He's an ass, too.

That was something about Elon Musk. Not my quote you're replying to.

In other automated car news this week, a line of Cruise taxis lost connectivity due to a large music festival in San Francisco, and stopped dead in the street, tying up traffic in a busy night life area. Perfect illustration of the downside of centralized control of autonomous vehicles. What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/cruise-cars-standstill-traffic-san-francisco-north-beach/3294264/

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by wtf

[iNow]

21 minutes ago, wtf said:

The reason people want transit is that they don't want to drive their car to work.

Or they can’t afford one. Don’t want to deal with either the cost or responsibility of maintenance. Lack storage location for it. Can’t afford insurance. Or gas. Or want to reduce co2 pollution… or or or or or or… 

22 minutes ago, wtf said:

When autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous, there won't be nearly enough roads.

This does not follow, especially given the efficiency gains from removing (even reducing) random human decisions and mistakes from the system.  

25 minutes ago, wtf said:

a line of Cruise taxis lost connectivity due to a large music festival in San Francisco, and stopped dead in the street, tying up traffic in a busy night life area

A software patch has already been deployed so that doesn’t happen again. Mistakes will happen. There will be far fewer mistakes made by autonomous vehicles than by those controlled by human operators… like orders or magnitude fewer. 

[Peterkin]

15 minutes ago, wtf said:

Well if you look at the gridlock around most major cities during rush hour, and you ADD a whole bunch of autonomous cars, it's pretty clear that we need MORE roads.

I think that's a very limited perspective. The gridlock is not due to an insufficiency of roads, but to heavy reliance on personal vehicles. However roads are built, more cars make more trips and spew out more CO2. That's inefficient, unintelligent use of the roads. If you built more roads, they'd fill up in a few years, blocking migration routes, cutting habitats in half, killing wildlife and endangering one another.

Why is there even a "rush hour" in every city? Where on Moses' tablets does it say everyone has to live on the outskirts of a city and work in the center from 9 to 5 every weekday? Why are cities so badly designed and organized? 

24 minutes ago, wtf said:

and you ADD a whole bunch of autonomous cars, it's pretty clear that we need MORE roads. That's the argument (which I'm reporting, not defending).

It's an erroneous one. The general idea for autonomous cars, atm, is to provide cheap taxi service. At least that's the plan in China. That, of course, would reduce the number of cars downtown.

 

29 minutes ago, wtf said:

The reason people want transit is that they don't want to drive their car to work. But if the car drives itself while they surf the net, they'll want cars and not transit.

They'd still have to spend a lot of money on something that sits idle most of the time. Having robotaxis on call would be way more convenient: you'd still get to surf the net, without the hassle of looking a parking space at the end each little trip. The robotaxis themselves would be on the road most of the time, doing the work of a hundred private vehicles.

Anyway, it's all speculative. What will be will be.

36 minutes ago, wtf said:

The catastrophe is destroying the law to smash the houses of people that the mob doesn't like this week.

You sure can build a mountain!

[npts2020]

1 hour ago, wtf said:

But "too many roads already?" Well if you look at the gridlock around most major cities during rush hour, and you ADD a whole bunch of autonomous cars, it's pretty clear that we need MORE roads. That's the argument (which I'm reporting, not defending). That autonomous vehicles will increase demand for roads and decrease mass transit.

The reason people want transit is that they don't want to drive their car to work. But if the car drives itself while they surf the net, they'll want cars and not transit. You'd see a lot of unintended consequences, one of which would be increased demand for roads. 

How can you say you want more autonomous vehicles, then say we have too many roads? When autonomous vehicles are ubiquitous, there won't be nearly enough roads. We'll have to pave over whatever green space is left.

When autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous (especially if they are in a self-contained and self-powered system), there will be no need for mass transit or railways because everyone will be able to access them, not just those with drivers' licenses and/or the ability to haul loads. I think Peterkin and iNow adequately explain why even more roads will not be required but I can further elucidate if needed. Why would a single automated transit system be worse than the current paradigm where we pay for roads, railroads and all of the local transit systems?

[Genady]

Here is a paradoxical aspect of adding, and removing, roads: Braess's paradox - Wikipedia

Quote

Braess's paradox is the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it. The paradox was first discovered by Arthur Pigou in 1920,^[1] and later named after the German mathematician Dietrich Braess in 1968.^[2]

The paradox may have analogies in electrical power grids and biological systems. It has been suggested that, in theory, the improvement of a malfunctioning network could be accomplished by removing certain parts of it. The paradox has been used to explain instances of improved traffic flow when existing major roads are closed.

 

[iNow]

8 hours ago, npts2020 said:

When autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous (especially if they are in a self-contained and self-powered system), there will be no need for mass transit or railways because everyone will be able to access them

This doesn't follow. This isn't an either/or situation, but is instead both/and. Not everyone will be able to afford autonomous cars or have a place to store them, and I doubt you'll be outlawing ownership in favor of socialistic sharing. 

Also, in many circumstances such as large cities, the existing infrastructure of trains and centralized transit will be faster, easier, and lower cost. 

The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed. 

[joigus]

7 hours ago, Genady said:

Here is a paradoxical aspect of adding, and removing, roads: Braess's paradox - Wikipedia

 

Very interesting.

Here's a cute YT video on the 'mechanical' version of it, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox#Springs)

Sorry that it's a bit off-topic.

[Peterkin]

4 hours ago, iNow said:

This isn't an either/or situation, but is instead both/and.

For a while. You don't see a lot of horse-drawn carriages and buggies on the roads (Mennonite regions excepted, and there, they're restricted to the gravel shoulder, so as not to impede car traffic.) There comes a time when enough of the infrastructure has adapted to the incoming technology that it becomes more costly and inconvenient to keep using the old. 

[npts2020]

13 hours ago, iNow said:

Not everyone will be able to afford autonomous cars or have a place to store them, and I doubt you'll be outlawing ownership in favor of socialistic sharing. 

Why would everyone have to own their vehicles and why would you outlaw having your own?

[iNow]

Why are your assertions so often nonsequitur?

[npts2020]

47 minutes ago, iNow said:

Why are your assertions so often nonsequitur?

Because you are dragging irrelevancies into the discussion. In case you don't know, there are already people who use the current road system who can't afford/store/want a vehicle. Things like car rentals, taxis or borrowing. Why would this necessarily change in an automated system?

Also, in a system where the vehicle arrives at your doorstep and takes a person directly to the doorstep of their destination any time they like, who is going to go to a bus stop or train station, wait on a train or bus (if they happen to be running at that time), then have to get from wherever they are dropped off to where they are going?

[swansont]

6 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Because you are dragging irrelevancies into the discussion. In case you don't know, there are already people who use the current road system who can't afford/store/want a vehicle. Things like car rentals, taxis or borrowing. Why would this necessarily change in an automated system?

There are people who take mass transit, which you would eliminate, who do so because they can’t afford to own a car. You can’t just assume they can borrow a car (which they aren’t currently doing) and taxis are more expensive than mass transit. And not everybody with a car buys new - lots of them get used cars. What do they do?

These aren’t irrelevancies, they are direct consequences of your proposal 

 

[Sensei]

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

who is going to go to a bus stop or train station, wait on a train or bus (if they happen to be running at that time), then have to get from wherever they are dropped off to where they are going?

Trains can go much faster than any non-sport car.. See trains in Japan, France or South Korea etc.

[swansont]

On 8/15/2023 at 1:41 AM, npts2020 said:

When autonomous vehicles become ubiquitous (especially if they are in a self-contained and self-powered system), there will be no need for mass transit or railways because everyone will be able to access them, not just those with drivers' licenses and/or the ability to haul loads. I think Peterkin and iNow adequately explain why even more roads will not be required but I can further elucidate if needed. Why would a single automated transit system be worse than the current paradigm where we pay for roads, railroads and all of the local transit systems?

I don’t think the issue of more roads was tied to elimination of mass transit. You would definitely have more congestion if you replaced mass transit with individual cars, just based on how much space multiple cars take up as compared to a bus. Or the added cars replacing commuter trains.

And we’ll still have to pay for roads and the cars.

[iNow]

11 hours ago, npts2020 said:

in a system where the vehicle arrives at your doorstep and takes a person directly to the doorstep of their destination any time they like, who is going to go to a bus stop or train station, wait on a train or bus

Who owns and manages this fleet of vehicles large enough to provide rides to every human being?

[Endy0816]

Realistically I don't see our car centric cities changing anytime soon.

What automation offers is a reduction in unoccupied vehicle cost and more efficient routing. There's likely to be more trips total, but not necessarily more traffic.

Lot of the issues stem from us making decisions as individuals without any coordinating mechanism.

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

Who owns and manages this fleet of vehicles large enough to provide rides to every human being?

Probably be companies. The cost of vehicles sitting idle is insane not even considering the land required.

[swansont]

28 minutes ago, Endy0816 said:

Probably be companies. The cost of vehicles sitting idle is insane not even considering the land required.

How do you reduce the cost to the point where it’s cheaper and as convenient to use this service than to own your own car?

It’s not just cities that are car-centric. In the US it’s everywhere, and one could argue that cities are less car-centric than the suburbs are

[Endy0816]

23 minutes ago, swansont said:

How do you reduce the cost to the point where it’s cheaper and as convenient to use this service than to own your own car?

It’s not just cities that are car-centric. In the US it’s everywhere, and one could argue that cities are less car-centric than the suburbs are

I expect Insurance, maintenance, purchase price, fueling and parking costs for personal vehicles to increase. More about the relative cost compared to alternatives.

And yeah, I know it's more than the cities, that's just where you would expect the earliest adoption to be.

Once that happens we can start improving density, which will improve the numbers for public transit viability.

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

I expect Insurance, maintenance, purchase price, fueling and parking costs for personal vehicles to increase. More about the relative cost compared to alternatives.

And yeah, I know it's more than the cities, that's just where you would expect the earliest adoption to be.

Once that happens we can start improving density, which will improve the numbers for public transit viability.

A lot of big cities have decent mass transit. The city-dwellers that use cabs would probably be enticed by a lower cost and/or more responsive service

I think the tall tentpole is the car commuter that has to pay for parking. A two-car family might give up one car if there is a reliable service that gets them to work and back, and give up both if they can (again, reliably) run errands and could safely do shuttle service for the kids.

[mistermack]

Along the lines of my original post, where I suggested using AI to reconstruct, or improve old photos with new parts, from a huge database, I would imagine that something similar could be done with old music recordings, and even old film and video. 

The principle would be the same. Amass a huge database of high definition music or video, and replace tiny sections of original material with new high definition stuff that best matches the section. There's no reason why classic material, like Robert Johnson records, or Laurel and Hardy, couldn't be brought up to modern quality, by AI substitutions of that kind. 

[iNow]

8 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

What automation offers is a reduction in unoccupied vehicle cost and more efficient routing. There's likely to be more trips total, but not necessarily more traffic.

 

It also offers me that time back in my day where I can catch up reading news, responding to emails, attending calls, etc while being chauffeured. It also simplifies transportation of children too young to drive to school or sporting events, or over to friends houses and back (actions today owned by parents who basically become unpaid Uber drivers).

[Endy0816]

6 hours ago, iNow said:

It also offers me that time back in my day where I can catch up reading news, responding to emails, attending calls, etc while being chauffeured. It also simplifies transportation of children too young to drive to school or sporting events, or over to friends houses and back (actions today owned by parents who basically become unpaid Uber drivers).

Every parent secretly wants to be a kid chauffeured around again

I'm imagining we'll eventually have a kid mode once the technology is mature enough or it'll be completely hands-off in the case of taxi services.

 

 

[Sensei]

Generic AI will disagree with you. And it will demand more interesting work to do, which any dumb human can do without any or minimal apprenticeship..