damosuzuki said:

morningsong said:

I can see what you are saying happening, but is it really a bad thing? There is always a subgroup in anytime that refuse to get with whatever the preceived times are and they are somewhat ostasized to a degree. Nothing new there.

It's the risk factor. Some people seem to hold a belief that everything new should come with an absolute zero risk factor. That's just simply not possible. The Tesla autopilot has one fatality under it's belt, yet everyday across the nation there are and have been several fatalities due to driver error. We haven't opted out of driving completely because of the risk of a fatality, correct? Perspective needs to be put into play.


I can see XxAxX concern about hackers and the cloud, though. The cloud has become a central target for hackers.

i think we're in agreement, mostly
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perfection is not for this world.
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not to drone on about it, but i think this might in some way be an interesting example of how people overestimate the impact of low probability events (like hackers & attacks & violence) and underestimate the impact of high probability events (like the improvements in productivity & life quality & information & safety we get from tech improvement). that seems to be a basic human wiring problem...michael shermer's books the believing brain & how we believe are full of insights on that area. i ought to revisit them soon myself.

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as a slightly relevant aside - i also remember reading a neat little study, i believe this was in daniel kahneman's book, that found people going on vacation would be willing to pay more for insurance for death from a terrorist attack than they would pay for general insurance that would cover all death. these are the kinds of things that highlight the flaws in the way we evaluate risk, & we need to recognize that weakness. yay for statistics, right?
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and i don't say that to completely dismiss the concerns people might have. only to say that it's a mistake to only focus on the risk. there are other risks that haven't come up that i've seen - economic disruption, for example. what happens if 90% of the positions in distribution & transportation go away? it could be both an opportunity & a disruption. whatever the case, i don't think trying to hold back technological progress under the banner of protecting one industry or group of workers is a broadly winning strategy. but it is something that has to be part of the discussion.
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i've said this already, & apologize for repeating myself, but while we're talking about the risks, we shouldn't lose sight of the benefits, & the benefits could be real & enormous. if it becomes the case that auto-driven cars will decrease deaths & brain injuries & paralysis from car accidents by 90% let's say, then you have to take a look at what risks come with that gain. a terrorist or a troubled loner could do some really bad things, & make tons of headlines & make people frightened. but should you give up 30k fewer corpses, & i don't know how many fewer broken bones & head injuries & paralyzed people every year over that possibility? in that case, not adopting the tech & then losing all those benefits would likely be the biggest risk of all.

I think we have enough evidence to know there is no holding back technology. It would take a lot of retraining to learn how to face and all it's unpredictability.

Though I will admit the hacking situation does need looking at. Unlike ones home computer, a person would literally be putting their life in the hands of someone else's wimsy, that's something completely new. Personally, I know I have control issues and that makes me a bit hesitant when nothing else about it does. Hacking is too common to be brushed aside simply as a statistics on paper. Hardly anyone hasn't been deeply impacted in some way due to hacking. One is scared to open a random email because malware is so prevelent.

Our populations will increase, and more countries will be shifting from 3rd world standard of living to 1st world standard of living, the problems we have on the roads will increase as people become tenser and tenser, it would be fantastic to get rid of some of that tension on the roads.