Toyota tech to steer cars round jaywalkers Toyota has taken automatic collision-avoidance a step further by allowing a car to steer itself around an obstacle if it can't slow down in time. The Japanese car maker has been showing off the prang-prevention tech at its West Tokyo test facility, AP reports. The Toyota tech uses a millimetre wave scanning system and regular …
>From an evolutionary perspective wouldn't it be preferable to steer the car *into* the jaywalkers.
I think, in fact, that steering directly for the jaywalkers is a better way to go, computationally, than to have the smarts attempt to anticipate their next pedestrian stutter or sand dance move. For avoidance, you'd have to operate on the assumption that the jaywalkers are rational--or at least predictable--in their movements, particularly wrt rate and direction of travel. They aren't. But I doubt that the car manufacturer's will go that way.
What will likely happen is that, notwithstanding Darwinian level(l)ing, pedestrians will somehow adapt--stumbling upon new and entirely novel ways to ensure that even such smart cars can still run them down.
Ok, so imagine one of these is driving along a narrow mountain road with a sheer drop on one side and solid rock on the other. Now stick a jaywalker (or a goat) in the middle of the road around the next corner. Does the car plough into the rock and kill the driver or throw itself down the mountainside and ditto ditto? Or can the driver override the system and just impale the jaywalker/goat on the front grill?
>>one of these is driving along a narrow mountain road with a sheer drop on one side and solid rock on the other. Now...
There's a little sports car coming the other way, driven by a beautiful young blonde.
Your automatic system dosn't know whether to block her passage or toss itself off.
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.
.
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This joke is often credited to Max Miller (died 1963)
If where the driver grips the wheel is like most defibrillator pads, i.e. as well as taking the ECG it can deliver the shocks, you could take a feed from the ignition coils (set to trigger only when AF or pulseless VT is detected) or come capacitors and you've a self-correcting system.
You could even use a motor adjustable steering wheel to extend right out and in co-ordination with the drivers seat coming into the fully upright position start chest compressions if necessary.
Now, how to do the ventilations?????
it should drive into the car. Car drivers are both wearing armor, got seatbelts, airbags, etc.
And I do so love the assumption that pedestrian=jaywalker, as if the car would figure out the applicable laws and behave differently depending on the legality of the pedestrians behavior. Or is that the Register's assumption?
Any system that over-rides a driver's ability to crash their car willingly will only end up causing an accident eventually.
A car should always be in the driver's full control and these systems are far too excessive! Warnings, yes, automatically taking control of the vehicle no!
Millimetre wave scanner. Sooooooo....
How long before someone hooks it up to take nude piccies of the pedestrians in your way? (As per airport scanners).
So: Drive slowly down beach road.
Aim car at nubile young girl approaching.
Download pictures later.
...Profit??
This apart from having to deal with technology that are too intelligent (for its own or your good) but not intelligent enough (to know when it's being stupid).
What with the disturbing trend nowadays of trying to protect people from their own stupidity, I fear that we are radically making the gene pool much shallower, causing humanity to end up completely unable to think for themselves.
Where's the B-Ark now that we need it?
If car equipped with such a device hits a pedestrian, who is going to be held responsible? The driver or Toyota or the pedestrian? What if the car swerves to avoid a pedestrian but hits a motorcyclist?
Quite apart from the legal aspects, I don't think it is a good idea to give people more opportunities to evade responsibility for their own decisions/actions.
"How long before someone hooks it up to take nude piccies of the pedestrians in your way?"
And the first lesson at school next term is: Don't cross the road in front of a moving car, or you will end up having your face and naked body published on the internet.
For most people, that would probably act as a better deterrent to further accidents than just trying to stop the car.
Millimetre wave scanning systems have been found by independent testing to be harmful and does break down DNA in living cells. The Gov has been trying to hide this. Now Toyota after just having been brought to their knees suddenly is talking about turning cars into mobile millimetre wave projecting devices so we can get irradiated with it everywhere and on every street?
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