I read a lot these days about the great future ahead for the autonomous car. I’ve always been of two minds about the technology. On one hand, the technology behind the idea is incredible and the gains for an industry that writes off thirty thousand deaths a year as an operating cost are significant. On the other hand, if automating driving is such an easy task, why not first prove the concept by automating a better controlled mode of transit like, say, a subway car?
Lately, I’ve heard more about a third option. This is a compromise for sure, a method that sits right in the middle of the two thoughts from above – automate the car but make sure a person is sitting in the driver’s seat and paying attention to the road. This type of compromise setup makes sense. The ‘driver’ in the car of the future wouldn’t do much work but could grab the wheel and take the controls if the car’s programming put the vehicle into trouble.
But… if we go ahead with it, what will we have? We will have a vehicle with a driver in the front seat who pays some attention to the road and takes decisive action in the case of an unusual situation. I have a better way to describe this: a car. An automated car with a driver who can grab the wheel as needed is just a car, folks.
Great invention.
This line of thinking seems like a trend among the Internet companies. The Black Tux – a company I’ve had a great experience with – is attempting to take the suit and tuxedo rental market fully online. Want to guess what they just emailed me about? Their nine ‘showrooms’! In these ‘showrooms’, renters can try on different outfits and get the perfect fit. The idea sounds just fine to me – I would definitely use it. But don’t these also sound exactly like the stores the company was claiming to replace?
