Self-driving cars, robots, and such as that

Yvonne Smith

Yvonne Smith

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I have been reading about the Tesla self-driving cars, and they seem to be pretty reliable. Some of the other brands, not so much, I am just not sure how i would like to have the car driving me, but as I am getting older, I am realizing that there might come a point where I would be unable to drive and need to be driven, so it would either be a person, a paid vehicle like taxi, bus or uber, or a self-driving vehicle.

I am totally positive that I would never afford any kind of Tesla, but the idea does appeal to me, if it were something I could afford to have. There have been some really interesting stories of how the Tesla has saved someone from an accident by a quick reaction of some kind, or other things that the car is able to do.
I just read this story today , and wanted to share it with everyone, and start the conversation rolling……..

“My Tesla literally saved my life yesterday. What started as a normal drive turned terrifying fast.
I unintentionally fasted for 17 hours, took some medicine, and had a severe allergic reaction. My body shut down—I passed out while driving on the freeway, mid-conversation with my wife on the phone.

Thank God my Tesla had Full Self-Driving engaged. It detected I lost consciousness (thanks to the driver monitoring system), immediately slowed, activated hazards, and safely pulled over to the shoulder. No crash. No danger to anyone else on the road.
My wife heard me go silent and knew something was wrong. She used @Life360 to alert emergency services—they located me within 5 minutes.

They attended to me enough for me to tell them, 'I don't want to abandon my truck here on the freeway.' So the Tesla autonomously drove me the rest of the way to the ER. I walked in, got admitted, and they stabilized me overnight.”
 
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Yvonne Smith said:
I have been reading about the Tesla self-driving cars, and they seem to be pretty reliable. Some of the other brands, not so much, I am just not sure how i would like to have the car driving me, but as I am getting older, I am realizing=zing that there might come a point where I would be unable to drive and need to be driven, so it would either be a person, a paid vehicle like taxi, bus or uber, or a self-driving vehicle.

I am totally positive that I would never afford any kind of Tesla, but the idea does appeal to me, if it were something I could afford to have. There have been some really interesting stories of how the Tesla has saved someone from an accident by a quick reaction of some kind, or other things that the car is able to do.
I just read this story today , and wanted to share it with everyone, and start the conversation rolling……..

“My Tesla literally saved my life yesterday. What started as a normal drive turned terrifying fast.
I unintentionally fasted for 17 hours, took some medicine, and had a severe allergic reaction. My body shut down—I passed out while driving on the freeway, mid-conversation with my wife on the phone.

Thank God my Tesla had Full Self-Driving engaged. It detected I lost consciousness (thanks to the driver monitoring system), immediately slowed, activated hazards, and safely pulled over to the shoulder. No crash. No danger to anyone else on the road.
My wife heard me go silent and knew something was wrong. She used @Life360 to alert emergency services—they located me within 5 minutes.

They attended to me enough for me to tell them, 'I don't want to abandon my truck here on the freeway.' So the Tesla autonomously drove me the rest of the way to the ER. I walked in, got admitted, and they stabilized me overnight.”
Click to expand...

I'm sure they can be handy, but I still don't want one or want to ride in one.
 
We have so many things now that used to be simple, and they now all run with a computer and need an expert anytime anything goes wrong. People on social media are regretting their new appliances that run with a computer, and pretty much, I agree with that.
Our old washer and dryer worked, but Bobby had to fix them every so often, and rather than get another one that was used, he bought a set new from Home Depot.
Everything is programmed, and just not as simple to use as the old fashioned ones were, and we both really miss just having a basic machine that washes clothes and doesn’t have to think about things before it does any of that.

Some of the fast food places are going to robot servers, and grocery stores are mostly self-checkout lanes now. When you call or message a company for help, you get the AI answering machine to “push 1 for this and 2 for that”, or you get the AI chatbot if you are messaging.
The Ubers will give way to self driving cars , but it is hard to guess how soon that will happen.

I believe that AI can be helpful for many things, when used for things that it can do faster and better than humans. People are talking about giving their lab reports to one of the AI chat bots, and they can read the reports, and tell you what it all means.
The doctor will (maybe) call you if there is something bad wrong, otherwise many of them do not even discuss the results of your lab work.
So, I am seeing beneficial uses for some of these new computer operated things, and at the same time, frustrated by other things that they do.
 
Some of you might find this interesting. One of my sons is a heavy equipment operator. He attended a technical school in Washington state several years ago to get certified and can operate just about any heavy equipment. He's the outdoor type and this work suits him perfectly.

A few months ago he went to work for a new company that is based in San Francisco though he lives outside of Austin TX. This company is developing robotic heavy equipment. At first my son was to operate the machines (cranes, excavators, bull dozers) to assist in developing programs to operate the machines remotely. Then he became involved in the actual programming and system development.

This week he is in California, demonstrating operating an excavator from inside an office facility. He's sitting at a console with huge TV-type monitors and what looks like a joystick for a video game...except he is actually operating a huge earth mover working in a gravel pit. After 2 weeks in California he will be at a trade show in Las Vegas for a week with more demonstrations.

I find this fascinating, but at the same time I wonder if he is helping develop something that will ultimately put him out of a job. :D
 
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