On Fri, 2016-06-10 at 09:04 +1000, Andy Farkas wrote: > Chess and Go have finite logical outcomes that are governed > by strict rules.
The laws of physics are pretty strict. I tried to go faster than light once, and got fined. > Driving is a learning experience. Something different happens > every time. Something that a human uses intuition or previous > experiences to navigate. You just described how modern computer chess and go players learn to play. They still beat humans, with all the humans' vaunted intuition and experience. Ask a human go player what's needed to play well and they will tell you "intuition and experience". IMHO "intuition" is another word for "experience" anyway. Unlike humans, computers can be fed experience in large dollops, very quickly. They don't have to actually go out and bend stuff to figure out what works. Also, with very rare exceptions, humans get out of "new" driving situations without thinking, because they generally don't have time to. Instead they use a very small set of emergency rules like "brake hard", "floor it", "don't swerve" "steer into the skid", "keep left". IMHO 99% of the value of experience in driving is the art of learning to avoid new situations. Looking ahead, "expecting the unexpected", "every other driver is a fool". Really experienced drivers know that they themselves are fools too. Human drivers kill and maim themselves and others with monotonous regularity, so I really don't think human drivers should be held up as the paragons of ability that people in this discussion seem to think they are. > There is a place for auto-cars, but they will not be the only > things on the roads. Whoops, you just added the "Straw Man Technique" to your list! Who's saying they will be the only thing on the roads? And who's saying they will only be on roads? Not me... Working computers have only been around for half a century or so. In that time they have gone from electrical monsters to electronic marvels. They have taken on a multitude of tasks that we once said with great confidence they would never be able to do. On that evidence (*evidence*) I think it more likely than not that driverless cars are in our future. Perhaps not the immediate future, perhaps not a future that looks just like the present except for a mysterious lack of steering wheels, but certainly a future where there is no human directly controlling the vehicle. Protesting that "it will never work" is not going to cut it; it's a content-free protestation of - what? Hope? Fear? Belief? "It's not possible now" is not an argument. Especially since it does seem (Google etc) that it actually *is* possible now. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: E00D 64ED 9C6A 8605 21E0 0ED0 EE64 2BEE CBCB C38B Old fingerprint: 3C41 82BE A9E7 99A1 B931 5AE7 7638 0147 2C3C 2AC4
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