Friday, January 16, 2009

Futurology

Futurologilogical (or words to that effect) video. It has some pretty frivolous parts, but also some interesting ones, like one about how in the future robotic cars may save 40,000 traffic deaths a year in the US alone. Forty thousand! If you think how a million people will move the heavens and Earth to save just one kid cancer patient, that's a lot.

The amusing thing is that you can be f***ing sure that when a single robotic car fails and kills the driver, there'll be a big surge of public outrage against them. People are not afraid of the familiar, even when it's a thousand times more dangerous than the new.

Robotic cars are clearly quite embryotic yet, though. My guess is at least thirty years before commercial models come out, and fifty before they become common.

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