Part 8 - The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak

Something a little different for today, or rather several things.

By now I think that most people, at least those that have the capacity to think about it, are well aware that autonomous vehicles are a when, not an if.

To a large extent the technology is but pretty much there now for a lot of manufacturers and most plan to have this on the road in full production vehicles by 2020.
China may have it in use earlier as they don't have to worry about pesky little things like lawsuits and public opinion.

So lets get away from the technology aspect and focus on the factors that will stop places like my home in Western Australia from being early adopters.

There are a number of factors that need to be urgently addressed before we get rolling :-)

• Public acceptance and education
• Road laws to cover the vehicle liability in the event of an accident
• Laws to cover the owner and or manufacturer liability
• Laws to cover where autonomous vehicles can be used 
• Laws to cover the software protection and data sharing of the vehicle and infrastructure devices

There are a lot of other considerations as well but what immediately jumps out, to me at least, is the fact that (pardon the pun) there's no one driving this.

The Western Australian government has already stated that this technology is inevitable but apart from a single low speed automated bus being tested by the RAC there is no government push that I am aware of to get ahead of the curve.

When you think about the huge change that this technology will bring to society, and the massive savings that governments stand to make because of it, then you start to wonder why this isn't being looked at from the highest levels.

What we need is a coordinated approach between federal and state governments to come up with a national standard with a common time frame to develop laws that can be applied across the country.

Until we get that the manufacturers are in the driving seat, literally, and that might not be a good thing. As with any technology, once it's out there it doesn't go away, so if it becomes available, people will use it legally  or not.

Now for something completely different......

It has long been said that life imitates art. In the case of technology this is so very true.

Probably due to the fact that science fiction tends to act like brainstorming. In a brainstorming session you say whatever you think no matter how stupid. What happens is that someone thinks about that idea and it sparks other ideas from a path that they normally wouldn't have gone down. It produces creativity.

At the time that Star Trek came out and Kirk first uttered the immortal words "Beam us up Mr Scott" into a miniature hand held device that could communicate to a spaceship, I was hooked. My mother however scoffed and said "they'll never make a radio that small".

Remember the original Motorola flip phone?

But they did, and far far more.

Can you remember life without mobile phones or the internet? Now you have the internet on your phone and instant communication and video from anywhere whenever you want it (Netfix not withstanding).

Automated vehicles have been portrayed in film since the earliest days and have recently become much more familiar as the tech of today is starting to look very much like the tech portrayed as the future.

2015 didn't bring us the flying car or holographic projecting film ads, but it did bring us a basic, but limited hoverboard.

As Lao Tzu said, "A Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step".

We don't have a fully functional, general purpose hoverboard but we do have a starting point and that's the biggest step, the rest is mere detail.

Just to digress once again, it is an exciting time to be alive. 

Truly exciting.

I grew up in a time where the only entertainment we had at home was a radio, books and board games. A very occassional movie if we were really lucky.

Later we got television and that opened up the world. When the first satellites went up and the costs started to come down we started to get video news from around the world within 24 hours of it happening.

When I watched, live, a space launch at the beginning of the space race from what was then called Cape Canaveral, I was so awed with the technology that allowed me to watch that in real time that I decided there and then that technology and communications was to be my career of choice.

When I watched the first man walk on the moon live (no it wasn't faked) I was a trainee Technician and the whole class and teaching staff watched it on black and white TV in Perth Western Australia and thought that this was the pinnacle of science.

From there is has been more and more technology in a faster world.

Now we are at a turning point where tech is reaching maturity and devices are beginning to blend together (think phone, TV, book reader, newspaper and internet on one device). The computing power is now reaching the stage where anything is possible, Hell I have a computer controlled 3D router in my shed.

We now have 3D printers in the home, instant streaming TV and music, news instantly from anywhere in the world, cars that drive themselves and robots making appearances as receptionists and automated factories.

Medical science is changing our lives on a daily basis and life expectancy is now stretching out.

When I was a kid people at the age I am now were old, today we're just getting started, I have no intention of departing this mortal coil anytime soon.

There's just too much to see, do and be a part of.

No I'm not going anywhere just yet, I want my hoverboard and flying car.