A world run by software

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > A world run by software

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

enraged_camel posted:

Jeez, SA can be quite a reactionary place at times!

D&D is fairly skeptical of new technology, because a) often new technology destroys existing jobs, b) technology is usually adopted by the rich first, and c) it's a way of bettering society that doesn't involve putting capitalists up against the wall.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2013 01:43

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 00:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

quote:

So, Uber is a fairly traditional luxury cab/cheap-limo service except they've taken advantage of new technology to streamline certain aspects of the experience, got it. Where's the revolution again?

Yeah, this is true. Current ride hailing apps are basically taxis with a better user interface and more straightforward accountability.

As for the revolution, it's pretty obvious that autocabs are the long-term future of public transportation. With driverless cars, instead of having to only run huge buses (because the cost of a driver is fixed per vehicle, which means running smaller vehicles is prohibitively expensive), you could run a variety of sizes. Buses for very popular routes, vans for moderately popular ones, sedans for routes that are less popular. Or you could run vans even for popular routes, and they'd leave more frequently.

Taxis would also be driverless of course, which would greatly reduce their cost. Likely you'd be able to reduce the cost by being willing to share a ride to a general area with others, basically creating an ad hoc on-demand public transportation system. Once you get to this level (which will take a while, of course), that's when you start seeing the really big effects like reduced traffic overall.

Plus, even poor people have cell phones these days, soon those cell phones will be smartphones, so it's not like they'll be left out.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2013 19:03

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Space Gopher posted:

So, Uber is a fairly traditional luxury cab/cheap-limo service excep
Nonsense. People build technology, and they can choose how they build it. The idea that the current pace and direction of technological progress is "natural" is a fallacy sold to us by people who will continue to profit a great deal as long as technology continues to develop at its current pace and direction. Why, of course we should continue to invest our talent and resources into developing slightly better cab services for the $75-100,000/year set. It's both natural and revolutionary!

It's almost like new technology is usually first adopted by the rich, and then as adoption increases it gets cheaper (and better, usually), until it's in widespread use!

# ¿ Dec 1, 2013 19:47

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

The autonomous vehicle future is here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BIu9dpwHU

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 02:49

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

FilthyImp posted:

This implementation really hilights how far reaching drone technology could potentially be. And it makes me wonder how the government will clamp down on it via regulations and operational licenses.

Yeah, like right now this is just an experiment for Amazon (Bezos apparently has said even 2015 for a commercial rollout is "optimistic"), but on the other hand this or something like it is probably inevitable in the long run.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 03:08

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Spazzle posted:

So putting eripsa's nightmarish schitzo dystopia to the side, what are ways that upcoming technologies actually be used to help make the world better on a broad scale?

An autonomous cartopia would have fewer accidents and thus fewer injuries and deaths, fewer cars manufactured, more accessibility (to old/young/disabled/drunk), less space allocated for parking lots, and possibly better traffic and less pollution/better mileage per passenger. It'd also destroy a lot of jobs though.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 06:28

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

McDowell posted:

I disagree. There would be regular maintenance/cleaning routines, work done by humans with tools. The system must be administrated, probably done on a county/state level in terms of purchasing/requesting custom vehicles (work done by human designers and manufacturing robots [machines that also need regular maintenance]).

Sure, but on the other hand, all taxi and truck driving jobs in the country, and a lot (possibly a majority) of car manufacturing and design jobs.

Kalman posted:

So the actual attention is meaningless and instead we need to interpret that attention through human-generated filtering and data analysis to determine how important a given piece of attention actually is.

Perhaps we could abstract and decentralize this by using some sort of token that users would explicitly invoke to indicate which parts of their attention they consider important.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 07:59

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Negative Entropy posted:

The problem is that even if a neutral program could process this information to find a solution, we have the problem where, as far as we can tell, machines have been unable to find a solution without poring through already available information. It seems to me that this implies that the machine would be unable to work out novel, out-of-the-box solutions from available data (take Watson, for example).

The post you quoted was me making a joke. What I was describing was money.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 08:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Ratoslov posted:

Ehhh, not so much as you'd think. The Autonomous Cartopia would need to have enough cars to operate at peak capacity, which is actually a fair number of cars. You're better off using public autocars as a supplement for effective public transit, rather than a replacement.

Peak capacity is still way less than the total number of usable cars in America. Plus with fewer parking lots, you'd be able to reclaim city space to make urban areas more walking and bike-friendly. There'll still be a lot of cars, but I think reducing the total number by a third* is definitely feasible.

* number completely made up

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 08:31

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Huttan posted:

Building codes since the 50s and 60s have required parking arrangements. It is called "floor area ratio" and is why some communities have flat buildings while others have high rise buildings. FAR is also why you see lots of "box on a pad" architecture for retail and fast food. Next time you're at a fast food store (that is one of those "box on a pad" locations), and you see a "maximum occupancy" sign, that occupancy limit is defined by the size of the parking lot.

Please take a look at this PDF on zoning in Denver. Page 7 shows the "box on a pad". Page 14 mentions the 1967 parking code that pushed architecture towards "box on a pad". "Main Street Zoning" is a style of zoning that Denver started which is trying to return to older architectures that are more friendly towards pedestrians, bicyclists and rapid transit.

Changing the zoning is what it takes to make a city more bike-friendly. And even with the changes, it takes decades for the buildings to change. Path dependence dragged us down a path we'd rather not be today.

Sure, but those building codes aren't some standalone invention. They're part of America's wider car culture, they support our car-owning and usage habits. If huge numbers of people no longer had any use for those parking spots, the regulations could be changed.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 19:12

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 00:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Tubba Blubba posted:

Correct. The codes support the culture, not the vice versa.

No, I think it works both ways. Obviously having lots of parking around encourages people to own and use cars, but at the same time people owning and using cars means people will be in favor of (or at least unopposed to) such codes. If most of your constituents use cars constantly and wants lots of parking, as a politician you're probably going to support that.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 20:35

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