I’ve seen a number of criticisms of Google’s Project Glass on the basis that while people are walking around on the streets gazing at their augmented version of reality, a car is liable to run them over.
What these critics fail to understand is that Google has a master plan, of which Project Glass is merely one facet.
By the time everyone is “wearing”, the Google financed initiative to develop smart cars that can drive themselves will also have reached maturity. At that point, automobile fatalities will drop precipitously, and the whole idea of humans doing something as dangerous as driving a car will be seen as quaint, not to say illegal.
Unlike cars with human drivers, robot driven cars will know better than to crash into an innocent pedestrian who is crossing the street while having a video chat with mom.
Ah, I thought you were going to say that the self- driving car would know that the distracted pedestrian was having a video chat with mom. Popular opinion tends to attribute both more evil intent and more prescience to Google than it really has 😉
…robot driven cars will know better than to crash into an innocent pedestrian who is crossing the street while having a video chat with mom.
Only if they’re talking on an Android phone running Google chat.
You’re absolutely right about computers driving and human driving becoming rare – I hope we’ll at least retain control of the software running them.
In the shorter term, I think Glass could warn you that there’s a car coming, by estimating the speed and your trajectory… automatically putting calls on hold when crossing a road would work to keep teenagers safe in the present day – we already have public information films about that today.
Our research on PolySocial Reality is about this:
On Project Glass:
http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/10/google-glasses-heads-up/
On the Connected cAR:
http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/03/01/connected-car-becoming-the-cyborg-chauffeur/