Is Douchelini in Jail Yet??

[Essence Lumin]

I was under the impression that the inhabitants of Olympia just floated from place to place on clouds of ganja smoke and patchouli oil fumes.

There is that. It makes the trips go by more quickly.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

Yep. Entire towns and even cities in the US have been designed with private automobiles in mind. Just walking to the closest grocery store could involve a four-mile round trip hike.

Not to be pedantic, but most American rural communities were founded before automobiles came along. There wasn't so much a design as there was a main street, grain silos and dry goods stores. Usually near a water source.

However, having said that, it was under Eisenhower that the US interstate highway system was built and numbered. That system had a powerful effect on our economy and economic growth.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Not to be pedantic, but most American rural communities were founded before automobiles came along. There wasn't so much a design as there was a main street, grain silos and dry goods stores. Usually near a water source.

However, having said that, it was under Eisenhower that the US interstate highway system was built and numbered. That system had a powerful effect on our economy and economic growth.

My town was founded in the 1700s. In the early 1900s there was a trolley down main street. The tracks are still there underneath pavement. There is still a train track built in the 1800s a few blocks parallel that used to have three passenger stations. A little freight train still goes by once each weekday in each direction.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I was under the impression that the inhabitants of Olympia just floated from place to place on clouds of ganja smoke and patchouli oil fumes.

It used to be cheap beer.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Up until the 1950s we had a well developed interurban railroad network. You could go from Cleveland to Cincinnati with a couple of transfers. Oil companies started buying them out and shutting them down. Now it probably takes about as long to go from the southern city limit of Columbus to the north as it took to cross the state.

 

[Soen Eber]

Up until the 1950s we had a well developed interurban railroad network. You could go from Cleveland to Cincinnati with a couple of transfers. Oil companies started buying them out and shutting them down. Now it probably takes about as long to go from the southern city limit of Columbus to the north as it took to cross the state.

The person responsible for doing that and burning the trolly cars in Minneapolis / St. Paul had organized crime links. You could get away with a lot of sh-- like that In the 1950's.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Garden of Forking Paths | Brian Klaas | Substack

Wandering around an infinitely complex, ever-changing world. Click to read The Garden of Forking Paths, by Brian Klaas, a Substack publication.

www.forkingpaths.co

When Joe Biden didn’t trip but nearly tripped last week, it was headline news. How absurd is that? A candidate who didn’t quite fall over is a bigger news story than a candidate calling to execute shoplifters? (For the record, roughly ten percent of the US population shoplifts, so millions would face potential execution under Trump’s proposal).

This is what I call the Banality of Crazy—and it’s warping the way that Americans think about politics in the Trump and post-Trump era.

According to the old saying, there’s no headline in the papers for “Dog Bites Man,” but there is for “Man Bites Dog.” The idea is that the press covers the unusual rather than the routine, even if the routine story is more important than the unusual one.

(It’s worth noting, however, that the Biden “scandal” that made headlines within hours of Trump being found liable for massive financial fraud was a literal “Dog Bites Man” story about Commander Biden, the president’s bite-happy German Shepherd. Seriously, go to Google News and search “Biden dog” and “Trump shoplifters” and see the difference in the results. It’s so depressing).

 

[Casey Pelous]

My town was founded in the 1700s. In the early 1900s there was a trolley down main street. The tracks are still there underneath pavement. There is still a train track built in the 1800s a few blocks parallel that used to have three passenger stations. A little freight train still goes by once each weekday in each direction.

I'm just not sure how practical trolleys would be. I've heard of so many instances of runaway trolleys with all these people tied to the tracks. Then one of them is Hitler and one is Mother Teresa or something ...

We might all be better off without them.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump Goes on Bizarre ‘Would You Rather’ Rally Rant

The former president, who’s making a second run at the White House, bizarrely told supporters that he’d rather be electrocuted than eaten by a shark.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I'm just not sure how practical trolleys would be. I've heard of so many instances of runaway trolleys with all these people tied to the tracks.

They're doing it with electric cars now, you keep reading about them having to decide whether to run over a toddler or kill the driver.

 

[Noodles]

They're doing it with electric cars now, you keep reading about them having to decide whether to run over a toddler or kill the driver.

Always the driver, because eventually they will be AI cars and we need to normalize killing robots over babies.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

They're doing it with electric cars now, you keep reading about them having to decide whether to run over a toddler or kill the driver.

It's an issue with self-driving cars, I think, rather than electric ones, though the self-driving car may well also be electric.

But it raises some very tricky legal questions -- if the self-driving car finds itself in a position where it must to decide whether to perform a manoeuvre that kills or injures the driver or one that kills or injures someone else, who is responsible? Sooner or later courts are going to find themselves asked to decide that.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Always the driver, because eventually they will be AI cars and we need to normalize killing robots over babies.

In that case, isn't the prudent driver doing to have to disable the car's self-driving capabilities altogether, since it's never going to be possible to predict if and when the circumstances will arise in which the driver has to override the self-driving mechanism, or whether she'll have time so to do?

Or do we assume that the car's AI will always make better decisions than the driver, and leave the fate of the driver and passengers up to the car?

 

[Noodles]

In that case, isn't the prudent driver doing to have to disable the car's self-driving capabilities altogether, since it's never going to be possible to predict if and when the circumstances will arise in which the driver has to override the self-driving mechanism, or whether she'll have time so to do?

Or do we assume that the car's AI will always make better decisions than the driver, and leave the fate of the driver and passengers up to the car?

Nah, the robot is the driver at some point. Letting robot drivers kill babies, then you just end up with the Terminator. Go for the robot (driver).

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

You're right, I meant self-driving cars. And Noodles, for a fully autonomous car without a steering wheel or other accoutrements of having a driver, read "passenger".

But it raises some very tricky legal questions -- if the self-driving car finds itself in a position where it must to decide whether to perform a manoeuvre that kills or injures the driver or one that kills or injures someone else, who is responsible? Sooner or later courts are going to find themselves asked to decide that.

If the self-driving car is ever in a position where it has the luxury of making that decision, and has to make that decision, it's the fault of the manufacturer for not programming it to operate in a safer regime. For example, suppose your car is driving around a curve and a toddler dashes out from between parked cars in front of the car and it has the choice of driving over the toddler or driving into incoming traffic, it's the fault of the manufacturer for driving so fast that it couldn't stop in time even if a toddler ran out in front of the car from between two parked cars.

Yes, that means if you're driving through a neighborhood of narrow streets around a curve that prevents your car from steering hard to the right into parked cars instead of straight into oncoming traffic, then if the manufacturer doesn't want to be held liable for manslaughter it needs to slow you down to 5-10 MPH.

Since you don't have to pay attention to driving, and all the other cars are also automated, this should not significantly inconvenience anyone.

Of course you have Tesla implementing shit like "aggressive mode" that does California stops and other skeevy stuff like that. In that case the responsibility is either Musk or the legislators afraid to pass rational laws about autonomous driving.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Nah, the robot is the driver at some point. Letting robot drivers kill babies, then you just end up with the Terminator. Go for the robot (driver).

I think we're at cross purposes. I'm sitting in my self-driving Tesla, or a passenger in someone else's. A toddler runs out into the road. The Tesla's AI has to evaluate -- and I'm not sure how it would do this -- various ways of avoiding hitting the toddler (brake, swerve, etc) and their likely outcomes. Let's assume that, if it swerves, it's going to run into oncoming traffic and if it slams on the brakes a large truck that's tailgating me is going to plough into it, with unforeseeable consequences. What does it do?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Since you don't have to pay attention to driving, and all the other cars are also automated, this should not significantly inconvenience anyone.

But all the other cars won't "also be automated", at least not for some years.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

But all the other cars won't "also be automated", at least not for some years.

Then you're going to inconvenience the driver behind you until he also gets a self-driving vehicle.

Or maybe self-driving will be legally prohibited in such situations.

Or only allowed on streets with cameras that continually broadcast all potential blind spots to passing vehicles, so the car could "see" the toddler coming from a lamp-post camera.

I don't honestly care. I just strongly believe that autonomous driving MUST require the vehicle never operate in such a dangerous regime, and if that slows things down then so be it. And if that's not implemented the person responsible for the death is the person who chose not to implement, require, or enforce such a state of operation.

 

[Noodles]

I think we're at cross purposes. I'm sitting in my self-driving Tesla, or a passenger in someone else's. A toddler runs out into the road. The Tesla's AI has to evaluate -- and I'm not sure how it would do this -- various ways of avoiding hitting the toddler (brake, swerve, etc) and their likely outcomes. Let's assume that, if it swerves, it's going to run into oncoming traffic and if it slams on the brakes a large truck that's tailgating me is going to plough into it, with unforeseeable consequences. What does it do?

Tesla's probably a bad example because their self driving tech is garbage with its image recognition.

I would argue that proper AI tech wouldnhave seen the toddler before the toddler ran into the road, and if that toddler was close enough to be a problem, it would have slowed down and assumed the potential for the toddler to randomly run into the road.

If its at a point where it has to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid a toddler, the tradgedy of the situation sucks, but the car should not have been on the road because the AI sucks, it was going to fast to simply stop.

But oh, what if the breaks fail.

That falls into the same area. The AI car should check its breaks before each trip, and if it detect potential for failure, refuse to drive. Period.

Human drivers can be and are negligent about maitenence, an AI, should be hard coded to NEVER be negligent. Humans can't be assed to take fove minutes to check over their vehicle before each trip. An AI can run a sensor check in seconds. If the sensor fails to report, assume the brakes (or whatever) are bad.

Basically, the AI should be programmed to always always err on the side of safety. Swerving to avoid toddlers should never need to be accounted for, because the AI will do anything to avoid being in such a situation to start with.

If it needs that coded in, the action should be to avoid the toddler. Its the path most likely to avoid loss of life or injury. A bare toddler being struck by a vehicle pretty much will 100% be killed. A person encased in a metal enclosure striking a car or a wall, will be much more likely to survive and be protected.

If a truck is tailgating, its still the same idea. The tradgedy sucks, but that the fault. Of the truck driver for being a poor driver. If its an aI truck, once again, it should and would be coded to always choose safety and would not be tailgating so closely. And in an actual perfect world of AI, its already stopping because "your" car, has told every car around it "There is a toddler in the road here".

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Legislators will, I think, have to resolve various evidential presumptions about self-driving cars. Essentially, should courts assume that, unless there is evidence to the contrary, that the AI was working as intended at the time of the incident (whatever it is) that the court is considering, and should the court also assume that the AI acted as an experienced and careful driver would be expected to act under similar circumstances, or should the manufacturers have to defend their AI's decisions in particular cases?