Another Self-Driving Car

In 1980, when I was in graduate school, a friend of mine and I attended a computer show that was intended to demonstrate the latest in information technology to graduate students. The entire show could be fit into a single classroom.

I remember stopping at one of the tables, run by a major company, and my friend and I commented that we thought that over time the technology could be developed to the point of having an automated car. We were talking about radar and detecting the difference between colors and so forth.

The person manning the booth informed us that we obviously knew nothing of how computers worked if we could imagine that such a thing would be possible. It simply wasn’t conceivable.

There have been a number of major efforts along these lines with notable success. In yet another case, Delphi just completed an across the nation drive with an experimental car, which they say was under automatic control 99% of the time.

Interesting how often “it will never happen” becomes “done that.”

Or – “Done that many times!”