So many issues holding up self-driving cars (1)
In “Where’s my robot car?”, Jeff Hecht points out that self-driving cars that stop at every false alarm would cause gridlock (31 July, p 45). I would add that pedestrians could also learn that they won’t need to wait to cross the road in front of fully autonomous vehicles that detect people. Cars would always stop for them, again causing traffic delays.
Beware the auto industry arguing that pedestrians need to be separated from busy streets 鈥� perhaps behind fences 鈥� and allowed to cross only at designated points. I feel this would be too high a price to pay for autonomous driving in urban areas.
So many issues holding up self-driving cars (2)
As a postgraduate physics student 50 years ago, I was told by an AI expert that “we shall have “. I think we are similarly over-optimistic about the imminent arrival of truly self-driving cars.
One problem is software written for ideal conditions. I’ll believe that self-driving cars have arrived when one can drive through a Sicilian village in summer and down an alpine road in winter, such as the Valsertal here in Switzerland. I would love to see what the car would do on a single-width road covered in deep snow with a 300-metre drop on one side and faced with oncoming traffic.
Perhaps programmers should be obliged to traverse the Valsertal in vehicles with their software before such cars reach the public.
So many issues holding up self-driving cars (3)
Hecht’s article omits one potential route to fully autonomous level 4 or 5 driving, namely fully interconnected traffic. If every vehicle, be it driving or stationary, would constantly transmit its actions and position to all vehicles around it, one could achieve a level of mass “awareness” that gets around the shortcomings of stand-alone sensors. Traffic islands, lane splitters, lamp posts and so on could also transmit their “presence”. Each car has a more or less predestined path and it shouldn’t be too onerous to avoid conflicts. Without this, I cannot see level 4 or 5 autonomy in the next 20 years.
Good reason to double jab everyone and fast (1)
You say countries with many partially vaccinated people and a lot of coronavirus infections (such as the UK) are breeding grounds for new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that may evade antibodies (31 July, p 8 and Leader). On the other hand, you say in your related Leader that lower-income countries will be harmed by these new variants because of vaccine nationalism.
The logical conclusion from the first is that countries that are able to fully vaccinate their whole populations should do so as quickly as possible, and only then divert vaccines elsewhere.
Good reason to double jab everyone and fast (2)
Regarding your Leader, a balance must be struck between “the speediest possible end to the pandemic” and the long-term effects of lockdown restrictions on the mental and physical health of millions. I fail to see how the UK government could have reacted to delta any more safely than it did.
The editor writes:
If vaccinations were delayed in nations not yet widely able to fully vaccinate because they haven’t been able to secure as many doses as the UK, for example, then thousands more deaths will occur in those places. And while long-term restrictions do affect well-being, there is evidence that the lifting of restrictions and the continued risk of the virus are also sources of anxiety for many.
First space colonists may have a wasted journey
Chris Mason suggests that within a billion years we will have to leave Earth to escape the effects of a dying sun (17 July, p 44). We will need to colonise a new planet using a spacecraft capable of supporting successive generations for the voyage.
I suggest a postscript, in which the generation ship, nearing New Earth after a couple of thousand years of travel, sends a triumphant message back home to that effect.
Almost instantly it receives a message that says: “Welcome to New Earth folks. We didn’t know who you were until our historians dug down and realised that you came from our home planet a while back. We got here well over a thousand years before you because, a few centuries after you left, a way was found to travel at near light speed.”
There is a reason why food may get less nutritious
Further to James Wong’s look at claims that food is becoming less nutritious, there is reason to think this will occur (17 July, p 24). Higher levels of carbon dioxide increase plant growth, but as more carbon enters the plant it doesn’t bring an increase in essential proteins and minerals, thus diluting the nutritional value of the crop. So there is a problem.
One study looked at rice crops subjected to levels of CO2 expected later this century: 580 parts per million compared with the current 410 ppm. This confirmed the findings of other studies: that essential nutrients significantly dip while sugars and starches rise (think diabetes and obesity).
Air DNA sampling, coming to a street near you soon?
You report that “monitoring wildlife… might be made easier and cheaper… [by] vacuuming bits of DNA out of the air” (31 July, p 16). Presumably, soon every CCTV camera will have an air sampler attached to detect our DNA. People walking past can expect to get everything from a text suggesting they visit a nearby shop to being arrested.
No mystical vitalism, but consciousness may be rare
Regarding Luce Gilmore’s comments on consciousness, the rejection of mystical vitalism doesn’t exclude the possibility that consciousness only arises from certain living brains (Letters, 24 July).
It may be that billions of diverse neurons, having trillions of varied and ever-changing connections carrying constantly modulating signals, bathed in a brew of ions, hormones, enzymes and other substances in continually fluctuating concentrations, interacting with a host of non-neuronal cell types and other structures is the level of complexity required for consciousness. This isn’t yet obtainable with silicon.
In trying to create a conscious entity, we may find that we have to recreate a living brain and its connected sense organs.