31 JANUARY 2024 WorldWide Drilling Resource® It’s the Computer’s Fault by Britt Storkson Owner, P2FlowLLC The headline of the 11/8/2023 edition of The Epoch Times reads: “Ministers: Self-Driving Car Makers, Not Drivers, Legally Liable for Crashes”. Now, in the UK, owners of selfdriving cars will not be held liable for crashes of their selfdriving cars. The car makers will be “on the hook,” so to speak for any and all crashes their cars are determined to have caused. This raises some interesting questions, like: Will the self-driving car drivers not need to carry liability insurance anymore? How about drunk driving? If you’re drunk over the legal limit and the driver of a self-driving car, will you still be charged? Sometimes I think lawmakers the world over often (please pardon the pun) overrun their headlights when it comes to drafting legislation without fully considering just how the legislation is going to impact the general public in practical terms. This usually does not end well. My first knowledge of self-driving vehicles was many years ago when a friend and coworker told me about his father and his self-driving vehicle, which was a donkey with a cart hitched to it. My friend told of his father getting drunk in town and the barkeeper would put him in the donkey cart and untie the donkey from the hitching post. The donkey then proceeded to take the cart with my friends’ father passed out in it back home as the donkey knew exactly where to go. Of course, we’re a lot more sophisticated than that now as we use computer, batteries, and mechanical advantage for our self-driving vehicles instead of donkey-driven carts, but the computer still has to know where to go and how to get there, and this is where various sensors and software programming come into play. All sensors and computer programming have practical limits, and the programmer must respect those limitations. To cite just one simple example: I made a motion sensor for our master bathroom that turns on the light, bathroom exhaust fan, and space heater when it senses heat and motion (a person entering the room) and keeps it on for seven minutes after the heat and motion source is not detected. The motion sensor senses and responds to heat and motion only . . . nothing else. To give you the “How stuff works” explanation: When this motion sensor senses heat and motion, the sensor output (as determined by the motion sensor manufacturer), which is a voltage signal, rises. The microprocessor in this case constantly measures this voltage and if it goes above a certain value (with time delays for stability), then it triggers the light/fan/heater combination “on” and starts the adjustable timer that will turn it off after whatever time is set, in this case seven minutes. Any subsequent triggering will reset the timer and start the timing cycle over again. The sensor output trigger voltage is adjustable and this is how we get a sensitivity setting. Due to different real-world conditions, which are variable, the sensor will react differently. It’s not a problem as long as we can vary the control unit voltage value it responds to. What works in one environment may not work in another, and there has to be a way to adjust for it. Other forces like temperature can sometimes alter the sensor output, which must also be factored in to get a correct measurement. So you can see just how complicated configuring even one simple sensor to perform a task can be. Now multiply this by one million or so and you will get some idea of just how daunting the development of a self-driving car can be. I would submit that a fully satisfactory self-driving car is beyond the practical capabilities of the programmers (myself included), computers, and sensors we have now. Why I say this is because computers cannot reason. The dictionary definition of reason is: “The power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.” No amount of computer smarts or creative programming can produce reason. Because of this, I believe computers are unsuited for various tasks, with self-driving cars being one of them. Britt Britt Storkson may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com eranhenderson@gmail.com New & Used Tricones PDCs Drag & Claw Bits Drill Collars Bit Tipping Subs & Stabilizers HDD Bits & Reamers DTH Hammer & Bits Custom Fabrication Junk Mills / Fishing Tools Rod Henderson 661-201-6259 Eran Henderson 661-330-0790 The Presses are rolling! March ad Space Reservation: January 25th Ad Copy Due: February 1st April EDITORIAL Space Reservation: January 15th
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