 |
Uber's Robotics Plans Could Use Advice From SF Authors
Uber's CEO Travis Kalanick has been quoted as saying "We're at the very beginning stages of becoming a robotics company." Is this a kind of backstory for how the various robotic taxi companies in science fiction got their start?
Kalanick says:
(Uber uses traffic advertising drones in Mexico)
"These cars, when they go into self-driving, you're now starting to become a robotics company so I think we're at the very beginning stages of becoming a robotics company," Kalanick said. "We have hundreds of of scientists working on all parts of robotics, self-driving being number one."Kalanick also confirmed that the company is currently testing a few of its self-driving cars in the streets of San Francisco, though they are focused on mapping, rather than picking up passengers as those in Pittsburgh do.
"As we move towards the future, autonomy is a pretty critical thing for us — it's existential," he said, though he was quick to point out that the technology wouldn't be ready to replace human drivers entirely for quite awhile.
Science fiction writers have approached the idea of the autonomous cab company in different ways. Philip K. Dick liked the idea of robotic cab drivers (as in A Present for Pat, 1952) or the robot taxi (from Solar Lottery, 1955).
Robert Heinlein wrote about autocabs in Between Planets (1951). The sf Grandmaster had some advice for Uber on how to deal with scofflaw passengers:
...when he tried to get out the door would not open. This reminded him that he must first pay the fare shown in the meter.. He was expecting disconsolately to be carted by the machine off to the nearest police station when he was rescued...
Charles Stross describes a future problem in his excellent 2007 novel Halting State. In the novel, fleets of driverless drones trade of between being remotely piloted and autonomous on highways. However, watch out for hijackings!
Guoanbu assassins have used this technique in the past: They hijack a taxi or car, drive it to a sufficiently isolated location, and crash it... [Passengers] must break out of the taxi while it is stationary at traffic lights, or break into the driver's compartment and disable it..."
See Tin Cabby from Cities in Flight [1957], the autocab from Between Planets [1951] and the autonomic cab from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch [1964].
There have been real-life attempts to create automated taxis prior to the current era of autonomous cars; see ULTra - driverless automatic taxi and the RobuCAB Robotic Taxi.
Via Mashable.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/5/2016)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air
Terrific prototype video.
MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...' - JG Ballard, 1962.
Drywall Robot Looking For Sheetrock
Sheetrockers have sure changed since my day. Speaking as someone who as done this, I welcome robots.
Robots Help People Get Dressed, As Predicted In 1931
Yes, people of the future, robots will dress you.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
Wound Healing With Wearable Nanogenerators
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to ... erase the other internal-external damage.'
Flying Dragon Robot Transforms In Mid-Air
Terrific prototype video.
Negative Matter Fluid Theorized In New Paper
'Of course, being negative matter, when you push it, it comes toward you..'
Grow Structures Upon Planetfall - Myco-Architecture
'They'll also start pulling in gases and liquids from the local atmosphere...'
MXene Hydrogel Skin For Robots Flexes And Senses
'The plastex swam and whirled like boiling toothpaste...'
EXPLORER, The First Total-Body Scanner
'The object is built up of an infinite series of plane layers, at the focus of the ray...'
UK Police AI To Stop Criminals Before They Strike
'... the computing mechanisms that studied and restructured the incoming material.'
Sonitus Audio Interface Positioned Beyond The Noise
'... an instrument having relatively small bit pieces adapted to be gripped between the teeth.'
Volvo's Self-Driving Mining Trucks
'A procession of automatic ore carts was racing over the bleak slag'
Audi Pop.Up Autonomous Electric Flying Car
'The cab was an egg-shaped bubble of light metals and plastics...'
Music Not Impossible (MNI) Vibrotactile Wearable Experience
Don't you want to experience the 'feely' effects?
Chinese Face Recognition Mistakes Bus Ad For Jaywalker
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
A Look Back At Apollo's Emergency Escape Vehicle
'A simple mechanism... it drove the iron ball through space like a ship.'
InMotion Glide 3 Electric Unicycle For The Last Mile
'...gyro-stabilized on a single wheel.'
China's Social Credit System - A Facebook-1984 Mashup
'Prestige, face, mana, repute, glory: the Sirenese word is strakh.'
Musk Declares Tesla Supercharger Capacity Will Double By Next Year
'Recharge the batteries... in almost every town and village...'
