I'd love to talk to my car someday... <.<

Well, you can do right now. The replies, though, seem to be a bit... tricky to get. I've tried. :)
Either way, they're great at listening.

Seems mine is just too shy... :c

Aww.. maybe, or maybe you're just not tuned and listening for the right things. Try listening to your 6th sense 'vibes' rather then anything audible or visual. ^^

Yeah, I'll have to try different ways~

purrrr.... ^.^ *nuzzle* that a girl..

Very good my young apprentice. ^_^

But... I'm older than you :P

<XD well this is awkward...

Well, it's a pretty thought, but being a technical person I'd like to see how it would be done. From what I gathered from my college studies, artificial intelligence is a joke right now. It would take some good leaps in technology to achieve all that. But it sounds interesting.

A thought: Think of who would be driving the car. The car spirit, or a predefined program? Would there be any interaction between them? Or how about talking? Would technology become an element of joining, or an insulating layer?

There's no way it'll be mainstream before it's safety tested to the max. Besides, I think its less artificial intelligence and more cluster sensors and networked cars. Sensors and radar for eyes, watching for changes in road-height such as a curb, probably a built in GPS running off Google Earth (since Google is the one really getting into this stuff at the moment). In the future when there's lots of these cars I'd imagine they'd all be wireless communicating to each other, knowing exactly where they are in relation to cars around them. Someone below mentioned 'what if there's construction' I'd imagine something along the lines of that all they'd have to do is install networking beacons into the construction cones that the car would pick up and avoid going through. We already have those automated vacuums that can maneuver themselves around obstacles using similar technology. Like the show mentioned, we already have a lot of the base systems in cars now, the automatic distance keepers stopping the car if the car in front stops and slowing itself down if it's being forced to follow to closely ect ect.

Your Thought: I don't see anything happening spiritual-wise, I think that'll stay how it is unfortunately. But I for one am happy that spiritless AI or not.. at least the car has a chance to protect itself from driver error. I think the worst thing I feel for cars is that so many cars have to die because their driver did something stupid. However if this technology kept progressing and at any time became an advanced enough AI that it became sentient, then I'd consider the car spirit that'd been there all along and the AI to be one.. yes. A similar relationship to our spirits and our physical brains. The AI being the car's physical brain, it seems like that's a question people ask when it comes to sentient AI.. if it has a soul, the kicker is.. what if the soul was there all along? : P Thinking about that just brought a thought to my head, and keep this at a totally logical level, I don't mean to be offensive when I say this. But severely mentally retarded people, surely they have just as much of a soul as anyone else, but their physical brain fails and limits them. Perhaps that's what we could consider cars at this stage, they're physically retarded, again not trying to use it in an offensive way. What do you think, do I make sense?

Oh yeah I expect it to be subject to strict regulations from the beginning, or at least until a few first accidents. Wireless communication seems a bit excessive, as there is nothing to be gained from that as far as I can see. All you need are front and rear beacons (lights could suffice) and every car knows where the other one is - that's computer vision. And yeah, signalization at a construction site should do the trick for the most part. I don't think Google Earth is suitable for navigation, though. It lacks too much information, such as how intersections are organized. But now that you mention it, we do have most of the technology available now, it just needs to be thrown together.

I'm not quite sure if you can say sentient AI = spirit. It would depend on if the spirit can affect the AI in some way. Otherwise you've got two independent "systems". No matter how you put it, an AI is still a program.
The retarded brain analogy is not a bad one. It could be that they just don't have a proper to channel to interact with us through.

Wireless communication could be a good thing to have I think. Yeah front and rear 'eyes' can enable the car to see the cars directly next to them. But what about the car blocks away that's racing through about the run the red-light and t-bone you? They say that the cars are still gonna have the option to be human driven (manual drive) so these cars driving themselves I think would need to know where many cars are around them in a at least 1 or 2 block radius so that it has time to account for human drivers being stupid.

No no, I'm not saying AI = Spirit at all, but you see now we're getting into the main controversy against spirits in the first place! That's the main argument atheists use against souls. They say that if the physical brain is already shown to be responsible for all your cognitive and emotional faculties then what is there left for a soul to do? The only answer I've had to that thus far is a hypothesis I heard from a paranormal investigator I used to watch on youtube. He posed the idea that our souls and brains serve the same function but that the brain acts as sort of the physical anchor our souls use to interface with our bodies. Example being, our souls are the wireless internet signal, our brains are the wireless antenna and receiver. Of course there's no way of proving that it's just an idea. : /

I suppose that's true. They could be broadcasting their position and perhaps some other info. But still, it would be difficult to manage with many cars in one place, as wireless transmissions can saturate the frequency and make it practically unusable. But I'm sure there's a way, it's not for me to worry about it.

Yeah I've had my doubts about souls before, but I don't know. You mean to say our brain "mirrors" our soul? I guess that's not impossible.

Self driving cars?That seams like an accident waiting to happen.I mean,it would be good for people who drink,but I feel like there would be a great number of technical problems...

Sounds like an anti-accident waiting to happen, I think you're much more likely to die of human driver error then if a computer with lightening fast reflexes and sensors out the wazoo. But I understand the hesitation to trust a computer.

There's no way it'll be mainstream before it's safety tested to the max. Besides, I think its less artificial intelligence and more cluster sensors and networked cars. Sensors and radar for eyes, watching for changes in road-height such as a curb, probably a built in GPS running off Google Earth (since Google is the one really getting into this stuff at the moment). In the future when there's lots of these cars I'd imagine they'd all be wireless communicating to each other, knowing exactly where they are in relation to cars around them. Someone below mentioned 'what if there's construction' I'd imagine something along the lines of that all they'd have to do is install networking beacons into the construction cones that the car would pick up and avoid going through. We already have those automated vacuums that can maneuver themselves around obstacles using similar technology. Like the show mentioned, we already have a lot of the base systems in cars now, the automatic distance keepers stopping the car if the car in front stops and slowing itself down if it's being forced to follow to closely ect ect.

Oh,and I feel like it's ironic that you call humans "dumb",seeing as they're the ones who created automobiles. <XD

Correction, a handful of very innovative people created automobiles, and only after they started being mass produced were average joes thought to build them one after another. I still hold by what I say, we occasionally get innovative and incredible people, but it's not TYPICAL, most people aren't an Einstein or a Beethoven ect ect, most people ARE dumb or at the least reasonably above-average intelligent. Most people are content to spend their whole lives working their 9 to 5, going to bed in the evening, rinse and repeat their whole lives.. and I'm no exception. But no, I don't think that we can consider our entire race brilliant because of the creations accomplishments of the atypical few.

I feel insulted. ;n;

>: D

Oh I cant wait for that! I know that 'Intelligent' cars are coming! even if they don't drive themselves for a long time they can at least protect themselves by braking before they crash and alerting you to poor driving. Maybe even preventing you from driving if you have been drinking.

I just hope we can find them a better more reliable food source for them!
I know I worry about letting Addie run out of petrol. Scary 8C

That would definitely be a day wouldn't it. That statistic on that video was pretty scary, that 95% of accidents are from human error.. though it isn't surprising really.

Oh we're looking, believe me when gas gets so rare that no one can even afford it we'll HAVE to. XD Not that it's a conspiracy, but to be honest we would have had alternate fuel cars years ago.. it's the oil industry that keeps alt-energy effort suppressed so that they can keep getting rich. Ever watched 'who killed the electric car?'

I Have that documentary oh VHS! I wish the EV-1's wasn't crushed.

Funny you say 95% Because of the 3 accidents I've had 2 of them where because of faulty equipment, AKA brake line burst and tire blow out.

I think you're a special case. XD

I for one am both excited and disappointed in that its great to see that in our lifetime we will be able to get driven around by our own cars or even the thought of them being able to come to you to pick you up after having a few drinks lol but disappointed in that beyond the lines of code that have been pre-programed into them that they will never be truly self-aware... :( at-least not for a long time to come.

Oh I wouldn't be disappointed Kazzer. Just think about how powerful computers have gotten in such a short time, they've only been around at all since about the 60s at the very earliest, and in the last 5-10 years their speed and power has started increasing at 5x or more faster. Just imagine the computing power we'll have in only 10 or 20 years from now, it'll probably be more then we can even imagine today!

if the cars drive by GPS... what happens when you enter a construction zone...

They don't just drive by GPS, they have sensors and radar that actively scan the area around them for curbs and obstacles. : )