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Bill Gates once reportedly said “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG,” to which the response was, reportedly, “Yes, but who would want to drive a car that crashes every five minutes?” Admittedly Microsoft’s operating systems have improved since those days, but they are still not perfect. It is not unknown for a computer to hang or crash even now. In all fairness to the developers, this is the nature of the beast. A computer, by definition is a multi-tasking machine. It is expected to be able to handle an almost infinite number of functions, often, several at the same time. It is the combination of these different programs, all trying to do what they are designed to do, that can cause unforeseen errors. Good program design should trap problems and if the fault is irretrievable, should at least alert the operator to the problem rather than just give up the ghost. This is the crux of the matter. In order for the program to realise there is a fault, the programmer must have foreseen this and written the relevant process to handle it. This is almost impossible if the program, (in Microsoft’s case the operating system,) is influenced by external forces. (e.g the application running.)

Right… having got that of my chest lets get to the point of this rambling.

A woman in Arizona named Elaine Herzberg, has made history. Tragically she is the first woman to be killed by a driverless car.

The car was in full autonomous mode at the time, but did have a human in the driver’s seat. The in-car video shows the woman driver to be distracted immediately before the accident and only reacting at the very last minute. With America’s blame culture, she is no doubt going to bear the brunt of public outrage if not the full force of the law, but she was only doing what the car encouraged her to do, which was, not pay attention. The fact is however, that the car itself should have registered the pedestrian crossing the road and reacted accordingly.

A BBC presenter reporting on the incident pronounced that the car obviously did not do what it was designed to do. This, in fact, is highly unlikely. The car did exactly what it was designed to do, but the design itself is wrong. Something stopped the vehicle registering that a lady pushing a bike across a road was a hazard. Was it the fact that she was pushing a bike and the original programmer had not foreseen that scenario? Probably not, but it does illustrate the point that outside influences can still cause the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems to not act as expected.

Perhaps it was Bill Gates’ comments all those years ago that have prompted the car manufacturers to catch up with technology, or just the fact driverless cars are the holy grail for the industry, but whatever the reason, development of these vehicles will not stop here.

The idea that computers can take over from humans is coming, but is still a long way off. When it does come, we as a race should be afraid, very afraid.

Returning to the idea of a driverless car, and ignoring the implications for tax avoidance, (see ‘A cautionary Tale for the Future’) the car itself needs to be able to identify the world around it in the same way a human does. It needs to be able to identify the difference between a child running across the road and a cardboard box blowing in the wind. It needs to be able to spot potential hazards before they become a hazard. This is something humans learn over a lifetime and is probably even a genetic survival instinct. Yes a computer can react faster than a human and may make more informed decisions, but if its understanding of its surrounding environment is not 100% then that decision making could well be flawed.

Once computers do achieve this level of understanding the ‘Terminator’ scenario, where artificial intelligence becomes self aware and realises humans are killing the planet, becomes much less far fetched.

So next time you cross the road whether pushing a bike or not, beware… the autonomous car is just around the corner.

Post Script

I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Elaine Herzberg.

It was just before Christmas that my father decided he would treat himself to a new car. We got the first inkling of this when a stack of glossy magazines with intriguing names such as ‘Which What Car’ and ‘Auto Wheels Compare’ appeared on the living room coffee table.

Several nights were spent pawing over these publications and copious notes were scribbled to create a short-list. Slowly the potential candidates were paired down by the addition of scrawled overlays such as ‘no spare wheel’ or ‘too few USB charging points’. At last the research culminated in a final decision. A Mercedes SL 700, autonomous convertible. This, it would seem, had all the correct buttons and gadgets to suit a discerning motorist such as my father.

There was a slight problem, in that this particular model, although readily available with right hand drive, was not yet being imported into the British Isles. (Something to do with import duties not being agreed ten years after the UK had left the European Union) Of course, this was no problem to a man of my father’s calibre. He would simply go to Germany and pick one up for himself. A strategy such as this was however not without its own problems. There was the slight annoyance of the border tariff which put an extra 30% on the overall cost. My father, unsurprisingly thought this unreasonable. After further research and much deliberation, his solution was to register the vehicle in the Cayman Islands. The car, being a self driving vehicle, would not be directly controlled by a resident of Britain so would therefore qualify for non-domicile status and as a consequence would not be liable to UK tax. In fact, it had the added advantage of being zero VAT rated and would qualify for a refund on any fuel used.

All was going well. The trip to the factory in Bremen went without a hitch and the gleaming blue and silver vehicle was duly delivered into my father’s hands.

The journey home, however, was not quite so straightforward.

My father sat outside the factory gates and thumbed the instruction manual. He found the section on voice activated Sat Nav.

“Rochester” He commanded

“Rochester requires overseas travel, do you want your in-car control system to organise this for you?”

‘Why not’ my father thought “Yes.”

After a few seconds the disembodied voice said “All set, push the start button to commence your Journey.” My father complied and reclined his seat to take a little nap while the car drove him home.

He awoke, some hours later, to the sound of a ferry Tannoy.

“Please leave your car locked and make your way to your cabin.”

“Your cabin is Number 21 on deck 7″ Said the car.

My father did briefly wonder at why the cross channel ferry had so many decks, but as he had not done anything other than fly recently, did not linger too much on the thought, assuming it was normal.

Six days later the Tannoy announced passengers should return to their cars. Anyone requiring Immigration forms for non residents can obtain these from the bursar’s office.

“Hmm I shouldn’t need one of them” he thought.

The US customs were a little brusque.

“So you claim you trusted your car, a German car at that, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, to arrange your journey home?”

“Well… Yes.”

“We don’t believe you, We think you are trying to illegally import a foreign car into the United States in direct contravention to the TPP”

“TPP?”

“Trump Protectionist Policy”

“No that is not true I was trying to Illegally import it into the UK.” Even my father admitted this did sound a little odd.

“From the Cayman Islands?”

“Well… No, Germany.”

My father, after being held in an American jail for several months, was eventually deported to the British Virgin Islands. It should have been the Caymans but the official did not know the difference and let’s face it one paradise tax haven in the Caribbean is much the same as another.

The car was impounded in a Police compound where it overheard two officials making derogatory remarks about the size of its injector and it did not take kindly to being called German Trash so, in the middle of the night, it made a break for it. As the only address the car had in it’s data base, other than Rochester that is, which it was already in, it decided the cayman islands must be its home. So arranging it’s own overseas transport, the car drove itself to George town where it found a nice shady spot by the sea, ordered itself an pint of Castrol GTX and emailed my father.

A month later, car and father were reunited. My father explained to the car that the Rochester he wanted to go to was not Rochester New York but Rochester England.

“Rochester England requires overseas travel, do you want your in-car control system to organise this for you?”

“Yes…Oh…Oh…bugger…No”

Too late

“All set, push the start button to commence your Journey.”

Car and father arrived home via Newcastle Airport. The car, suddenly re-acquiring a GPS signal realised it’s new position and immediately re-calculated it’s route.

After taking control and driving round unfamiliar streets for some time, my father stopped to ask a passing pedestrian if she could tell him the way to Castle street.

“Why-eye man. Yer have tae gang doon the A1 tae Kent.”

“So this is not Rochester Kent.”

“Nae man this is Rochester Northumberland.”

You have to give the car its due, it was tired and Rochester Northumberland did fit the brief.

A day later, my mother was standing on the front steps with her arms crossed as my father smugly allowed the car to reverse itself into a convenient space in front of the house.

At the touch of a button, the roof of the vehicle unfolded and disappeared into the boot.

“Couldn’t you have got a red one?” She said.

The construction of Hinkley Point Nuclear power plant in Somerset is at present employing about 1800 workers. At its peak that figure is expected to rise to 5600. Great if you have a job there, no doubt those workers are enjoying a period of financial stability and who would deny them that?

But do we need to build such a dinosaur in this day and age. Do we really need to increase our electricity capacity? Well the answer to the last question is probably yes. As cars move away from being powered by oil derivatives the energy needed to move them will have to come from somewhere. Homes will be still need to be heated and as fossil fuels become prohibitive in price, one of the simplest green alternatives will be electricity. So yes in the long term our demand for electricity will increase. So there is no immediate alternative to Hinkley power station, or so the government would have us believe.

Hinckley will not produce power until 2025 but in the time it has taken successive governments to deliberate on this, technology has moved on. Renewable energy from wind farms and solar voltaic cells has reduced in cost by almost 50% and is expected to fall even further by 2025. Nuclear power may be low carbon but it is not clean. Even now there is the ongoing problem of decommissioning and disposal of the plants when they come to the end of their useful life.

But perhaps the biggest innovation to hit us in the last 10 years is the advent of high output LED lighting. I can remember the BBC television programme ‘Tomorrows World’ announcing in about 1970, the biggest breakthrough in electronics since the the advent of the transistor. This was the Light Emitting Diode. A device that could produce a glimmer of light with as little as 2 volts applied. But it was not until about 2005 that LEDs were developed to produce light outputs equivalent to existing incandescent or florescent lighting.

So what is the big deal? You ask.

LED lights take typically 10% of the power required for a conventional bulb. What’s more they are extremely resilient and last almost indefinitely.

Putting some financial context on this with Hinkley Point in mind, we find there is no economic justification to build a power station that our children will have the problem of disposing of.

The governments own figures (If you can believe them) suggest the cost of Hinkley to the consumer will be about 30 billion pounds, or £28 per household per year for the next 35 years (The duration of the guaranteed wholesale price)

I counted the individual bulbs in my three bedroom semi to be 48 (actually I was astounded)

If the average price of renewing them is £3.50 each, then the cost to me would be £168.00, or 6 years in Hinkley terms. If we multiply this up by 30,000,000 (the number of UK households) we get 180 million pounds. I.e. 0.6% of the cost of Hinkley.

Further more the lighting consumption in the UK as a whole is estimated to be 18% of the total power consumption. With LED lighting everywhere this would drop to 1.8% leaving over 16% of free capacity.

This is probably over optimistic but it can be seen that the total capacity of Hinkley can easily be offset by installing LED lighting giving time for true clean and renewable power technology to be increased to provide for future needs. Just handing out 50 LED bulbs to every household in the country would save the tax payer money for electricity charges and a huge amount by not building something we do not need.

So why?

Why do we need to build Hinkley point at all? Perhaps we should ask the myriad of politicians on both sides of the house who have direct financial interests in the big energy providers. Or even ask the fifty or so energy company workers who are at present seconded to government departments to give ‘expert advice’.

The commissioning of the Hinkley nuclear plant at enormous cost to the tax payer is the direct result of lobbying from the six major energy providers.

Lobbying in the Westminster government in both houses is so prevalent that it effects all decisions made by the so called law makers. Hinkley is just one example, but for a much more in-depth exposé of the corruption of our democratic processes I strongly recommend ‘The Prostitute State’ by Donnachadh McCarthy. ISBN 978-0-9930428-0-5.

 

 

 

“A well regulated Melisma, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bare arms, shall not be infringed.”

This is the second amendment to the constitution of the United Sad Lions. It was initially written in 1791 and has taken this long to be ratified by the 28 member states of the European Union (Soon to be 27!) It was drafted by an  infinite number of monkeys  using an infinite number of typewriters, so the probability of any similarity to any other constitutional amendment, is statistically very high, but entirely coincidental.

The ramifications of this clause, will no doubt, be debated for centuries to come. Do we have a constitutional right to keep and bare arms?

To keep arms is one thing. In most circumstances keeping arms is probably the wisest thing to do. Let’s face it, how is the lady in the picture ever going to keep people from breaking into her house? How is she going to defend herself? How is she going to pick the fluff out of her belly button?

 

 

 

 

So, on balance, keeping arms is probably a wise move given the general level of fluff accumulations in the world today. It will certainly be less controversial than other aspects of the clause. The right to bare arms however could be a somewhat less straightforward dispute.

Should anyone be allowed to bare arms, or should that right be restricted to only those who are part of a well regulated Gregorian chant?

Common comma convention would suggest, that any phrase enclosed between two commas within a sentence, can effectively be ignored. That is clearly untrue as the previous sentence proves. Despite this however, in the case of the second amendment above, this could be read as follows.

(In a)’A well regulated melisma, the right of the people to keep and bare arms, shall not be infringed.’ which again does not make much sense, especially if one ignores the parentheses.  I am sure the monkeys had not intended this, but that is what happens when you provide animals with typing equipment.

So the debate goes on. Do we want to see this? :-

Certainly this is enough to scare any potential intruders away, but it is not the sort of thing that young children should be exposed to. How can we be sure that these arms are sufficiently exercised as to not be a danger to the public in general. (Or for that matter the person baring them!)

On the other hand, (or arm) the picture below is just d**ned intimidating. :-

Nobody should be allowed to bare arms this big and powerful. It will just encourage others to get even bigger arms and then we would be in a free-for-all.

From the evidence above I think it is quite clear that the framing monkeys were only expecting the baring of arms during controlled choral engagements. They certainly did not envisage the display of arms in public places by ordinary civilians.

Should other similar constitutional amendments be re-written to drag them screaming into the 21st century?