#HTE
Manufacturer Supposedly Scales Up Drone to Autonomously Carry Humans
Whenever people say we’ll one day upload our consciousnesses into the cloud, I point out that I can’t even get my podcasts to sync. Although my consciousness is probably not more than a gig or two, I have little faith such a data transfer would go off without a hitch.
I have little faith in technology in general. So this new, highly technology-based form of transportation proposed by a company called Ehang scares the living crap out of me:
Look, I get that English is a second language for the company and the narrator, but they couldn’t spend a couple bucks to run a grammar check on the copy? And we’re supposed to believe these folks are detail-oriented enough to create a perfectly safe autonomous Uber drone? Yeah, I’m not buying it. And what’s with the guy having to climb into the vehicle backwards, then turn around? Not exactly human-centered design.
Beyond that it’s the reliance on tech that scares me. What happens when the tablet crashes, or if one of those eight motors goes out?
In the video the narrator keeps hitting the safety point, including that motivated-to-be-safe origin story that I don’t quite buy, but not a single specific safety feature is mentioned–not even collision avoidance or bird detection.
The video closes with the tagline “Once we begin, we will never give up.” I dunno, people give up all the time. But you know what never gives “up,” literally? Gravity.
http://www.core77.com/posts/45285/Manufacturer-Supposedly-Scales-Up-Drone-to-Autonomously-Carry-Humans