I got the autograph of one of the people that drive around capturing images for Google’s Street View service. I was told that Google will have a fleet of fully autonomous cars for the next Street View cataloging.
Call me a cynic, but I think “fully autonomous street view cars” is an example of programmers writing code to directly and indiscriminantly eliminate someone’s job.
Or it could be Google performing an extensive test of their autonomous car technology in a program they control?
I’d bet that each of the autonomous cars will still have a human attending it at any point in the next 3-4 years, so it’s not actually eliminating a job anyway.
Until 3-4 years from now.
I might have agreed with you before I watched the TED talk given by the project lead for the autonomous vehicle project. He lost a close friend to a car accident, and is now on a personal mission to prevent future similar tragedies. I can’t think of a better test for the platform than “drive on every single street on the planet”.
Isn’t it a short-term contract job, with no particular expectation of job security? (Because it’s probably much cheaper to hire locals on a short-term basis, every few years, than to have full-time employees living out of hotels as they drive around.) And in the short term, someone will have to ride in the cars to supervise the car’s operation anyway.
It’s also a pretty reasonable way for Google to test its autonomous vehicles.
Yes, I think that’s kind of the point. A manually controlled car is just a broken autonomous car.
The law in Nevada requires a person behind the wheel at all times who can take control of the car if anything goes wrong.
Cynic 
But seriously, isn’t the point of FIRST to celebrate science and technology? It’s unfortunate that automation eliminates jobs, but it’s also something that will likely benefit society as a whole; the same argument could be leveled against the cotton gin, the printing press, the steam engine, telegraph, telephone, computer, internet.
Yeah, it’s a short term job but, it’s still pretty cool to have met someone who has worked for Google. Jeez, I’m such a nerd.
Sorry, but I’ve got to address this. Creating and maintaining jobs should by no means be the primary concerns of industry and our society. The people driving those vehicles could be more productive, probably make more money, and potentially have more fun doing something a computer or autonomous vehicle cannot. The reason people are concerned with “eliminating jobs” is because of the displacement of the people in those jobs. But if those people are willing to take the initiative to find a new role in society, potentially one that won’t get replaced by machines because it requires creative thought, initiative, innovation, or other human qualities, they are right in line with the progress oriented industry behind the advancement of fully autonomous street view cars. And as far as I can tell, there are plenty of jobs available that won’t be replaced by machines anytime soon, because they require qualities mentioned above, and often a college education.
And maybe it is done to “directly and indiscriminately” eliminate someone’s job. But what’s wrong with that? They are making their operations more efficient, thus driving down their costs, thus making more or higher quality service available for less. And, the person driving the vehicle is no longer needed for that task and now has the time to do something that will likely pay higher and do more for society. This is how the standard of living goes up.
I don’t mean to discount in any way the value of people holding positions to which this may apply. What you do is obviously important, and needs to be done. But wouldn’t you rather a machine did it for you so that you could do something else? And defending it as if it’s your right won’t get us anywhere. The same can be said of the wealthy in defense of some benefits or tax breaks they may be used to receiving (oh, and they get laid off too).
And obviously, it’s not like a cakewalk to get up and change the course of your life just like that, so some discretion should be exercised when making the tradeoff between forcing people to relocate (geographically or with respect to their career) and increasing efficiency and output. But change will and must happen at some point.
My question is why is this taken in the cracker aisle at the grocery store? 
The same way we found the Google Street View car. I was hanging out with a few friends for my 16th birthday. We were having lunch at Taco Bell when our FRC team’s website guy said “Is that a Google car?”, so we tore off after it on foot. After we chased down the car and I got the driver’s autograph, we went to a grocery store to buy some drinks. We ran into the lead mentor of team 3556 there and we showed her the autograph. We spent a few more minutes roaming the store and we were in the cracker aisle when I asked our FRC team’s lead programmer to take a picture of me with the autograph.
All-righty then, that fully explains it. I must admit to being dull, if I saw a Google car, chasing down the driver for his autograph probably would not occur to me.
…or an example of a team of programmers working to keep their job.
Wetzel
Great so now every image that the Google Street View car took has you in pursuit of it? :yikes:
Sadly, no. They weren’t taking pictures. The car was en route to it’s next picture taking location.
Aww, that would make an awesome easter egg for the world to find.
It would be publicity for team 3556, two of us had our team’s shirts on.
I envy you so much right now.