Is it a good thing it's improving so fast? I posted before that one day driving a car will be like riding a horse. It will be done for enjoyment only but not for transportation and it won't be allowed on public roads. Is that a good thing? I will have to get up every morning and have my car drive me to and from work (and all places in between)... so there goes one of my enjoyments in life. But it gets much worse:
I was listening to Howard Stern and
Dr. Angus was his guest. He said that driving decreases the risk of dementia. He also said that if you just drive home a different way from work you significantly stimulate your brain and that helps to ward off dementia.
Dr. Angus:
"We evolved as humans... going and hunting and gathering and making our way back to the village, being able to do a physical activity with pattern recognition is what we were selected for and driving is that. In fact, if you choose a different route home from work every day you stimulate your brain and make new connections... If you don't use it, you lose it and this is a way to increase connections... That's why self-driving cars I don't think are going to be successful. I think driving is ingrained in us. It's good. Yes, if you've had too much to drink, or are stuck in traffic, you turn on auto driving but driving is good for us, it helps our brain - we don't want to become robots."
Howard:
"But look... one of the leading causes of death are accidents on the road and that would probably eliminate 98% of the accidents if we had cars that could self-drive."
Dr. Angus:
"Yeah, certainly when you're not in the condition to drive, when you're distracted, which is a lot of the causes of accidents you should definitely be on self-driving mode but most of the time the chance of an accident is infinitesimally small for an individual."
I looked into this further and Dr. Angus' position is backed up by a
study that was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society on Jan. 19.
I also found this article on the subject:
Driving Car Regularly Cuts Dementia Risk, Study Shows : LIFE : Tech Times
That's it, I'm not upgrading for auto-pilot!