Get up to speed with self-driving vehicles
BLACKSBURG, Virginia: In Blacksburg, Virginia, drivers ride amid hybrid electric vehicles, gas guzzlers, pickup trucks, and buses.
But as a science fiction–like future looms for autonomousdriving vehicles, the Virginia Tech Choices and Challenges Forum is asking what the outlook for selfdriving cars will mean to the local community.
In the most common of dreams, mornings begin with an annoying wakeup alarm and harried routines — shower, coffee, a frantic search for keys, the start of an engine.
After that, though, the commute might be easy — time for a short snooze, a chance to catch up on news, or an early start to the workday, all courtesy of a self-driving vehicle.
But what are the real issues involved with this new technology?
“The question for the community is how it might prepare for these technologies,” said Lee Vinsel, an assistant professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech and a co-director of the forum.
“There are many open questions about what kinds of legal and physical changes these cars might require.”
To add breadth to the discussion of such technology topics, the Choices and Challenges Forum — a recently rekindled 30-year-old discussion series — now integrates Virginia Tech’s Destination Areas and Strategic Growth Areas into its content. Getting feedback before a programme of this sort takes off is crucial.
“Our goal is to facilitate public dialogue around contemporary and controversial upcoming science and technology issues,” said Saul Halfon, co-director of the forum.
“And we plan to do so with a perspective that integrates science and technology into broader ideas, such as how these concepts affect who are we and how we live.”
With self-driving cars often in the news, such a subject seemed a timely pursuit for the forum.
“The media raised the visibility of the cars as both a possibility and as a realm of concerns and problems,” said Halfon, who is also an associate professor of science, technology, and society. “And we as a society have decisions to make around how these cars are regulated and how they should interact with other kinds of transportation.” — Virginia Tech News