Garages, beach huts, woods etc

westernpromise

Actually this is growing on me as an idea.

Clearly the software in cars occupied by the Queen, Tony Blair, Simon Cowell, or other figures of crucuial national importance is not going to be the same as every other prole's. If a situation arises in which software has to choose between saving Tony Blair or saving a bus queue, it's going to save Tony Blair. The same software is obviously going to be available to all rich people, at a price. So as I'm richer than most, like 49% of the population, I'm going to pay for the upgraded software that's guaranteed always to expend everybody else ahead of the occupants of my car.

It's a win-win. If an insurance company has the choice of paying compo to the relatives of a whole bus queue of dole claimants and Romanian professional beggars, or to the relatives of say Richard Branson, it's not hard to work out which claim they'd rather pay. So Richard Branson's insurance company will be very, very happy to learn that he has paid for the software upgrade that spares him in crashes, because it saves them money. His premiums will fall accordingly.

In the same way but on a smaller scale, if it's a choice of compensating my dependants for the loss of my future earnings versus compensating a 19-year-old student with no dependants and no earnings, it's not looking good at all for the penniless student.

In fact, on this basis the software will always expend a Rhodes scholar ahead of a Tube driver because the latter's likely to be richer than the former. Which is quite funny in a way.

This will means satnavs have to be rethought. If when you go from A to B you have to pass through C, and C is an area full of people richer than you are, you're at quite a bit of risk: they will all have paid for better software than yours. So if some dumb / drunk pedestrian steps off the kerb in front of you, it will be your car that swerves into a lamp post to spare the dumb pedestrian, because - stupidly - you're driving through Belgravia and you're on 30 grand a year. Should have seen that coming, you mug!

So as well as shortest route and fastest route, satnavs will also need to offer safest route, whereby you get from A to B via a roundabout route that takes only through areas inhabited by people poorer than you. If an emergency arises, your car will sacrifice them, not you.

This is the kind of thing Michael Crichton wrote novels about.

martinsurrey

westernpromise wrote: »

This is the kind of thing Michael Crichton wrote novels about.

yes, and he also made everything up to suit his narrative.