https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... you/554087
Can a Simple Test Match You With Your Perfect Dog?
Chaz is a free spirit. Iris is a good girl looking for love. Dylan is a foodie who isn’t sure how he feels about kids. Luke likes long walks—really long walks. All of them are ready for a long-term relationship. In fact, they’d like to move in right away. All of them are dogs.
Taking a cue from dating websites, a number of programs have begun using personality tests to pair pets with owners. For example, PawsLikeMe, a website described by a co-founder as “eHarmony for people and pets,” gives humans a questionnaire to gauge their lifestyle and expectations, then returns dating-site-style bios of rescue dogs.
...Human–animal matchmaking may sound fanciful, but it mirrors a renewed scientific interest in animal personality. Having moved beyond the fear of anthropomorphism associated with researchers like Jane Goodall (who was ridiculed for “inventing” personality traits for chimps in the 1950s and ’60s), scientists are actively exploring animal personality’s implications for everything from daily care to evolution. As John Shivik, the author of Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes, points out, a species’ survival depends on diversity, including of personality. “If you don’t have variation, you will go extinct,” he says, noting that traits that are advantageous in one situation may not be in another.
And, on a more sober note, the Atlantic discusses the real limitations of self-driving car technology after the second death from a self-driving car (the first where a pedestrian killed by one). Needless to say, it's nowhere near as good as the companies promoting it have claimed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... na/556001/
As the National Transportation Safety Board opens an inquiry into the latest crash, it’s a good time for a critical review of the technical literature of self-driving cars. This literature reveals that autonomous vehicles don’t work as well as their creators might like the public to believe.
btw, self-driving trucks are already on the road, without news media pointing out any of the risks.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/technol ... utonomous/
Uber self-driving trucks are now hauling freight
The tech company announced Tuesday that it has begun using its self-driving trucks to haul freight on Arizona's highways. The trucks continue to have a human driver behind the wheel as a backup to take control of the vehicle as needed.
Eventually, Uber plans for these trucks to operate without a human present.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/9/17100 ... le-atlanta
Waymo’s self-driving trucks will start delivering freight in Atlanta
The Google spinoff has its chips cashed in