Robotic Nation Evidence

When I speak publicly about robots, one question that I get asked all the time is, "What makes you think that people would fly on airplanes or trains where the is no human in the cockpit?" I think people will actually be happy to get into robotic airplanes because they will be safer. Here is an example.

NTSB: Derailed train was going too fast: "A commuter train was going almost 60 mph faster than the speed limit just before it derailed, killing two people and injuring dozens, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.

Mark Rosenker said the Metra train was traveling at 69 mph and should not have been going faster than 10 mph when it switched tracks at a crossover just before jumping the tracks Saturday.

'Sixty-nine miles an hour is very, very fast when you're dealing with a 10-mile-an-hour restriction,' Rosenker said.

The speed information came from a preliminary reading of one of the train's three electronic data recorders, popularly known as 'black boxes,' Rosenker said.
Part of the investigation included an interview Sunday with the train's engineer. The 41-year-old man had been on the job for 45 days after completing Metra's six-month training program, which included at least some training along the route where the derailment occurred. He also had worked for more than five years as a CSX Corp. freight train engineer."