gannet wrote:like all recent electronic systems, there should be an off button...
Some of the features and functions now found on modern cars are welcome (e.g. I like the rain sensing wipers on the Pug 406, and the bleeper that reminds me to switch off the lights when the driver's door is opened) but I don't like the way some functions are aranged such that they operate in a way determined by the designers, and we have no control over the function.
An example of this is the feature that dictates that dipped headlights shall be on whenever the wipers are in continuous wiping mode. The use of dipped headlights is certainly a good idea in conditions of poor visibilty, but a shower of rain on a bright day is not necessarily accompanied by poor visibility, in which case headlights are not needed. I therefore don't want a car telling me that they have to be on.
In my view we ought to be free to enable or disable some of these features, or configure them to work in ways that we want, and I would have thought that this ought to providable at relatively little cost with modern electronics systems.
Maybe I watch too many of the Grumpy Old Men/Women programmes, but I do wonder if, in due course, human beings will become increasingly resistant to being told what to do by machines. At this stage (so far as I'm aware) we are still in an era where these machines are being set up by people, and then the machines control the way things work for the rest of us. That's bad enough, but what if we eventually reach an era in which the computers can really
think for themselves? What might they then impose on us? That might remain in the realms of science fiction, and I hope it stays there. I prefer more human to human functioning, despite our admitted failings.
Best wishes all,
Dave.