What ‘Blade Runner’ got right — and wrong — about life in 2019

[Muse]

Why not? Maybe a fully autonomous electric drone type vehicles with Uber ride service model. We can all convert our garage to living space and put a landing pad on the rooftop instead.

Policing the sky is a huge technical hurdle I don't think they can ever jump over. ATC at airports is difficult, has its failures every year. That's with a very small number of vehicles compared to what flying cars would entail. The technical mastery making flying cars possible is just, to risk a punny metaphor, pie in the sky. When a car stalls it sits on the highway. When a drone stalls, it falls. Whoops! Never gonna happen. Easily depicted with CGI in movies, but don't buy into the fantasy.

 

[PingSpike]

I watched the directors cut this year and realized this movie is boring AF. I know it was a masterpiece when it came out due to the visuals, but I don't think it holds up unless you were a huge fan of it at the time.

I got in a bit of a fight with my BIL over this movie. I said 2049 is just a better movie, because it is. It apes the original but discards most of its worst sins except for its horrendous sound track. (I like synth music but BR is just noise)

Harrison Ford is actually pretty bad in the original blade runner. His acting is really strange at times and his character is weirdly bad at his job. The setting is awesome though and Rutger Hauer steals the show here. There are some heady themes going on but they're pretty clunky in their portrayal at times, probably because it doesn't seem like anyone can agree whether deckard is a replicant or not. And as you said, the movie kind of just drags in the middle.

Even with its flaws though its an iconic piece that can be quite satisfying if you're in the mood.

 

[destrekor]

Policing the sky is a huge technical hurdle I don't think they can ever jump over. ATC at airports is difficult, has its failures every year. That's with a very small number of vehicles compared to what flying cars would entail. The technical mastery making flying cars possible is just, to risk a punny metaphor, pie in the sky. When a car stalls it sits on the highway. When a drone stalls, it falls. Whoops! Never gonna happen. Easily depicted with CGI in movies, but don't buy into the fantasy.

I wouldn't be so quick to assume it to be impossible.

AI, neural networks, low-latency high-speed wireless networks, and billions of sensors, will all mean some fascinating things will become possible rapidly. It's going to take a little more time to get to that point, but honestly at the rate of AI and neural network development, and easily seeing 5G mmWave and even the next next-gen tech ubiquitous by 2030, I don't doubt we'd have the capability for flying cars by 2049. I don't know if they will ever be human piloted though; either the highways or airways will become fully autonomous only, with no humans at the controls, though it is possible humans could have control until sensors determine AI must override a dumbass.

Falling out of a sky would by than be no more common than passenger planes falling out of the sky. Most issues happen during takeoff and landing approaches.

With the advanced sensors that will be the norm for all means of travel, including cars, traffic won't be a concern whatsoever.

Ultra low latency Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication networks and a plethora of sensors, combined with advanced automation logic, will make orderly traffic a standard. It's just a matter of deciding on the laws that govern travel and automation, and if there is ever a decision to make human piloting unlawful, if not everywhere than during stretches of certain routes.

 

[Muse]

I still say flying cars ain't gonna happen, certainly not by 2049. You will not park a flying car in your garage and wander where ever. I do figure ground based cars will be automatic, no human at the controls at some point. Even those may disappear at some point when transportation makes a big paradigm shift.

The logic is there, the implementation impossible because a ton of steel/aluminum and glass at high speeds has a lot of momentum. They'll never develop the technology to make it safe for tens of millions of them to be flying around over a large metropolitan area. CGI makes it look fine, a vehicle can stop on a dime, make right angle turns, no problem, but in reality it's impossible.

 

[destrekor]

Impossible? Right now? No definitely not possible. But all the necessary tech to make it happen is absolutely in the pipeline. Little of it that is truly in the pipeline at this very moment is dedicated toward the goal of flying cars, but they are the building blocks toward providing the necessary backdrop for these future transportation options.

You are ignoring or discrediting the concept of advanced low-latency V2V networks and sensors. 5G mmWave could very well be all that is needed, though I'd say there's a decade or two before the final municipal networks that are necessary are in place. The latency, bandwidth, and computation will be of little concern at that point.

I feel quite confident in saying that AI, cellular, computation, overall build out, and other technologies, will all be quite sufficient for the needs of such flying roadways. Whether those ever come to fruition by then will be more a function of chance, because we'll have the capability for sure.


-- Edit --

Note that I am not arguing the notion that there will be humans piloting these flying machines by 2049. No, I don't think so, at least I'm far less certain of that happening. But having flying pods, taxis, whatever? Autopilot Tesla flying cars that shuttle you from garage to office at the push of a button? I can see that. The technology will exist by then.

 

[Muse]

It'll be the safety issue that will be hard to solve. I don't think it will be solved for flying cars. Like I say, momentum makes a mishap catastrophic. Guidance is one thing, making heavy physical vehicles perfect so they don't malfunction is quite another.

 

[Muse]

Ah, and if the safety concerns aren't enough to thwart this fantasy, environmental concerns likely will as well. The carbonization of the atmosphere has emerged as global issue number one (arguably). How are all these flying cars going to affect that? Fossil fuel propulsion? Batteries? Battery technology capable of flying cars on a mass scale is nothing but science fiction at this time, much less environmentally friendly battery technology of that nature.

 

[destrekor]

I just think you're selling short the technological evolution that has been occurring and will certainly continue. At present time, no we don't have the technology for any of it, but we're not far. While it may seem battery tech isn't going anywhere, on the contrary, there have been significant strides in the battery space, and the roadmap contains numerous potential winners.

And you also can't develop technology like vehicles of any kind with the aim of being 100% foolproof and 100% free from disaster. There will be accidents. The real design wins come when designing ways to minimize the potential for loss of life. Accidents with regular ground-based vehicles are a thing, and there are airspace accidents too with flying vehicles of all kinds, passenger or military, so obviously there will be some accidents with flying cars.

A 100% AI-controlled airspace for passenger flying cars will absolutely be attainable -- load them up with high-speed low-latency sensors of all the types and let the algorithms take over. Directing a network of autonomous vehicles is hardly out of reach, something that's actively in development for military purposes; with the coming advances in V2V communication, and the plethora of sensors that will come with that as well as via automation/autopilot, scaling automated fleet management is a certainty.

As for the other concerns, like if batteries still aren't favorable by then, I don't think we need to worry. Polluting ICE machines will be a thing of the past. An engine that converts a fuel supply into mechanical energy may very well live on for generations to come, something like Hydrogen or other fuel cell technologies; they don't pollute. There's nothing saying we must stick to gasoline/petrol (or other oil derivatives, like diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, etc) or electricity, there are other options. And remember that this deadline is 30 years away. Look how much has changed in the past 30 years, hell how much has changed in the past 10.

Now whether any of this ends up being something an ordinary citizen can buy and fly? Who knows, doubtful at first. There are many ways this could go, but my bet is on at least the first few generations of flying vehicles being fleet-managed, perhaps without even leasing being available. True autopilot for ground cars will be in place before we have flying vehicles, and possibly even automated highways (no human piloting of vehicles on such roadways, all AI piloting (mostly onboard) with traffic management AI "in the cloud" utilizing V2V tech and 5G or 6G wireless networks). At that point, it'll be like a taxi or municipal transportation service. It's possibly they'll sell some with full autopilot only, no human piloting, and people could buy those for lofty sums to essentially be like buying a flying car and the services of an autopilot AI chauffeur.

 

[ultimatebob]

They darn well better have flying cars by 2049. Not sure I’ll be around then though to find out.

We need fully working self driving cars before we'll get flying ones. I'd give those another 20 years before almost everyone has one.

 

[Muse]

We need fully working self driving cars before we'll get flying ones. I'd give those another 20 years before almost everyone has one.

I'm hoping my next car will be one of those... "wake me when we get there."

 

[PingSpike]

You think car commute times are bad now, wait until people can sleep in their cars on the way to work. With how expensive housing is in cities people will probably just sleep in the car all night while it circles the city going nowhere in particular.

 

[Gunbuster]

I was astounded at the terrible screen tech they use in the Blade Runner universe. Hover after some thought in our apocalypse the screen tech will be even worse. Everything will be scavenged/reused 6 inch OLED handset displays with youtube UI/screen bars and Instagram puppy ears burned into them.