Jack of Harts

The common man’s first introduction to early AIs was the basic cruise control built into civilian cars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Mechanical throttle locks were easy to engineer, but the far more advanced cruise control actually required a decision making process of how much fuel to burn to maintain the desired speed. Later additions to this basic function included sensors for obstacle detection that allowed cars to stop on their own if a child ran out in front of the car, or to keep drowsy drivers from wandering out of their lanes of traffic. The technology matured into complete self-driving cars in the twentyteens, though a human driver was still required to keep watch in case the computer programming simply did not recognize a dangerous situation for what it was. Later cars talked to each other to maintain safe distances and speeds by the time they entered full distribution to the marketplace, and in time it became illegal to even drive on a major highway in manual mode. That was most people’s first introduction to early AIs.