Letters archive

In "Where's my robot car?", Jeff Hecht points out that self-driving cars that stop at every false alarm would cause gridlock ( 31 July, p 45 ). I would add that pedestrians could also learn that they won't need to wait to cross the road in front of fully autonomous vehicles that detect people. Cars …

As a postgraduate physics student 50 years ago, I was told by an AI expert that "we shall have machine translation licked in 10 years ". I think we are similarly over-optimistic about the imminent arrival of truly self-driving cars. One problem is software written for ideal conditions. I'll believe that self-driving cars have arrived …

Hecht's article omits one potential route to fully autonomous level 4 or 5 driving, namely fully interconnected traffic. If every vehicle, be it driving or stationary, would constantly transmit its actions and position to all vehicles around it, one could achieve a level of mass "awareness" that gets around the shortcomings of stand-alone sensors. Traffic …

You say countries with many partially vaccinated people and a lot of coronavirus infections (such as the UK) are breeding grounds for new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that may evade antibodies ( 31 July, p 8 and Leader ). On the other hand, you say in your related Leader that lower-income countries will be …

Regarding your Leader, a balance must be struck between "the speediest possible end to the pandemic" and the long-term effects of lockdown restrictions on the mental and physical health of millions. I fail to see how the UK government could have reacted to delta any more safely than it did. The editor writes: If vaccinations …

Chris Mason suggests that within a billion years we will have to leave Earth to escape the effects of a dying sun ( 17 July, p 44 ). We will need to colonise a new planet using a spacecraft capable of supporting successive generations for the voyage. I suggest a postscript, in which the generation …

You report that "monitoring wildlife... might be made easier and cheaper... vacuuming bits of DNA out of the air" (31 July, p 16). Presumably, soon every CCTV camera will have an air sampler attached to detect our DNA. People walking past can expect to get everything from a text suggesting they visit a nearby shop …

Regarding Luce Gilmore's comments on consciousness, the rejection of mystical vitalism doesn't exclude the possibility that consciousness only arises from certain living brains ( Letters, 24 July ). It may be that billions of diverse neurons, having trillions of varied and ever-changing connections carrying constantly modulating signals, bathed in a brew of ions, hormones, enzymes …

Whatever we do with our energy systems, it is too late to prevent sea level rise. We have to accept that Jakarta, Miami, Bangkok and many other cities, including London's riverside within the next 50 years, are lost causes. While wealthy elites can afford to flee, for billions of poorer people across the globe, we …

The best source of energy we have is the sun and the right place to put solar generators is in hot deserts, where solar strength is great and pretty constant all year. Such a scheme was proposed and costed in 2010 in order to supply energy from North Africa to Europe. It was shown to …