Will There Be A Winning Autonomous Robot in 2005?

An anonymous reader submits "This summer is heating up the DARPA Grand Challenge as multiple top notch schools begin to announce their entry into the competition. The newest organization to announce its entry was the Florida Institute of Technology. Their project is known as Oasis - Autonomous Racing, and they have a team of over 45 students, professors, and advisors that are currently hard at work designing their vehicle and raising funds to pay for it. The DARPA Grand Challenge is a race between vehicles that should be designed to travel up to 300 miles in less than 10 hours through the desert or other harsh medium without any human interaction. The 2005 competition has a $2 million grand prize as authorized by congress. With all of the new entrants does anyone think that the competition will be won the second time around?"

Comments

For God's sake..

[GeneralEmergency]

...I hope nobody names their AI unit "SkyNet".

Now, where did I leave those keys to the bunker?

Re:Doubtful

[wakejagr]

how about an award for getting past the first turn? that first left turn was too much for quite a few of the contestants in the first challenge.

Highly doubtful

[OblongPlatypus]

According to the May issue of Wired, the best team got through only 7.4 of those 100 miles before breaking down. There are some funny quotes in the Wired article, showing just how miserably far away we are from true autonomy:

What went wrong: "Lost GPS signal. Forgot there was a mountain between it and next checkpoint. Tried to drive through mountain."

Lesson learned: "Go around mountains, not through them."

What went wrong: "Interpreted small bushes as enormous rocks and repeatedly backed away from them."

Lesson learned: "Get new sensors that can distinguish between bush and rock."

This all sounds pretty pathetic, but having just completed a master-level course in artificial intelligence, I suddenly understand just how difficult some of these issues are to solve. Let's face it: We won't see anything even approaching true autonomy in anything but tightly controlled environments for years to come.

I conclude with the best quote; not really AI-related, but still simply hilarious:

What went wrong: "On-off switch located on side of vehicle. Bumped into a wall on way out of start area. Turned self off."

Lesson learned: "Put the on-off switch somewhere else."

Re:Doubtful

[Jack Porter]

Not sure where you went to school, but IIRC 300 miles in 10 hours is 30 mph.

Re:Doubtful

[shigelojoe]

He might work for NASA. ; )

Re:Doubtful

[Nugget]

At first I thought that this post represented a new slashdot low (Math is hard, let's go shopping!) but then I noticed that the damn thing has been upmodded twice.

JPriest may just be having a caffeine-free day, but who are the two jagfucks who thought this was interesting and insightful?

Yes.

[simetra]

His name: Al Gore.

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

The real question

[commodoresloat]

is whether the winning robot will have a "CAPS LOCK" key.

DARPA?

[Anonymous Coward]

all this; just so the cia can run over arabs without even having to use a remote.

Slashdot entry

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely with all the talent on Slashdot, we could create a winning entry?

Name suggestion: The Autonomous Coward

Re:Doubtful

[1iar_parad0x]

Of course, I hope "smart" vehicles don't just learn to identify obstacles merely by their risk to vehicular progress. If these robotic cars ever plan to be useful, they're going to have to learn not to run over things just because they can and it is computationally more efficient.

This does remind me of that "made for TV" Knight-Rider reunion where Michael's new car ran over a deer because it was calculated to be more efficient that slowing down. We all know that David Hasselhoff is a great actor.... Actually, I can't even write that in sarcasm. Wow!