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Another Step Towards the Driverless Car
jtogel writes "At Essex, we have for some time been working on automatically learning how to race cars in simulation. It turns out that a combination of evolutionary algorithms and neural networks can learn how to beat all humans in racing games, and also come up with some quite interesting, novel behaviours, which might one day make their way into commercial racing games. While this is simulation, the race is now on for the real thing — we are setting up a competition for AI developers, where the goal is to win a race between model cars on real tracks. As the cars will be around half a meter long, the cost of participating will be a fraction of that for the famous DARPA Grand Challenge, whereas the challenges will be similar in terms of computer vision and AI."
At least now they won't cause accidents.
Seriously, this is a technology whose time has come. Persuading elderly drivers to give up their cars is difficult, and the baby boom generation is putting a lot of people in that situation in the next decade or two.
There are certainly control and privacy issues in automation, as well who is liability in case of an error (which is probably the one thing that won't be overcome - lawyers will never allow it).
But on the other hand, getting killed in an automobile is much too common, especially given that almost everyone has to travel in one at some point, if not very frequently. Getting around shouldn't be so bloody dangerous considering how ubiquitous it is. Imagine not every having to let drunks choose between being responsible vs driving home drunk. And imagine not ever having to be on the road where some random drunk or incompetent driver, can end your life at any instant, where it is just bad luck that puts you in this spot.
Automobiles are an outdated and obsolete technology, or at least should be. The problem is coming up with and implementing the "next step" when the current technology is so ingrained into our society and city planning. It is a very non-trivial problem to come up with something better, and another non-trivial problem to "upgrade" to that something better on a live production world.
The safety aspect is definitely a selling point. But that's not the killer app.
The killer app for AI cars is: traffic throughput. Right now, traffic throughput is limited by our need to leave lots of space in front of our car so that we don't hit the guy in front of us. This creates low throughput through traffic lights because everyone must wait for the person in front of them to move away, before starting to move too. AI would need none of that.
Ditto for freeway merges and weaves. AI could weave two lanes of cars together with ease... even without central automation or inter-car communication. All that is needed is a sufficiently standardized algorithm or a sufficiently clever computer. Our brains already do the same, even when the "DriveCar.exe" process is set to low priority in favor of a ringing cellphone.
Can you imagine how fast traffic could move if (to name just one benefit) everyone rolled forward instantly when the light turned green? And if nobody slowed down to rubberneck a roadside accident?
The implementation problem might solve itself too. Once AI cars prove their mettle, I can imagine that cities will designate more and more lanes as "AI only", with attendant increases in speed limit and throughput. Sort of like how HOV lanes work today. Soon we'll all be clamoring for an AI car in order to get the same benefits.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Does anyone else feel like automating our current transportation is insanity compared to building a new transportation system that actually lends itself to automation?
Why are we trying so hard to make something designed to be operated by a human computerized so it stays on the road when we can make a road with rails on it?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
The difference between dying in an auto accident and dying from pneumonia or cancer, is that auto accidents occur without warning, and affect people at *any* age, regardless of their health situation. Was I sad when my grandparents passed away? Of course, but at 90+ years of age, it was hardly what I'd call a tragic death. The same could not be said if my wife or kids were killed in an auto accident.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.