Programming Safety Into Self-Driving Cars

aarondubrow writes Automakers have presented a vision of the future where the driver can check his or her email, chat with friends or even sleep while shuttling between home and the office. However, to AI experts, it's not clear that this vision is a realistic one. In many areas, including driving, we'll go through a long period where humans act as co-pilots or supervisors before the technology reaches full autonomy (if it ever does). In such a scenario, the car would need to communicate with drivers to alert them when they need to take over control. In cases where the driver is non-responsive, the car must be able to autonomously make the decision to safely move to the side of the road and stop. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed 'fault-tolerant planning' algorithms that allow semi-autonomous machines to devise and enact a "Plan B."

Comments

Re:they're a disaster

[Anonymous Coward]

You're commenting on the performance of companies that tried to eat the whole enchilada in one bite. The companies to watch are the ones introducing autonomy features in incremental features, such as lane assist, adaptive cruise control, etc. They will spend more time on a smaller amount of content in order to get it right one small piece at a time.