NVIDIA To Install Computers In Cars To Teach Them How To Drive

jfruh writes: NVIDIA has unveiled the Drive PX, a $10,000 computer that will be installed in cars and gather data about how to react to driving obstacles. "Driving is not about detecting, driving is a learned behavior," said Jen Hsun Huang, CEO of NVIDIA. The data collected by Drive PXes will be shared, allowing cars to learn the right and wrong reactions to different situations, essentially figuring out what to do from experience rather than a rigid set of pre-defined situations.

Comments

It most cetainly is not a behavior.

[nimbius]

a behavior is: observable activity in a human or animal. the aggregate of responses to internal and external stimuli. a stereotyped, species-specific activity, as a courtship dance or startle reflex.

Driving is the appliaction of education, study, and practice of a specific set of rules and regulations pertaining to a specific type of motorized vehicle. the reason we have different licenses for motorcycles, cars, and semi tractor trailers is more than enough to discredit the idea that driving is a behavior itself. You could classify things like tailgating and jackrabbit starts as poor behaviors associated with operating a motor vehicle, but driving is far more of a learned skill than an expression of ones inability to cancel a turn signal.

if we distilled driving to behavior, as nvidia insists, we would have a car that refused to turn its headlights on in the rain and couldnt properly allow vehicles to overtake while passing. It would go 25 miles over the speed limit, ignore school zones, and divert 100% of its resources to text messages and cellular communication at random intervals. It would occasionally ignore green lights and red lights, and it would tailgate and merge without signaling almost religiously. it would erroneously yield right of way at a roundabout, it would ignore speed limits in construction zones, and it would short-stop at continuous merge lanes and wait for traffic to pass before entering. In short, it would be the single most dangerous thing on any tarmac or asphalt since Gary Busey.

Learning trumps instincts

[rmdingler]

Even for the often flawed human drivers, this rings true. It seems one of the more common single vehicle highway accidents is the slight drift off the road followed by the panicked, aggressive over-correction... experience teaches us to gradually bring the vehicle back in line by fighting the gut-reaction to hurry.

Re:Learning trumps instincts

[ledow]

I disagree.

It's about being sensible. I have only ever been in a full skid situation once and I was able to apply WHAT I'D BEEN TOLD in the heat of the moment, without ever having done it before*.

My father is car-mad and has run garages and serviced fleets of vehicles for decades. I just drive. I'm not interested in extreme situations or driving fast. But my father has for many years tried to get me on a skid-pan to "learn" how to control a skid. We never got around to it, and I'd never skidded.

But when I *did* skid, I was able to refer back to what I was told and even those "things you have to do for yourself, because in the heat of the moment, son, you'll forget and do the instinctual things instead" - and applied them.

I don't think driving is a learned behaviour at all, and I think it's EXACTLY the situations that are out-of-the-blue, unexpected, serious and panicky that you don't want to be interpreting the situation but "sticking to the rules you've been told, not what you 'feel' like doing".

Driving while towing a caravan and the caravan starts to rock - you got there through stupidity ONLY, you're even more stupid if you're at that point and DON'T know what you're supposed to do if that happens. It's like getting into a strange car and not bothering to look for the brake before you start off (and that's in the same position for EVERY car!)

If you follow the rule, you slow gently and stay straight. Sure, I bet a thousand drivers will tell you to spurt forward to bring the caravan back in line. But the rule won't hurt you, only inconvenience you.

Skidding - you got there through stupidity PROBABLY (especially if such skid means you end in a collision because you're too close / fast), you should know how to handle it (it's in the Highway Code in the UK!).

Emergency braking - instinct in all learner drivers is to stab the brake as hard as they can as fast as they can, which generates a skid that only ABS will save you from. Correct method is to apply brakes as normal, basically, but slightly quicker. Tell them that and it's what happens.

Riding on your gut / learned reaction to a situation is a bad idea, especially if you've taken to playing games testing the limits of your driving/vehicle beforehand. You'll think you "know" when it's about to skid and how much you can turn before it will lose grip, etc. when in reality the surfaces are vastly different and determinant on every day and on every road.

A computer has more than enough time to evaluate the problem, cause, and solution, and has no need to "guess" at the solution. It might not be able to avoid the collision - but then there's nothing it can do about that. Teaching it to work by an illogical application of arbitrary, self-formulated rules that can't be analysed or repeated reliably? That's just asking for trouble. Just program it to sit a few more feet back and follow the rules.

I get told all the time that some things you can't "pre-teach", like clutch control - it's not true. It's just that your kids get bored with the theory when they first drive and just want to do it. If you tell them to expect loose pedal, slight contact, then dipping of bonnet as the gear engages, and slow, smooth actions from day one, then clutch control isn't hard at all. The problem is that we expect them to "jump in" and try it without knowing what to expect, and that's when you kangaroo and stall.

But knowing what to expect is not about having done it several thousand times before, it can also just be about "this is what will happen, this is what you should do". It'll come swimming back to you when you need it.

Emergency situations, you follow the rules. Getting clever "because you think you can go around him before he hits you" is exactly what causes the problems. Hell, from what I see of UK drivers, I bet a significant portion of accidents are people who DON'T want to get stuck behind the main accident and a split-second decision makes them pass him so they aren't stuck wai

Defeating the purpose

[JeffOwl]

What are they going to learn? How to not pay attention; how to not allow other vehicles to merge; how to force their way in when not allowed to merge; how to tailgate; how to brake check when others are tailgating; how to not use turn signals; what type of actions from other vehicles should cause them to rage; how to rage properly; how to ignore all the signs leading up to your exit and then cut across three lanes to take it at the last second; how to drive slow in the fast lane; how to pass when there isn't really room; how close they can get to a bicycle without actually hitting it; or hitting it, either way; ... etc..

Re:Defeating the purpose

[Wycliffe]

What are they going to learn?

My guess is that they are going to learn what causes accidents and what doesn't cause accidents.
We humans are really really bad at driving. You're basically stating all the bad things that we do.
That is good input for a computer because it can see what causes accidents and remember not to
do that and compare it to what doesn't cause accidents. I'm not sure I would trust a system like
this to drive a car but it could easily be used to grade a computer (or a person) on their driving
style.

Absolutely Necessary

[Atheraal]

This is an indispensable aspect of the road to automated driving, so to speak. Yes, learning human behaviour behind the wheel would be detrimental if it were applied directly to the AI's own driving algorithms, but consider that it's going to need to anticipate the actions of all the human drivers around it. Yes, I would like my self-driving car to have a very fine-tuned set of expectations for the idiocy it'll encounter.

Re:How's that again?

[Shoten]

If I slam on the brakes suddenly because I remember something I forgot at home, what will the computer make of that?

That you live in Florida?