Remember watching that Will Smith movie I, Robot – that is also based on a story by Asimov; and thinking Huh, wouldn’t it be great if self driving cars were a thing?
Well, they’ve been in tests for a while now thanks to Google, and this Summer self driving cars will make their début on the streets of California, more exactly Mountain View, where the company is based.
In a recent blog post, Google has stated that the car’s maximum speed will be capped at 25 miles, that is 40 kilometers per hour, and they will also be accompanied by safety drivers – just in case they become sentient and destroy the world, right Google?
Project director Chris Urmson says that the prototypes will run the same software as their Lexus RX450h fleet – which logged over a million miles, that is ” about 75 years of typical American adult driving experience.” says Urmson.
“We’re looking forward to learning how the community perceives and interacts with the vehicles, and to uncovering challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle — e.g. where it should stop if it can’t stop at its exact destination due to construction or congestion. In the coming years, we’d like to run small pilot programs with our prototypes to learn what people would like to do with vehicles like this.” Chris Urmson has been reported saying.
I love the idea of self driving cars – the best way to combat drunk driving, teens, and adults alike, that can’t take their noses out of their smartphones, sudden seizures, falling asleep while driving; basically it will solve a ton of problems for us.
But are they really that safe? A recent report has found that since September Google’s self driving cars have been in 11 accidents.
Google has announced that the accidents were minor incidents, and their cars weren’t at fault. Seven vehicles were rear-ended, two of them were involved in sideswipes, and one car was involved in driving through a red light. How is the last one not your fault Google? Okay, I do understand that people were to blame for rear-ending, and sideswiping your vehicles, but passing a red light?
Pure PR Gold for Google here, because they emphasized two strong points
a) its sensors, and algorithms are far more efficient than a human driver, who is prone to error;
and
b) because the vehicles are surrounded by error prone humans, they are learning, and are far more efficient, and safe on the road. We basically feed their cars with our faults and they somehow make it better.
If we assume that what are they saying is correct, then, sheesh, that’s fantastic. A machine that learns from our errors and fixes our problems for us? Wait, no, that sounds like an introduction to the A.I. Revolution. Shut it down Google, right this minute!
But let’s put our fears and irrational paranoia aside for a moment. If what they are saying is true, then seriously Google deserves a Nobel Prize – make a category up and give it to the whole company.
One thing that the company has stated they are kinda struggling with is if, and when, the car reaches its designated stop location, and that location is blocked by either another car, congestion, or a sudden construction site that meddles with re-routing its path.
