There were a couple of troubling reports in the automotive field recently. Both serve as reminders and don't cancel each other out in any way. The self-driving and autonomous technology is still in its development phase and there are bound to be some setbacks. The important this is to keep an open mind and understand the reasons behind these setbacks and find out how best to remedy them.
Hopefully the self-thinking computer does not erase poor data like they spoke about in The Good Wife in season 7. That means the computer recognized it made a mistake and tried to cover it up. That is worrisome and actually frightening. Artificial intelligence needs to be honest!
The Reports
The first piece of news was about a Tesla Model S driver involved in a tragic accident. Reports say he was watching a movie (Harry Potter to be specific) when his car crashed into a tractor trailer while the autopilot was engaged. Tesla did issue an explanation and many reports questioned whether it would be a major setback.
Just one day after this, there was an unrelated report issued on driver deaths in the US; number of fatalities resulting from traffic accidents increased by 7 percent in the year 2015. This means drivers are not really benefitting from the tech innovations like adaptive cruise control and automated braking as expected. It may also mean that the drivers are busy texting while they drive or are overconfident about safety features and the technology that powers their automobile.
So that would be human error and human fallacy – not the manufacture’s fault.
Automated Driving
There certainly is an issue when it comes to automated driving. But the issue is not about whether people are relying on it more than they should or whether it is working properly or not. Accidents are happening and they are on the rise. That is a grim fact you have to deal with.
The problem is that there is still not enough automation when it comes to modern cars. The problem is innovations such as vehicle to infrastructure communication or vehicle to vehicle communications are not available yet. It is not that they are blamed for accidents; it is just that they are not as relevant enough.
Technology
Modern traction control compensates for the wheel spin automatically, and that is something which may have been considered robotic just a few decades ago. Even if you do not have any idea about what it is; even if you are not a good driver. Even in a worst case scenario, it will still be operating behind the scenes and may even just end up saving your life.
But technology needs to advance and that too on a consistent basis. There is no question that the number of automations in cars and the infrastructure will save lives. We have to be aggressive when it comes to adopting, advancing, and revising them to be more innovative and save more lives. Now if car companies were not taxed so much they would have more money for R&D but that is another topic.
If anything, this should be a serious wake-up call for taking a holistic view on autonomous driving. The possibility of the highway becoming a safer place because of sensors which are constantly looking around the car and can swerve and brake for you is increasing every day but it is still not there yet.
There is a lot to learn even now, and there are going to be multiple setbacks on the way, but this need not discourage people from their main goal of ensuring that technology finds its way into more cars instead of getting road blocked. This is true for every innovative idea. First there are setbacks, then some people embrace it while others raise questions, technology is further developed and slowly it finds its place in the world.
Categories:
Technology
