Driverless cars are here to stay!

I have always owned a manual transmission car, until recently.  I switched to an automatic recently and have not looked back.  Once a while I do get the itch to drive a manual transmission, and that is when I switch to the manual mode in my Steptronic transmission and hit the winding mountainous roads of Pacific North West.

The Steptronic is incredibly quick and smooth in shifting (thanks to the paddle shifters) as well as forgiving on inexperienced drivers.  Even with this clutchless manual transmission experience I cannot shift at the right RPMs as does the automatic transmission.  I know the main reason to shift to manual is to rev up the engine before shifts so you can feel the power and have complete control over it.  After some fun time, I get back into the Auto mode so I don't have to think anymore. 

That is when I realized how dependent we are on the automatic transmissions.  In the early days of the auto transmission, it was still clunky in shifting and you could feel the jerk and it did not always shift at the right RPM.  But, with technological advances the awkwardness is gone and nobody ever realizes that gears are shifting underneath (unless if you keep any eye on the tachometer).  Today's auto transmissions are so smooth, quick and efficient that it is better than a human shifting gears.  Some times during my travel to Europe I rent manual transmissions for the fun of it.  Even for an experienced driver, the modern cars instruct when to up or down shift if there is a slight delay in shifting. 

Similar to the early auto transmissions, the driverless car is going through its growth period.  Soon, the time will come when we realize that they are much more efficient than us and we will accept them as the better drivers.  I know the driverless cars are much more complex than a transmission, but the journey to maturity is still similar.  With technological advances and inexpensive compute power, the day will arrive sooner than later.

The driverless World is here (almost)!

I recently visited a city with completely autonomous vehicles and no drivers at all and it was a delight to see the way the automobiles (including trains and planes) moved about without an adverse incident.  All vehicles moved around within the limits of the law and were aware of each other (as long as they were in close proximity).  It was a wonderful sight to behold.  Vehicles of all sizes varying from a small car all the way to a 18-wheeler moved around the city and in between cities, with ease.  Trains were, of course, on a schedule and followed it like clockwork as they moved in and out of stations.  The airport was the icing on the cake.  All the vehicles, including planes and ground support vehicles, were autonomous and they all went about their job effortlessly.

Now, you are wondering where this futuristic city is.

It is the Miniature Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany.  Everything I explained was in place but what was missing was the variability and chaos caused by humans.  This was an autonomous world with no people.  Hence the clockwork precision in its operation.  The only humans in sight were the spectators visiting the Wunderland.

I do think there is a lesson to learn here.  One of the biggest challenges facing the technologists is to blend self-driving vehicles with human drivers.  This interaction is complex and can lead to confusion and unnecessary traffic congestion.  As long as we have everything automated, there is a high probability that things will work well.  The key information that is needed is about the surroundings (static as well as dynamic) and the road rules that govern the vehicles.  The roads can be made smarter so they can transmit information about their conditions to a central location and it could be made available to anyone interested.  The vehicles could also be made smarter and they can identify, collect and transmit information to a central location for consumption.  We are partly there already with roads transmitting traffic as well as condition information and vehicles transmitting their location information to start with.

The autonomous technology has matured and costs have come down drastically,  Even with a completely autonomous world there will still be challenges to overcome.  From hacking of the system/vehicles, economic impact, regulatory hurdles and liability are a few issues that need to be still sorted out.  The good news is that a lot of heavy weight companies are after these issues and we are sure to see them resolved in the very near future.

Anyone interested in model vehicles would love this museum.  It uses state-of-art technology in each of its displays.  It even simulates 24 hours of the day every 15 minutes.

For the road vehicles, they use the Faller Car System and have customized it to their needs.  They have created their own custom software to operate the airport.  For light control, they developed their own system called MiWuLight.

They have even partnered with Google to create street views of the Wunderland.  Check it out on Google Maps here.

Robot meets Trolley Problem in an Autonomous Car

Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics states that:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.  
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders conflict with the First law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second law.

What is an autonomous vehicle but a robot programmed to ferry passengers and cargo around.

The famous Trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics.  The general form of the problem is:
There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks.  Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move.  The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever.  If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks.  However, you notice that there is one person tied to this track and is unable to move.

What do you do?
Do nothing and kill five people or pull the lever and kill one person.
Which is the most ethical choice?

Ever since Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicles started getting closer to reality, this question of ethics is haunting the designers of autonomous vehicles and the algorithms governing them.  Imagine an autonomous car speeding along when it suddenly encounters a bunch of unexpected pedestrians on the road.  If it continues forward, it will kill the pedestrians.  If it swerves to avoid the pedestrians, it will fall off a bridge killing all its passengers.

Autonomous car meets trolley problem.
Robot meets a situation violating its laws.

How do we program a car to behave in a situation like this?
Eject all the passengers to safety and drive off the bridge.  Wish it was that easy.

There has been a lot of research into this area and MIT has even set up a web site to crowd source the opinion of the masses.  [side note: It will be interesting to go through the judging process as: a) a passenger, b) a pedestrian and c) as a third party onlooker.  I am sure that will skew your answers..]

One way to look at this problem is to equate the autonomous car to a chauffeured car.  In this case, the decisions are driven by the chauffeur.  As a human being, the driver's main motive is to stay alive and this skews the decision making.

The outcome of solving this problem may be that people will hesitate to buy or board a driverless car because of the fact that protecting its passengers may not be in the best interest of the vehicle.  What a dilemma!

Again, these are extreme end cases we are talking about.  Maybe, we should use a crowd sourced decision tree and apply it to all autonomous vehicles.  Today, the driver takes responsibility to the actions of the vehicle.  Tomorrow, we should not be blaming the manufacturer for the actions.  The actions should be governed by a set of rules appointed by a global body.

The reality is that millions of people are killed by vehicles manned by people.  This would dramatically reduce with autonomous vehicles and that fact will pivot people into accepting this new transport.  Similar to how horses made the decisions for us while we rode buggies, and when cars came around, no one wanted to trust a human being to make these decisions.  And, look where we are now.  One thing you have to give to the horses, though, is that they don't drink and pull carriages.

All along, designers of vehicles had been concentrating on protecting the passengers by installing seat belts, airbags and other safety equipment in vehicles.  Because of this new ethical dilemma, the designers of autonomous vehicles will have to start thinking of not only protecting the inhabitants of the vehicle, but also those in its vicinity in case an unfortunate event was to occur.  Designers are currently concentrating on the algorithm that powers these vehicles and assists in decision making.  That is all fine and good, but we need to start thinking outside the box to find the solution.

Thinking outside the box could lead into external airbags for vehicles which deploy when they detect an apparent (planned) collision with a living being.  It could also lead to apparel manufacturers designing safety wearables like jackets with airbags.  These could be for people who have high exposure to autonomous vehicle traffic, like construction workers.

But again, these are extreme edge cases we are talking about.